National cap and gown company cuts ties with controversial Broward schools vendor

Herff Jones, a national supplier of scholastic products, is severing ties with a Broward schools vendor who was criticized for overcharging parents for graduation caps and gowns, and failing to provide students’ invoices to the district.

Chuck Puleri, 65, has been Broward County’s exclusive distributor of Herff Jones products since 1992. The school district is also dropping him due to a scathing audit it commissioned in response to a series of South Florida Sun Sentinel investigations.

Whether the district stops working with the larger Herff Jones has yet to be decided. The school district has had contracts in recent years both with the Indianapolis-based Herff Jones and Puleri’s private company based in Davie, Chuck Puleri & Associates.

“Our relationship with Chuck Puleri has been terminated,” Andrew Checketts, executive vice president for Herff Jones, told the School Board at its meeting Tuesday. “We no longer associate with him but we still want to associate with Broward County.”

Puleri could not be reached for comment despite attempts by phone, through his lawyer and at his Davie store, which on Thursday was open and appeared to still be taking orders.

Herff Jones’ termination with Puleri came after the School Board voted Nov. 14 to bar Puleri from doing work in the district again, while agreeing to put a two-year pause on any contracts with the national Herff Jones company, which is now owned by Bain Capital Private Equity.

The School Board cited a pair of audits that determined Chuck Puleri & Associates had overbilled parents, students and the district more than $500,000, while also destroying documents, and the larger Herff Jones company overbilled the district $63,000.

The Broward State Attorney’s Office announced on Dec. 6 it had launched a criminal investigation, but the full scope hasn’t been released.

The School Board is reconsidering its decision to cut ties with the larger Herff Jones after a series of concerns were raised by company officials and county schools.

One issue was how the termination affects yearbooks at 21 schools that have had contracts with Herff Jones. The company’s yearbook division is not affiliated with Puleri.

[ RELATED: Parents pay more for caps and gowns as vendor gets special treatment ]

The yearbook contracts expired last month but district officials said the work already started should continue.

The schools are using proprietary Herff Jones software, and several yearbook advisers sent emails to School Board members saying that selecting a new vendor would result in them having to redo months of work.

The School Board will decide later whether to allow Herff Jones as a yearbook vendor for the 2023-24 school year.

The board decided Tuesday not to renew a contract with Chuck Puleri & Associates for class rings, giving the business to competitor Jostens.

Grant Smith, a lawyer and registered lobbyist for Chuck Puleri & Associates, told the School Board that the district “has created a tremendous amount of chaos” because 750 rings have been ordered and were scheduled to be presented to students in ring ceremonies on school campuses. Now it’s unknown if those ceremonies will take place.

“There has never been an issue raised on this contract at all,” Smith told the School Board, referring specifically to class rings. “The quality surveys show the exact opposite. Schools are extremely satisfied and they’re very happy with the product they received.”

[ RELATED: Broward Schools reconsider cutting ties with caps and gowns vendor ]

District officials said Puleri is obligated to ensure any rings are provided to students who paid for them regardless of the status of the contract. While Puleri’s company won’t be allowed to market on school campuses or websites after Dec. 31, students can buy class rings privately from any vendor they want.

School Board member Allen Zeman said he’s not interested in doing business with Puleri, citing audit findings that the company failed to maintain student invoices for four years.

“It is a violation of the contracts with Broward County schools, and I will never vote for a Chuck Puleri contract until those matters are rectified,” Zeman told the School Board.

[ RELATED: Broward superintendent keeps her job as board rescinds firing by DeSantis’s appointees ]

The caps and gown contracts remain in limbo. The contract was with Chuck Puleri & Associates in the past, but the district changed the rules in 2021 to require the contracts to be with the parent companies.

That has led to confusion over whether the district can hold Herff Jones responsible for problems in Puleri’s contract.

The current rules allow a committee at each school to choose one of two approved vendors, Herff Jones or Jostens. Herff Jones says it was chosen by 38 high schools, while Jostens says it serves 16. The district asked schools Nov. 15 to postpone caps and gowns promotions and sales until the Herff Jones matter is resolved.

