Broward County (Fla.) board demands immediate improvements in its maintenance department

The Broward County (Fla.) School Board wants immediate action to fix a maintenance department plagued by a huge work backlog, questionable spending and the federal indictment of a former administrator.

A workshop this week focused on issues raised by a September review by the Council of Great City Schools, which warned the district’s maintenance problems have reached a crisis level. Thousands of work orders have remained open for years, the review found.

Principals complained in the review that newer western schools that serve more affluent students have been given priority over decaying poor schools in the east.

“This is urgent. We have to act now," Board member Rosalind Osgood says. "I know you guys have a way of doing things, but it’s not working. Requests keep coming in; things keep happening. We have to be able to respond. There’s no other way around it.”

A review team from the council agreed that the district’s aging infrastructures and building equipment could no longer wait.

“When you read this audit, it feels like this department has just been run amok,” Board member Robin Bartleman says. “There seems to be a lack of oversight, a lack of accountability.”

The review says the department has suffered budget cuts since the 2008 recession and needs a lot more money to operate. Maurice Woods, the district’s chief operating and strategy officer, asked the board for $500,000 to make initial fixes to the department. But board members were reluctant, saying the department’s spending already makes them nervous.

Grounds work provided by district employees cost $3,125 per acre, compared with $1,915 for other Florida districts. The disparity was particularly stark for grounds work performed by outside contractors: Broward spends $6,190 per acre, 10 times the average of other Florida districts

The district’s cost for contracted routine maintenance was $1,522 per work order, twice as much as other Florida school districts.

“I will not be approving any increase until you can rein in these costs,” Board member Laurie Rich Levinson says. “These are mind-boggling to me.”

That maintenance report was released two months before federal authorities arrested Richard Ellis Jr., on Dec. 18. The recently retired custodial and grounds supervisor was charged with four counts of bribery. Federal authorities allege that Ellis accepted bribes from a district vendor doing asphalt, seal coating and other work on driveways and athletic facilities.

Bartleman also was alarmed by another observation in the maintenance review: The district had paid to repair municipal sidewalks around unspecified schools.

“Who approved us to fix sidewalks we don’t own?" she asked. "On what planet does that happen? We have air conditioners leaking, roof repairs and work orders not getting done? How does that happen?"

Maintenance director Sam Bays told her there was a “very isolated incident” at a school he didn’t name where the district worked with a community and municipality to “make a well-defined repair to avoid some child or some parent walking children into the school from having a bad accident.”

Superintendent Robert Runcie said after the meeting that he’ll review board members' concerns, including a review of work orders.

“At the end of the day, there’s far more work than we can possibly do, so it’s a matter of prioritizing and having some discipline around them because there are also emergencies that come up," Runcie says.