Broward School Board may vote to stop paying legal bills of suspended members

Broward School Board members will be asked Tuesday to stop paying the legal fees for former board members who fought to keep a scathing grand jury report secret.

The request, from Chairman Torey Alston, comes after the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported this past weekend that Ann Murray and Donna Korn had racked up grand jury-related legal bills of $120,000 over the past 16 months.

“These Suspended Officers sought to expunge portions of the Grand Jury Report. The School Board provided payment for the legal representation in these actions,” the agenda item said. “The School Board has the discretion to cease payment of legal services for the representation of the Suspended Officers.”

[ RELATED: Ousted School Board members battled to keep grand jury details secret, and it’s costing taxpayers ]

The action would direct Interim General Counsel Marylin Batista to stop payments of any legal services after Aug. 26, when Gov. DeSantis suspended Korn, Murray and two other board members, Patti Good and Laurie Rich Levinson.

Lawyers for Murray had billed the district $74,689, while Korn’s lawyers had billed $45,391. A bill for Good was combined with services for a former district employee, with the total being $4,141. No bills had been submitted yet for Levinson.

Alston’s request does not include seeking reimbursement for payments already made, as new board member Kevin Tynan had suggested to the Sun Sentinel he’d like to consider.

It’s unclear if the School Board would still pay for legal services rendered before Aug. 26 but not yet billed to the district.

School Board members will be asked to consider another grand jury-related item Tuesday as well, the resignations of Chief of Staff Jeff Moquin and Equity and School Climate Director David Watkins and the retirement of Ron Morgan, assistant chief building official.

[ RELATED: Broward schools superintendent tells administrators to resign or face investigation ]

All three were mentioned negatively in the grand jury report, and Superintendent Vickie Cartwright gave them a choice last week to resign or face a district investigation. Morgan’s last day is listed as Tuesday and Watkins is listed as Sept. 9. Moquin, however, is not scheduled to be gone until Dec. 2.

Cartwright is also expected to give the School Board and the public an update on how the district is responding to the grand jury report.

The grand jury matters are expected to discussed at a regular meeting scheduled to start at 10:05 a.m. Tuesday. It will be streamed live on BECON.