The district started scrutinizing Puleri and Herff Jones following a series of 2021 investigations by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, which also found the district used questionable vendor selection practices that ensured Puleri had a monopoly in the district.

[ RELATED: Broward School Board moves to sever ties with caps and gowns vendor ]

Puleri developed close friendships with school district officials and invited administrator Shawn Cerra and former School Board member Donna Korn to stay at his beach house near Naples on multiple occasions.

The Ethics Commission ruled earlier this month that the weekend stays for Korn and Cerra did not violate state ethics laws.

The school district overhauled the bidding and selection process as a result of the Sun Sentinel investigations, allowing competitor Jostens to get a foothold in the county after being shut out for decades. The district also contracted with the Alabama accounting firm Carr, Riggs & Ingram to conduct a forensic review of the issues raised.

An audit of a 2016 contract found that Chuck Puleri & Associates had overbilled the district $231,000 and students and parents more than $331,000. The company also told auditors that four years of invoices had been deleted or shredded, making the total overbilling unknown.

A second audit examined 2022 contracts with the larger Herff Jones as well as Jostens. That audit said Herff Jones overbilled the district by $63,061, while Jostens overbilled $5,265. This audit found minimal overbilling to parents and students.

[ RELATED: Ex-School Board member Donna Korn cleared in ethics probe related to beach house stay ]

Herff Jones disputes the 2022 audit, saying the contract allowed them to charge the district for certain graduation items, such as medallions and honor cords, that auditors said should have been free under the contract.

The national company has not challenged the more scathing audit of the 2016 contract, saying that was under Chuck Puleri & Associates, not Herff Jones, even though the contract said Puleri’s company was “doing business as Herff Jones.”

“Herff Jones has notified the [School] Board that we believe the audit of the 2022 contract, to which Herff Jones is the direct contracting party, contains material inaccuracies,” a statement from the company said. “As this matter is still pending, we will make no further comment at this time. The company does not comment on contracts to which it is not a direct contracting party. To be clear, Herff Jones did not overbill any students, schools, or the district.”

Company officials have tried to distance themselves from Puleri’s actions at two December School Board meetings, in which the company’s president, several vice presidents, two lobbyists and other company officials have attended.

[ RELATED: Audits find Broward schools botched contracts with favored vendors ]

“Herff Jones is being conflated with other vendors. It’s being lumped in unfairly,” Herff Jones lobbyist Richard Pinsky told the School Board on Dec. 6.

Thomas Rhodes, an independent contractor for Jostens, touted the record-keeping of his company when he addressed the School Board on Tuesday.

“I’m not going to discuss other companies and their setup, but Jostens knows every order that I send to them,” Rhodes, president of Rhodes Graduation Services, told the School Board. “I close my books with them once a year, and we have an auditor at Jostens that audits our books.”

[ RELATED: Caps and gowns prices will drop for Broward’s seniors amid scrutiny over vendor’s prices ]

Ben Kincaid, an outside auditor who conducted the caps and gowns reviews for the district, told the School Board that Jostens provided records within two weeks of their request while Herff Jones took three months “and not all the data we requested from Herff Jones was provided to us.”

At the request of the School Board, auditors met recently with Herff Jones officials to review the company’s concerns. The only finding auditors have reversed so far was $1,050 out of $63,061 in possible overbilling. In his instance, Kincaid said there was confusion about whether an invoice applied to an old or current contract. But Kincaid said there are still a few issues he’s reviewing based on new information from Herff Jones.

School Board members said they want the audit complete before they make a final decision. They expect to review the matter again in late January or early February.

“It seems like we were in a hurry to vote on something, and it’s unfortunate because now we may have to backpedal on things,” School Board member Debbi Hixon said. “We don’t want our vendors to think that we just make rash decisions that are not based solely on facts. I’m not saying the audit wasn’t factual, but I don’t think it was the full picture.”