Who’s fueling the money race for Broward School Board? The top takeaways for the election

In the Broward School Board elections, a multimillionaire’s campaign chest is brimming with almost $122,000.

An 18-year-old candidate — backed by an experienced consultant — has raised more than $19,000.

And two School Board hopefuls promoting parental rights, an issue championed by conservatives across the country, have individually raised over $9,000 and $10,000.

These are among the 21 candidates who are running to fill six School Board seats up for election this year.

The candidates are spending anywhere from zero dollars to over $52,000 on their campaigns. Some candidates are mainly bankrolling themselves, pouring in up to $99,000 from their personal accounts. The campaign finance reports, reviewed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, show who’s backing the candidates and where the money is going.

Here’s what the records show.

Conservatives draw support

The contests for School Board have drawn bigger attention this year, as new state laws take effect, oriented around what students should and shouldn’t be taught in Florida’s schools.

The School Board races are nonpartisan, meaning the party affiliations of candidates aren’t listed. Yet Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has endorsed some candidates in Florida who share his education agenda, including conservative policies on the discussion of sexual orientation and race in classrooms.

The Republican Party of Broward County has endorsed three candidates for School Board: District 6 candidate Brenda Fam, District 7 candidate Merceydes Morassi, and District 8 candidate Mourice Hylton.

Tom Powers, the group’s chairman, said they chose the candidates because they will reform the district to be more “responsive to the taxpayers and parents,” which he said isn’t just a “Republican interest, it is an outcry from the public.”

“You’re seeing this across the country,” Powers said. “Parents are the ones that raise their children. Teachers are involved in the education of a child one year at a time. Parents are there from birth to forever, and they need to be consistent in that child’s life.”

The open seats for the School Board represent Districts 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7, as well as District 8, an at-large seat that represents the entire county.

For District 6, which includes Cooper City, Sunrise, Weston and Davie, candidate Brenda Fam has raised a little over $9,000.

Her campaign donations include an in-kind donation of $600 for two tickets to a dinner hosted by the Republican Executive Committee in May. Fam, a registered Republican, says if elected, she’ll represent “parents and children” instead of any one party.

Her campaign site mainly shares parental rights content, including articles that accuse Broward school district of indoctrinating students. In her most recent post, Fam criticized the school district for “withholding curriculum that promotes transgenderism to students.”

Her campaign Instagram account follows Women for Trump Palm Beach County, the right-wing America First Policy Institute, and the Broward-based America First Patriots Club, which endorsed her. The Club aligns itself with Trump and DeSantis, and “welcomes all who oppose rising socialism, globalism and the annihilation of our culture and values,” according to its website.

In an interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, candidate Merceydes Morassi, a psychologist, also voiced unease over discussing gender identity in schools. Morassi has raised over $10,000 in her campaign for the District 7 seat, which includes the cities of Coconut Creek and Deerfield Beach.

“I don’t think LGB has anything to do with T,” she said. She added, “For people in the psychology field, there is a close relationship between transgender and gender dysphoria, which is a psychiatric illness. I don’t think we should be normalizing and discussing psychiatric illnesses with kids unless we’re going to talk about all of them.”

Morassi, who is hoping to unseat incumbent Nora Rupert, has received the endorsement of the Libertarian Party of Broward County and donations from members of the Broward chapter of Moms for Liberty, a parental rights group that has fought to remove certain books from public schools. Their two pages follow each other on Instagram.

Moms for Liberty is dedicated to fighting “short-sighted and destructive policies directly hurt children and families” and trying to “unite parents who are ready to fight those that stand in the way of liberty,” according to its website.

On July 15, DeSantis was the keynote speaker for a Moms for Liberty event in Tampa.

In this election cycle, Morassi has received separate $25 donations from two board members in the Broward chapter of Moms for Liberty.

This 18-year-old candidate has Democratic ties and loftier goals

Raymond Adderly III, the youngest candidate at 18, is running for the District 8 at-large seat against incumbent Donna Korn, Allen Zeman, and Mourice Hylton. Adderly has raised over $19,000, and spent nearly $18,000 of it.

The vast majority of that money — totaling over $9,000 — is going toward public relations and campaign consulting. Adderly has spent several thousand dollars on Progress for Florida LLC, a consulting firm whose founder, Millie Raphael, helped create a “path to victory” for him, Adderly said. The firm describes itself as “working to elect progressive Democrats in Florida at every rung of the ladder.”

Adderly has also allocated $500 most months, totaling over $6,000, to Grossman PR, where he receives PR help from co-president Lou Grossman, a former lead adviser on senior outreach for Charlie Crist’s gubernatorial campaign.

The two met while campaigning for Joe Biden during the 2020 election, Grossman said. He described Adderly as “the future of our party.”

Adderly acknowledged that he has his sights set beyond the School Board. He said he hopes to make it to the statehouse, to Congress, or even governorship. “My boyhood dream was to be President of the United States,” he said. “It’s not a boyhood dream anymore. I definitely think it’s a feasible thing.”

