Grand Jury Lays Into Broward County (FL) School Board

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 report published on Frday. It concludes, on p. 48:

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.

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:

...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.

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:

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)

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):

[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.

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)

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.

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:

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.

Where Are They Now?
According to Bob Norman's New Times blog yesterday, 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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