How Broward schools’ search for a leader to fix decaying schools went awry

As Broward school buildings continue to deteriorate, district administrators have bungled attempts to provide leadership for a troubled school-renovation program.

Superintendent Vickie Cartwright has said it’s a top priority to fill the long-vacant position of chief facilities officer.

But so far the effort has been mired in multiple controversies, including:

• The district’s failure to hold a required community forum.
• A scoring irregularity that led to the wrong candidate being recommended for the job.
• A last-minute decision Oct. 4 to eliminate a candidate amid an allegation he misused sick time at a job nine years ago.

[ RELATED: Promises and failures. The Broward school bond timeline. ]

The search could end Tuesday as Cartwright is asking the School Board to hire a candidate she had previously recommended.

A statewide grand jury report — which Gov. Ron DeSantis used to suspend and replace four School Board members — has cited a lack of leadership in the facilities department as one of several key factors that have crippled the school-renovation program.

The program, initially funded by a voter-approved $800 million bond referendum, is years behind schedule and more than $500 million over budget.

All projects were supposed to be finished by 2021, but only 25% are done, according to a recent report to the district’s Bond Oversight Committee.

In the meantime, “students continue to be educated in unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago,” the grand jury report said.

The chief facilities officer position, which oversees maintenance and school construction, has been vacant since former Superintendent Robert Runcie forced out Leo Bobadilla in late 2018.

“Right now, frankly speaking, we are at a disadvantage by not having a chief facilities officer,” Cartwright told the School Board on Tuesday.

[ RELATED; Grand jury report slams Broward schools’ mismanaged efforts to replace roofs ]

Cartwright has made multiple attempts to fill the job since the grand jury report came out on Aug. 19, but the efforts were upended by issues that resulted in candidates’ names being removed from School Board agendas.

An interview panel of Cartwright’s top administrators initially recommended a Miami-Dade school official last spring, but he didn’t accept the job.

On Aug. 24, Cartwright recommended Harun Biswas, a consultant who had recently retired as vice president for facilities management at Clayton State University in Georgia. A committee of district administrators found him to be the best-qualified candidate, a district document said.

But Nathalie Lynch-Walsh, chairwoman of the district’s Facilities Task Force, a district watchdog group, alerted board members that Cartwright had failed to comply with a longtime policy that requires candidates to also be interviewed by a panel of community members.

Although the policy had been routinely ignored for years, board members, who still were shaken by the release of the grand jury report, directed Cartwright to hold the community forum.

[ RELATED: Three Broward schools administrators forced out due to grand jury ]

The next week a panel of district volunteers interviewed Biswas and five other candidates. The committee chose as their favorite Willie Hopkins, a city manager for Bartow, Calif., and a former assistant city manager for Pompano Beach. Hopkins, a retired U.S. Army major, also worked as a facilities administrator in Cobb County, Ga., where he helped oversee the construction of the current Atlanta Braves stadium.

Cartwright, however, selected Biswas again and placed him on the Sept. 6 agenda. But then Lynch-Walsh discovered irregularities in the handwritten score sheets from the initial panel of school district administrators. Hopkins’ score had been erroneously reduced by 10 points, a difference that kept him from placing first.

So Cartwright withdrew Biswas’s name and recommended that Hopkins be hired by the School Board on Oct. 4. But that morning, Cartwright pulled his name from the agenda as well.

“Mr. Hopkins withdrew his name from consideration,” district spokesman John Sullivan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Tuesday in an email.

But that assertion was contradicted by Hopkins, both in an interview the candidate gave to the Sun Sentinel and an email he sent Tuesday afternoon to Cartwright and David Azzarito, executive director of human resources. Hopkins said the district removed him from consideration.

“At the time of your original inquiry, our understanding was that the candidate withdrew from consideration,” Sullivan said Friday evening. “Regardless, the candidate will not be considered now that we have new information from a previous employer.”

The issue involved Hopkins’ tenure as an assistant city manager in Pompano Beach from 2008 to 2013.

[ RELATED: Broward schools investigate board members’ relationship with a vendor ]

Azzarito told Hopkins that a background check revealed that he had been fired from Pompano Beach for improper use of sick or Family and Medical Leave Act time, Hopkins told the Sun Sentinel.

Hopkins, who left the city to take a job as a Cobb County administrator, denies the allegation and sent Cartwright and Azzarito an email from his city manager at the time suggesting he was using leave time as approved.

Hopkins said both in the email and an interview he had hired a lawyer to defend any inaccurate information that Pompano Beach may have provided. The Sun Sentinel requested Hopkins’ personnel file from the city on Wednesday but has not yet received it. City offices were closed Friday, so no one was available for comment.

“I know the allegation is not true and is certainly not what transpired. I must defend my integrity and character. I cannot allow a lie to prevail,” Hopkins wrote Tuesday in an email to Cartwright. “Per Mr. Azzarito your desire to remove me from consideration is understandable. However, the accusation is not true and that matter will be addressed with the city of Pompano Beach.”

[ RELAED: Broward School Board defends paying $237,000 to ousted employees. ]

Hopkins told the Sun Sentinel he’s been “jerked around” by the district and doesn’t know if he would accept the job if offered again.

“There’s just so much going on there, for anyone in this line of business, it would have to give you pause and question whether it’s the right decision, given everything you’re encountering,” he said.

Kimberly Burke-Mohorn, a Pompano Beach parent who is a member of the community committee that interviewed candidates and supported Hopkins, said she was outraged by the whole process. She slammed the scoring irregularity as well as the scrutiny over Hopkins’ background.

“The process was compromised from beginning to end,” Burke-Morhorn argued.

Cartwright’s earlier choice, Biswas, told the Sun Sentinel on Friday afternoon he was surprised Hopkins wasn’t hired.

“He was highly qualified and I thought he could be a perfect fit for the district,” Biswas said. “I hope you can do something to make sure they follow the rules and proper procedures. It not good for me or Willie either.”

At 6:15 p.m. Friday, the School Board agenda for Tuesday was updated to include a recommendation once again to hire Biswas.