Broward School Board won’t investigate inappropriate touching allegations, leaving it to state
The Broward School Board voted unanimously Tuesday not to pursue an outside investigation of two board members accused of inappropriate touching, leaving it up to the state’s ethics commission to handle instead.
The board members facing the allegations are Brenda Fam, who represents District 6, and Allen Zeman, who represents the entire county through the at-large Seat 8.
“It would seem superfluous at this point to have another investigation by an outside investigator,” Broward Schools General Counsel Marylin Batista told board members Tuesday.
The board also voted to require board members to attend sensitivity and cultural awareness training with topics of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and retaliation. It also agreed to revise its policy 1007, the ethics code for school board members, and policy 1005, which outlines the responsibilities and authority of the school board, to include a process on how to deal with similar scenarios in the future.
Last week, the board debated the issue for nearly three hours but ultimately postponed the decision whether to hire an outside firm to investigate until Tuesday so they could seek Batista’s counsel. She was on vacation last week.
Batista was the only top district employee who worked closely with both the former superintendent, Vickie Cartwright, and the newly appointed interim, Earlean Smiley, when the allegations surfaced. Cartwright and the district mutually parted ways in late January.
Details about the Fam, Zeman incidents
On Tuesday, Batista said the first incident involved Zeman hitting an employee on the buttocks during a break of the Dec. 13 School Board meeting. The employee told then-Superintendent Cartwright he didn’t want to file a complaint and hadn’t been offended by what had happened, Batista said.
Batista recommended Cartwright refer the matter to the district’s Special Investigations Unit, which Cartwright did. Craig Kowalski, chief of the SIU, said the Broward County Attorney’s Office declined to investigate because the person wasn’t interested in filing charges. The attorney’s office recommended the Florida Commission on Ethics take it up instead.
Batista said the second incident involved Fam touching an 18-year-old student while taking a photo at an awards banquet in Davie on March 27. The student told a district employee they felt “embarrassed” about it, Batista said. Batista told the employee to report the incident to the Florida Department of Children and Families, but the department declined to look into it since the student wasn’t a minor. Batista recommended the Florida Commission on Ethics review it.
Smiley told the student’s principal to ask the student to prepare a statement about what happened. Although Smiley had considered that a complaint, it wasn’t an official one, Batista said. But, she added, that doesn’t mean that the allegation shouldn’t be investigated. Smiley had previously said a police report had been filed, but Batista said no police report exists.
“Even in the absence of a formal complaint, there are certain protections that students and employees possess,” Batista said.
On April 11, the Florida Commission on Ethics took on both cases, Batista said.
‘The right conclusion occurred’
Batista recommended the board drop the outside investigation of the two board members, as the issue had already been referred to the Florida Commission on Ethics.
She also recommended all board members undergo awareness training and the board establish a new policy for dealing with board members’ misconduct.
Board Member Torey Alston proposed the motion Tuesday “in the interest of protecting the organization and allowing folks to do what they’re good at and to preserve taxpayer dollars.
“The school board should not be involved in this case,” Alston said. “It should go to an independent neutral third party to determine if there is merit.”
Zeman attended the Tuesday meeting but didn’t comment or vote because state law requires him to recuse himself. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Fam didn’t attend the meeting because she’s out sick; she directed all requests for comment to her attorney, David Bogenschutz. He said he believes “the right conclusion occurred.”
“Ms. Batista was a voice of reason in this, and I think that she managed to shepherd the correct result today,” he said Tuesday after the meeting. “I’m relatively comfortable with the process now that we’re on the COE level.”
Some members of the public questioned Tuesday whether the school district would foot attorney bills involving these cases with Fam and Zeman.
John Sullivan, a school district spokesman, said that “at this point, there’s no basis for the district to pay for these costs.”
Bogenschutz said that up until now, he doesn’t think he will charge anything to anybody.
What will the ethics commission do?
Lynn Blais, a spokeswoman for the Florida Commission on Ethics, wrote in an email to the Herald Tuesday that she couldn’t comment on any complaints against Zeman or Fam.
“I have confirmed as of today I have no public record of a complaint filed against Allen Zeman or Brenda Fam, so I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any complaint filed against either of them,” she wrote.
A complaint received in the state ethics office, as well as all proceedings and records relating to it, are confidential and exempt from the public records law until the complaint reaches a stage in the commission’s proceedings where it becomes public. Usually cases become public when the commission finds a complaint to be insufficient and dismisses it, or when the commission finds probable cause an ethics violation occurred and chooses to investigate it.
READ MORE: Two Broward School Board members face touching allegations; chair calls for investigation
If the commission does investigate and if it finds any violations of state law, possible penalties for public officers could include one or more of the following: impeachment, removal from office, suspension, public censure and reprimand, forfeiture of no more than one-third of his or her salary per month for no more than 12 months, a civil penalty not to exceed $10,000 for each violation, and restitution. The list includes no criminal penalties.
However, the commission has no power to impose its recommended penalties, so if the commission were to conclude that a violation had been committed, it would issue a public report of its findings and may recommend one or more penalties to the appropriate disciplinary body or official, Blais said.
