Last time around, grand jury wanted Broward School Board abolished
The last time a statewide grand jury poked around into the Broward County school system, it issued a scathing report detailing corruption and mismanagement and lamented it couldn’t abolish the entire school board.
Former Gov. Charlie Crist requested a statewide grand jury investigation in 2010 in response to highprofile corruption arrests in South Florida, a far different situation from the grand jury proposed Wednesday.
The report blasted the Broward district for mismanagement and corruption, detailing how some board members directed contracts to friends, pushed unnecessary building projects and schemed to get the children of friends and family into specific schools.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report provided to the grand jury even exposed the steamy secrets of the board chairwoman’s private life, revealing how she engaged in romantic affairs with two men working for a company seeking business with the district.
The grand jury found “malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance” by the board members and senior managers, concluding it would abolish the board if it had the power.
Superintendent Robert Runcie, who took over after the investigation ended, vowed to eradicate the mismanagement, corruption and fraud.
“The game’s over,” he said at the time. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
Now, Runcie’s district could be the center of a new statewide probe into the handling of school safety funds. Gov. Ron DeSantis has petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to appoint a statewide grand jury to investigate school district operations.
Florida law gives the grand jury a variety of tools to root out corruption and mismanagement. It can subpoena documents and witnesses and return indictments. It also can make recommendations that could sway lawmakers to act.
During the last probe of the Broward district, the panel met in secret for a year, reviewed hundreds of documents and took widespread testimony reaching from School Board members to school principals and secretaries.
While the grand jury released a scathing report, it did not indict anyone. The grand jury was set up to indict people only for actions stretching across more than one county.
However, in September 2009, the FBI nabbed former board member Beverly Gallagher in an undercover operation, and she was sentenced to three years in prison. Another former board member, Stephanie Kraft, was sentenced to five years of probation in 2014.
The superintendent and other top administrators resigned as the corruption probe unfolded.
Grand jury requests must list "the general crimes or wrongs to be inquired into and shall state that said crimes or wrongs are of a multi-circuit nature."
DeSantis requested that the grand jury examine, among other things, “whether public entities committed — and continue to commit — fraud and deceit by accepting state funds conditioned on implementation of certain safety measures while knowingly failing to act.”
If the Florida Supreme Court approves the governor’s request, Chief Justice Charles Canady will designate a circuit judge to preside over the grand jury.
The presiding judge will randomly select and impanel the 18-member statewide grand jury from the jury lists of circuits he or she designates. Because the grand jury’s investigation will reach issues connected to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, DeSantis proposed Broward County as the base operating area for the investigation.
A state commission formed after the shooting spent nearly a year investigating the Parkland shooting, and now the grand jury could fill another year. The Supreme Court may impanel the jury for up to one year and can extend its term for six more months if necessary.
DeSantis said the statewide grand jury will use more of its subpoena power to examine the school district’s response to school safety matters. The MSD commission had a limited mandate to focus on the shooting, he said.
“You didn't have subpoenas flying. It was not the same thing,” he said. “I think that this will complement it. I think the commission did a good job with what they had. I think this is going to be a much broader reach in looking at how this and other school districts are operating."
Other statewide grand jury investigations have focused on criminal activities by gangs in the state and rampant fraud in Medicaid's prescription drug program for the poor.