State prosecutors investigate Broward schools — again

Scott Travis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
·5 min read

The prosecutors who oversaw a grand jury review that resulted in the removal of Broward School Board members are investigating the school district again.

The Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution issued a subpoena last month to Interim Superintendent Earlean Smiley asking for emails and text messages of four district administrators related to a recent School Board action that approved the use of federal money for employee bonuses.

The office also is seeking correspondence related to a potential whistleblower. It’s unclear whether there’s any connection between the whistleblower matter and the School Board agenda item.

The administrators listed are: Judith Marte, deputy superintendent for operations; Erum Motiwala, chief financial officer; Valerie Wanza, chief of staff for Smiley; and Oleg Gorokhovsky, director of accounting and financial reporting.

The Office of Statewide Prosecution is the same agency that led a three-year statewide grand jury investigation, which Gov. Ron DeSantis commissioned in 2019 to review school safety issues in the wake of the Parkland shooting. The grand jury ended up focusing most of its attention on Broward’s poor execution of an $800 million voter-approved bond for safety, technology and school renovations.

As the grand jury finished its term in the spring of 2021, it indicted three former district administrators, including then-Superintendent Robert Runcie on a perjury charge. A judge recently dismissed Runcie’s case, citing a jurisdictional issue, although the state is appealing. The long-delayed grand jury report was released in 2022 and led DeSantis to suspend and replace four board members who supported Runcie.

The May 9 subpoena, obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, appears to venture into new areas, including the school district’s use of federal funding. The statewide prosecutor’s office asked for emails and Microsoft Teams messages, including attachments, as well as text messages on certain topics for the four current administrators from March 1, 2023, to present.

The files were due to the state agency by May 17, the subpoena said.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to answer questions related to the subpoena.

“As this investigation is ongoing, we cannot comment,” Kylie Mason, spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, told the Sun Sentinel.

Those named in the subpoena either couldn’t be reached by the Sun Sentinel or declined to comment.

br

Related Articles

“No individual employee(s) was issued a subpoena,” School District spokesman John Sullivan said in a statement. “The District (via Dr. Smiley) was issued the subpoena and complied with the instructions. The District has no concerns regarding the subpoena and is ready to continue to fully cooperate with the Statewide Prosecutor.”

The subpoena provided possible clues into the state’s investigation by asking for district messages related to these specific search terms:

  • “Mary Coker”

  • “Financial Item F-2 (#5) from BCSB School Board Meeting Agenda
    for May 9, 2023”

  • “Whistleblower”

Coker, the district’s director of procurement and warehousing services, declined to comment when reached by the Sun Sentinel. According to court documents, she served as a witness to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the grand jury for three cases that resulted in arrests: Runcie, former General Counsel Barbara Myrick and former Chief Information Officer Tony Hunter.

A common issue in all three cases was a questionable $17 million classroom technology contract where a friend of Hunter’s was a vendor. FDLE reviewed the purchase as the result of a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation.

Runcie and Myrick both contacted Coker about the procurement method used to secure the technology contract as Runcie was preparing to testify before the grand jury in the spring of 2021, and Coker shared this information with an FDLE agent, court records show. Prosecutors alleged Runcie lied about being prepped by Coker, resulting in a perjury charge, while they claim Myrick illegally disclosed confidential grand jury information.

The dismissal of Runcie’s case is now in an appellate court, and the other two cases are still pending in circuit court. Myrick has pleaded not guilty, as has Hunter, who has been charged with unlawful compensation by a public official.

The second search term on the subpoena, the F-2 agenda item, refers to a request by Smiley and Marte at a May 9 meeting to use $8.2 million in federal money that had been previously allocated for heating and air conditioning upgrades to pay for employee bonuses.

The money used was American Rescue Plan grant dollars, which the federal government allocated to help districts recover from COVID-19.

Most of the bonuses were for $1,000 each and were given to such employees as teacher assistants, secretaries, bus drivers and maintenance and cafeteria workers.

Federal law allows these COVID-relief dollars to be used for non-recurring bonuses, Marte told the School Board on May 9.

“The money is very, very flexible,” Marte told the board.

But taking it out of funds for heating and air conditioning alarmed Nathalie Lynch-Walsh, who chairs the district’s Facilities Task Force. She asked board members to vote the item down.

“I don’t think any of you would have been on board with scaling back HVAC projects that contribute to improved air quality,” Lynch-Walsh said at the meeting.

But Marte told the board that heating and air conditioning projects won’t be scaled back. Tax revenues were up this year due to higher property values, so she was able to use money in capital reserves to replace the money taken out of the federal funds for employee bonuses.

Lynch-Walsh said it was a bad move. Even if the capital reserves increased, there’s still not enough money to cover all the district’s maintenance needs, she said. She described the district’s approach as “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

But board members still supported the change unanimously.

“This to me is an example of the talent that we have in Broward County,” Board member Allen Zeman said. “It’s rare for a school system to know all those dials and know where to find money. … This is by far a wise choice in terms of source of funds.”

As for the third search item on the subpoena, “whistleblower,” it’s unknown who or what that refers to.