Grand Jury Lays Into Broward County (FL) School Board

Anonymous

Sun, 02/20/2011 - 03:39

County Related

You know you're doing a pretty poor job with government ethics when a
grand jury recommends that you be all but abolished. This is the case
with the Broward County School Board, according to <a href="http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/summaries/briefs/09/09-1910…; target="”_blank”">a
report
published on Frday</a>. It concludes, on p. 48:<ul>

Unfortunately based on the history of this Board as an institution, we
have no confIdence in their ability to make meaningful changes and to
adhere to them. The solutions we see, at least short term, are to
remove as much power and influence from the Board as possible and to
have an independent outside authority monitor their dealings closely.</ul>

The grand jury notes on p. 2 that two other grand juries pointed
out many of the same problems, and nothing was done. Then it says, "But
for the Constitutional mandate that requires an elected School Board
for each District, our first and foremost recommendation would have
been to abolish the Broward County School Board altogether." 
 
The grand jury notes that the board began to make changes in
anticipation of the report, but recognizes that "bad habits and corrupt
practices often return when the light of inquiry is turned off." 
 
Intimidation and Fear 
The list of the board's misconduct is a laundry list of a poor ethics
environment and poor management. But worst of all, like too many poor ethics environments,
this one was characterized by intimidation and fear. On p. 3, the
report says that "we have a middle management staff that tolerates or
is forced to tolerate incompetence, double-dealing, corruption and
laziness but which in turn is always fearful of being targeted by upper
management should they challenge interference by Board members or
attempt to hold contractors accountable for their work. Not that there
aren't employees who work hard and do a good job, there are plenty of
those. But the ones who point out problems and advocate change are
quickly marginalized and punished." 
 
The report (pp. 40-41) details one instance of intimidation and how it
was dealt with by the board:<ul>

...an attack on a person using the Facebook identity of Broward
Cleansweep. This person has been highly critical of the Board and its
operations and has called for the ouster of virtually all incumbent
Board members. An anonymous poster, believing Broward Cleansweep to be
a District employee (and married to another District employee)
threatened to use his connections at the District or Board to have both
of them fired and or prosecuted if he did not immediately take down the
Facebook page and stop his attacks on the Board. Ultimately the poster
concluded Broward Cleansweep was not who he believed and abandoned his
attacks. This extortionate attempt to silence political criticism is
poison in any democratic society. The attack would be reprehensible
coming from any quarter. For it to come from a Broward political
consultant who has worked for numerous local political candidates,
including school board members, is even more disturbing. Worst of all,
the poster who attempted to silence Broward Cleansweep has previously
served, and presently does serve on District advisory council(s). Based
on the testimony we heard, at least one Board member is aware of what
took place, yet so far as we know, no action has been taken to ask this
person to voluntarily resign, disclose his actions to the rest of the
Board, or otherwise disassociate from him. So far as we know, no one at
the Board has even asked a single question about this incident, nor
expressed any desire to determine who might be attacking a district
employee for exercising his political rights.</ul>

This was not an obscure incident. Even I knew about it, since it was
written about online. When such intimidation occurs, it must be brought
into the open and dealt with responsibly. Otherwise, others in the
school district will be afraid to speak out. Refusal to deal with such
intimidation is effectively approval of the intimidation and of the
fear it engenders. 
 
Management Problems with Underlying Ethics Causes 
What appear to be management problems often have underlying government
ethics causes. For example, lots of school construction projects were
not completed in time for the school year. Instead of penalizing
contractors, temporary certificates of occupancy were filed to allow
the unfinished schools to be opened, despite serious safety issues
(which were, of course, denied). Why? "The Board seems to be more
comfortable with opening unfinished schools than angering the
contractors that fund their campaigns through political contributions
and fundraisers." (p. 8) 
 
And there was nothing temporary about these "temporary certificates of
occupany." They stayed open, despite the fact that once such a
certificate is filed, "the builder is no longer responsible for
providing insurance for the structure; the risk immediately passes to
the taxpayers." In other words, favoritism due to the need for campaign
contributions can lead to serious costs to taxpayers. 
 
Bad Procedures 
So can poor management procedures. The construction division had 70
people doing the work that should have been done by 25-35, or even
fewer. Why? Because firing incompetent workers meant approvals all the
way up, including by the superintendent and a majority of the school
board. And the deputy superintendent especially would not approve
dismissals. 
 
It wasn't worth the trouble of fighting all the way to the top, as long
as the money was available, so new employees did the work, while old
employees did things like running businesses on the side. (p. 17) 
 
The recession solved these problems. Budget cuts led to both the end of
new construction and to the laying off of many construction division
employees. It's interesting that when a particular senior staff
member "with a reputation for resisting pressure to sign off on shoddy
or incomplete work or approving unnecessary change orders, was let go
after his 'box' was removed from the organizational chart ... true to
form ... no one in the District would take responsibility for that
decision." (p. 17) 
 
Another procedural method caused a great deal of extra costs to
taxpayers:<ul>

The way the Board carries out its day to day business is set up to
allow wasteful and dubious spending on ill conceived ideas, and to
direct that spending towards friends, acquaintances or supporters of
Board members without any accountability. One way they do that is by
making informal decisions at Board workshops and retreats or even
during training sessions, and then ratifying their decisions by use of
a consent agenda." (p. 24)</ul>

Consent agendas do make meetings shorter,
but they are a great way to hide serious and often expensive decisions
from the public. Only expenditures of over $1 million are required to
be debated. That figure is far too high. 
 
