Florida investigator says FAU presidential search broke law and should start over

A state investigation recommends that Florida Atlantic University restart its tumultuous search for a new president after concluding that the first search process violated the state’s open-government laws.

The investigation by the state university system's inspector general found that "the FAU presidential search was not compliant with Florida’s Government in the Sunshine Laws and aspects of the search were out of compliance with (state university regulations)."

The report, released Thursday, recommends that the university system's Board of Governors "require FAU to restart their search for their next president."

Because the series of issues highlighted in the investigation "raises questions regarding the competence of the search," the report also recommends that the chairman of the school's board of trustees, Brad Levine, be prohibited from leading the next one.

More: FAU trustees extend contract of interim president. Why didn't she get the permanent job?

The board is scheduled to meet to discuss the findings Thursday, Dec. 14.

A FAU spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. Levine declined to comment.

FAU presidential search already nearly a year old

The conclusion is likely to prompt a reboot of what has been a rocky, nearly year-long effort to find a new president.

It raises the prospect that the university could be without a permanent leader for several more months as the school forms a new presidential search committee and reopens the application process.

After a six-month search, FAU announced in July that its search committee had settled on three experienced college administrators as finalists.

Two days later, state leaders halted the search, citing potential rules violations in the way the search was conducted.

More: ‘Stop at nothing’: The hard-driving trustee at the center of FAU’s big wins and woes

Some FAU faculty suspect search paused because Randy Fine wasn't a finalist

Many faculty members and outside observers suspected the real reason state officials halted the process was that the person believed to be Gov. Ron DeSantis' preferred candidate, state Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, was not named as a finalist.

But state authorities have since pointed to what they say were flaws with the process.

In October, Attorney General Ashley Moody concluded the search committee had violated state law by using a secret ballot to narrow the list of candidates.

"The Sunshine Law prohibits ranking that occurs by way of anonymously surveying and organizing members’ input, even if those rankings are not a final vote and are only used to replace or limit discussion at a future meeting," she wrote.

IG found other concerns about search

Inspector General Julie Leftheris echoed that finding in her report and raised other concerns. She said the search committee at one point exceeded the permitted size, when Levine added a 16th member when a new student body president was elected.

University officials also violated a nondisclosure agreement signed by search committee members, she said, when they collaborated with search committee member Dick Schmidt on an op-ed article about the search process.

The report made no mention of public comments by another search committee member, Board of Trustees Vice Chairwoman Barbara Feingold, a financial supporter of DeSantis and of Fine who in August publicly revealed that she had voted against all three finalists and claimed that some of them had "ethics violations" in their past.

The investigation probed another concern raised when the search process was halted: the fact that the private search company overseeing the process had sent applicants an optional survey that included questions about their gender and sexuality.

That sort of questionnaire is "discouraged" by federal guidelines, the investigation concluded, but did not violate any laws.

Andrew Marra is a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network. Reach him by email at amarra@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: FAU president search needs a redo, Florida investigator says