Broward schools missing equipment worth $146K

Items include musical instruments, computers, golf cart, library shelf

Two Broward high schools lost nearly 100 pieces of equipment costing $146,000, including band instruments, computers, a golf cart and a clothes dryer, district auditors say.

The issues were identified during audits last year of Coconut Creek High and Northeast High in Oakland Park.

Inventory costing $109,942 went missing at Coconut Creek High, the audit found. Seventeen pieces of musical equipment supplied to the school band in 2016 as part of the $800 million bond referendum were lost or stolen, the audit said. These instruments were a $4,800 bass clarinet, a $5,200 bassoon, five trumpets, two saxophones, two trombones, a flute, an oboe. and four euphoniums, which are marching brass instruments.

Also missing were a $1,500 clothes dryer, 15 Apple Macbooks, nine Lexmark printers, four

Lenovo laptops and three Dell computers.

School officials at Northeast High couldn’t account for inventory costing $36,000, including a $1,500 golf cart, a $3,200 library shelf, a $1,187 cafeteria high table, 12 Apple computers, five iPads, a trombone, a flute and a snare drum.

The district routinely audits departments and schools. Six other locations were reviewed, but the audit found no major issues.

It’s unknown where the equipment went. The audit didn’t say anyone was arrested for theft, and it criticized the schools for failing to file police reports until months or years later.

The district requires schools to file a police report within two business days after a major item goes missing.

Five iPads were reported stolen from Northeast in a police report

filed Nov. 14, 2017.

“The last known secure date of the iPads was Jan. 1, 2015, two and a half years prior to the report,” the audit states. “A second police report was reviewed for a golf cart that was reported stolen on November 1, 2016, but the last known secure date was October 25, 2015.”

“I don’t know how you get on a golf cart every day and one day it’s not there and don’t immediately report it,” said Moses Barnes, chairman of the district’s Audit Committee, which reviewed the audits Thursday. “Hopefully, we have a plan to prevent this from happening again, because it’s really embarrassing when the press sees golf carts are missing.”

Coconut Creek High officials

filed two police reports months after equipment went missing, the audit says. Principal Scott Fiske said police reports were filed on six of the items, but auditors wouldn’t accept them “because the items on the reports were noted as missing and the school was unable to verify conclusively the items were stolen.”

He said one item missing, a stylus pen bought for $6,930 was assigned to a special needs student but never returned. He said the parent was contacted but didn’t know where the item was.

Officials say they have taken steps to avoid these issues in the future, including requiring the principals at the two schools to submit quarterly inventory reports, requiring all principals to send submit serial numbers and other information of musical instruments to the district and providing better training.

Northeast Principal Anthony Valachovic wrote in an audit response he will create a new “property and inventory team that will strengthen our internal controls over all accountable items on the campus.”

Valachovic said a former computer technician at the school “did very little to record, monitor, maintain or support the property and inventory processes at Northeast.” He said the employee resigned in May.

Valerie Wanza, a district administrator who oversees principals, said she “recognizes the seriousness of the matter” in nearidentical responses she wrote to auditors about the two reviews.

“We will work to ensure that this school develops, implements and monitors sounds business practices that should prevent further occurrences of this nature,” she wrote.