A stake in crypto

In a sign of the times, cryptocurrency has popped up in candidates’ personal investments. In District 1, which includes Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, two candidates have disclosed a major stake in cryptocurrency, a market that has crashed in recent months. Both have used personal money on their own campaigns.

District 1 candidate Paul Wiggins, a pastor, reported that he has placed all $10,000 of his investments in HyperVerse, a new cryptocurrency that doubles as a virtual reality, according to his qualifying documents. When asked why he was invested in the currency, Wiggins declined to comment, saying, “I’m not comfortable answering that.”

Wiggins isn’t the only candidate with a fondness for the technology. One of his opponents, Rodney “Rod” Velez, a property manager, has over $203,000 invested in cryptocurrency, according his filings, which he said include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Shiba Inu. Other investments are in properties, he said, as the stock market “is too crazy right now.”

Former sheriff supports a District 6 candidate

Opposing Brenda Fam and John Christopher Canter for the District 6 seat, Steven Julian has raised over $53,000 so far, now the most of the three candidates remaining in the race after Merick Lewin dropped out earlier this month.

Julian, who works in property management, doesn’t have Fam’s conservative backing, but he has received support from a key player in Broward politics: Ken Jenne, a former Florida senator and Broward sheriff, who has donated $750 to Julian’s campaign.

But Julian said that Jenne, who long ago served some prison time in a public corruption case, is not serving as an adviser for his campaign, though the two are acquainted. Jenne is a longtime friend of the family, Julian said.

“He believes in what I’m doing,” he added. “He believes in my goal of fixing the school system. So that’s why I’m assuming he decided to donate to me.”

Julian also has received thousands of dollars from local law firms. Both of his parents are attorneys, as well as several of his siblings. His mother, Joyce Julian, a former Broward county judge, has helped Julian gain a “knowledge base,” he said. “She understands the ins and outs of campaigning.”

Companies donate the maximum to incumbents

Local vendors who do business with Broward schools have spent thousands of dollars on incumbents and front-runners. Several charter school companies connected to the same individual have spent over $10,000 on four candidates.

The limited liability companies Dash Education Solutions, Discovery Schools Inc., AP Properties 2019, Sunbit LLC, and SE Admin Enterprises LLC have each donated the maximum of $1,000 to District 8′s Donna Korn, contributing $5,000 of her current total of nearly $27,000.

Several of those companies donated the maximum to Nora Rupert and Ruth Carter-Lynch as well, totaling another $5,000.

Discovery Schools is the company behind Franklin Academy, a chain of six charter schools operating in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

AP Properties 2019, Sunbit LLC, SE Admin Enterprises LLC, Discovery Schools Inc, and Dash Education Solutions all list the same Fort Lauderdale address and the same registered agent with the Florida Division of Corporations: a man by the name of Jon T. Rogers. Rogers couldn’t be reached for comment.

Various combinations of the same companies have donated to school board members in past elections, such as Patricia Good in 2019. They have also donated to city and county commissioners, such as Vice Mayor Lamar Fisher, as well as Iris Siple, commissioner of Pembroke Pines.

Smaller names join millionaires, incumbents and their heirs

In District 1, Marie Murray Martin opposes Paul Wiggins and Rod Velez to fill the seat left open by her mother, Ann Murray, who decided not to run for reelection. Murray has donated $750 to her daughter’s campaign, which has raised a little over $9,000 so far.

But Marie Murray Martin wants to distinguish herself from her mother.

“I’m not Ann Murray, I’m Marie Murray Martin,” she said. “We are not the same person.”

Meanwhile, in the race for District 4, which includes Parkland, Coral Springs, and Tamarac, incumbent Lori Alhadeff is facing off against Kimberly D. Coward, an attorney. Alhadeff has raised nearly $104,000, while Coward has raised nearly $22,000.

District 5, which includes Lauderhill and Lauderdale Lakes, has by far the most competition.

Seven candidates are vying for a spot: Antonio Burgess, Ruth Carter-Lynch, Clifford Coach Sr., Jeff Holness, Gloria Lewis, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Nathalie Lynch-Walsh.

So far, Carter-Lynch has raised the most, with over $22,000.

For District 6, Brenda Fam and Steven Julian are accompanied by John Christopher Canter, who has only raised around $2,000, $1,900 of which he donated to himself. Canter is employed by the School District of Palm Beach County, but lives in Davie, according to his qualifying documents.

The District 8 race has seen the most variance when it comes to finances, but also some striking similarities.

Mourice Hylton has steep competition facing Zeman, Korn, and Adderly, who have all significantly outraised him. Hylton, a chess teacher, listed a net worth of $0, according to his qualifying documents, in contrast to Zeman, whose reported net worth is over $10 million.

Hylton has raised $2,300, $1,900 of which he donated to himself. Meanwhile, Zeman has over $120,000, the most of all the candidates.

However, a majority of Zeman’s campaign money, or $99,000, also comes from his own pockets. The Center for Human Capital Innovation, of which Zeman is CEO, also has given him $1,000.

The primary election is Aug. 23, and early voting will be from Aug. 13 through Aug. 21. Mail-in ballots must be received by Aug. 23 at 7 p.m. to be eligible.