Pet Projects 
Another familiar method of doing business in the Broward school
district was allowing board members to have "pet projects" (p. 33):<ul>

[I]t is well known to virtually all District employees that most, if
not all, Board members have pet projects that it's best not to
interfere with, no matter how wasteful or unjustifiable the project may
appear to be.</ul>

The report notes, with respect to one pet project, "In our view the
inaction of both the Board and the District leadership allowing an
individual Board member to unilaterally shove through a 'pet project'
was a gross dereliction of duty on their parts." 
 
It is easier not to interfere when something is wrong, especially when
you don't want others to interfere with your pet projects. Allowing
pet projects silences criticism and oversight, and this should openly be
seen as having this result. Not only does it lead officials to act in their personal
interest, but it turns any ethics environment into a bad one, one where
dereliction of duty is not recognized as a problem, but as the virtue
of being considerate to others. Consideration should not be given to fellow board members, or to one's district, but to the public at large. 
 
In government, one has no obligation to be considerate to others when
they are acting in their personal interest rather than in the public
interest. But one does have an obligation to stop misconduct. 
 
Acting to Benefit Major Contributors 
Pet projects were not the only way in which board members put their
personal interests ahead of the public interest. "Board members frequently pressure the District to
change the recommended delivery [of a construction contract] from a
hard bid to CM@Risk [which is 20-30% more expensive]. One senior
official in the Facilities Division testified that over the last few
years about half of the Board members have called the Deputy
Superintendent to change projects to CM@Risk. Board members will also
intervene to keep projects as CM@ Risk when the District tries to save
money by changing a project to a hard bid." (p. 36) 
 
Why would board members interfere in such decisions? Because "projects
that will use a CM go to a selection committee on which two Board
members sit, which gives them tremendous influence in the decision to
award lucrative CM@Risk contracts." Not only does this give Board
members power, but it gives them the specific power to make contractors
feel obligated to them. Which leads to the clincher of the entire
report: (p. 37)<ul>

Not surprisingly the most generous supporters to Board campaigns are
contractors and their subcontractors, as well as their lobbyists,
friends and families. We agree with witnesses that testified that the
Board is in many respects a training ground for newbie politicians,
where unfortunately bad habits are learned.</ul>

In other words, the school board is a place to learn the ways of
pay-to-play, to make the "right" connections and get the "right" people
obligated to you. 
 
The report next looks at the sorts of ethics violations committed by
school board members, the usual things such as accepting and not
reporting gifts, voting with conflicts, naming a field after a sitting
board member, and the like. The report also focuses on the problems
that accompany having board members represent districts rather than the
entire county. (pp. 44ff) 
 
Needless to say, there was also a great lack of transparency and
adequate record-keeping. 
 
The Need to Have School Board Members Insulated from Procurement 
Finally we get to the bottom line, on p. 48:<ul>

The corruptive influence here is most often campaign contributions from
individuals with a financial stake in how Board members vote. Long ago
the Board should have recognized the risk that putting themselves in
the center of handing out hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars
would inevitably draw attention and undue influence from moneyed
interests. They should have taken steps to insulate themselves from
this influence by delegating to professionals in the District things
like contractor selection and bid processes and simply have adopted a
watchdog role. Instead they drew closer to it and fiercely protected
their role.</ul>

Where Are They Now? 
According to <a href="http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/02/broward_schools_grand_ju…; target="”_blank”">Bob Norman's New Times blog yesterday</a>, one former Broward school board member is in federal prison, another is facing state charges, another resigned, and a fourth was defeated at the polls. But two others are still on the board, and the superintendent is still in his office. Norman calls for the superintendent's immediate resignation. It will be interesting to see what happens in the wake of this excoriating report. 
 
Grand Jury Recommendations 
Here is a selection of the grand jury's recommendations (they begin on p. 48): 
 
Refuse campaign contributions from contractors, vendors and others
doing business with the Board. 
 
Require mandatory ethics training and testing by an outside agency 
 
Go back to hard bids from prequalified contractors. Prohibit bids from
builders with outstanding issues. 
 
Remove all involvement by Board members in the selection of
contractors, vendors, or financial institutions. 
 
All bids should be opened in public, with Auditor there to
certify bids meet minimums. 
 
Create independent office of Inspector General to monitor the Board and
District 
 
No official business conducted between school board members and staff,
nor should Board members attempt to influence staff regarding official
business. All business should be done with Superintendent or manager of
department, or personally at public school board meeting. 
 
Add more detail to agenda items or provide a link to where more
information concerning the item can be found. 
 
Reduce the threshold on spending items on the consent agenda. 
 
End the influence of the Board over the Building department by turning
over inspections to local building departments. 
 
Reduce number of school board members to 5. 
 
Place before the voters the issue of electing the Superintendent 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
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Grand Jury Lays Into Broward County (FL) School Board

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