Should Broward schools get a watchdog? Voters may decide
South Florida Sun Sentinel | By Scott Travis | October 10th 2023
Voters may get to decide next year whether the Broward School District needs an outside set of eyes looking out for waste, fraud and corruption.
The County Commission gave its initial blessing Tuesday to a proposal that would expand the duties of its Inspector General’s Office to include the school district, which has a long history of problems with corruption and mismanagement.
Right now, the office investigates ethically questionable activity by the county government and 31 municipalities.
The change can’t happen right away. The Broward Inspector General’s office is governed by a charter that was approved by voters through a 2010 ballot referendum. Voters would need to amend the charter to add the school district, and that will likely happen during the general election in Nov. 5, 2024.
But the proposal has passed its first hurdle, with a unanimous vote of support by the commissioners. The school district and county will now have to work out specific details over the coming months, including ballot language, costs and contract terms.
“I think this is something that should be done,” Commissioner Michael Udine, who represents the northwest part of the county, told the board Tuesday. “I think this is something that should be welcomed by the School Board. I think that it will allow for greater transparency and greater accountability.”
It’s not an idea that has always been welcomed by the School Board.
In 2011, in the wake of a scathing grand jury report and the arrests a few years prior of two School Board members on corruption and ethics charges, some lawmakers wanted to add the School Board to the jurisdiction of the county’s inspector general.
But School Board members at the time opposed the idea, arguing the superintendent and most of the administrators and School Board members mentioned in the grand jury report had been replaced.
Then-School Board member Laurie Rich Levinson’s mother, Nan Rich, was a state senator at the time and helped kill the bill in the Legislature.
Rich Levinson reconsidered the idea in 2016, amid the first signs that an $800 million school construction program was going awry, but board members ultimately decided there were other avenues for employees and the public to file complaints, including the U.S. Department of Education’s inspector general’s office.
But problems in the district persisted. In 2020, a maintenance supervisor pleaded guilty of accepting bribes from an asphalt subcontractor following an FBI sting. A South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation led to the 2021 indictment of former technology chief Tony Hunter, who was charged with unlawful compensation from a vendor. Hunter has pleaded not guilty, and his case is still pending.
Most of the board members who resisted the inspector general idea, including Levinson, were removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year following the most recent grand jury report.
A temporary board controlled by DeSantis appointees embraced the idea last fall, and the current board, which has two DeSantis appointees and seven elected members, have also voiced support in recent meetings.
“My colleagues and I are committed to the inspector General’s monitoring of School Board matters and acting as the independent Watchdog for residents,” School Board Chairwoman Lori Alhadeff told the commissioners. “Given instances in the previous year, we consider this initiative to be highly important in the spirit of promoting Integrity, transparency and accountability.”
Rich, who killed the idea in 2011, is now a county commissioner. She refused to hear the proposal last year when the request came from the board controlled by DeSantis appointees. But she voted in favor of it Tuesday.
