A day after Gov. Ron DeSantis described the Broward School District as a “disaster,” School Board members held a pair of news conferences Tuesday, inviting the district to be subjected to a state DOGE audit.
School Board member Adam Cervera, a DeSantis appointee who has become increasingly vocal about recent district management missteps, held a solo news conference late in the morning to request the state’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to conduct “a whole-scale review of all of the district’s finances to ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent as intended.”
Most of his fellow board members had a separate news conference earlier in the day, also saying they welcome state intervention following comments by DeSantis on Monday.
In response to a reporter’s question at a Monday news conference at Broward College, DeSantis blasted the school district, calling it impervious to reform efforts. “Let’s just be honest, it’s been a disaster in many different ways,” the governor said.
Last week, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia posted on social media that his office planned to start looking into government misspending in school districts, continuing an effort started last year with county governments.
School boards should not be given a “free pass” for their excessive and wasteful spending of your tax dollars.
They should be held accountable also.
Taxpayer dollars should be invested in kids and good teachers, not administrative bloat.
Which school board should we FAFO… pic.twitter.com/U1KL34GX70
— Blaise Ingoglia (@GovGoneWild) January 7, 2026
“There is waste, fraud and abuse within this district, and I am confident that it will be found,” Cervera said at his news conference. He told the South Florida Sun Sentinel he had spoken with Ingoglia but didn’t have a timeframe for when a state team could visit Broward. Ingoglia’s office could not be reached on Tuesday.
School Board Chairwoman Sarah Leonardi and district officials held their news conference at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, before a series of workshops that started at 9 a.m. Cervera’s started a few hours later.
During the first news conference, Leonardi was surrounded by Superintendent Howard Hepburn as well as every other School Board member except Cervera and Nora Rupert, who arrived late to Tuesday’s workshops. Rupert told the Sun Sentinel Tuesday afternoon that she had car trouble or she would have attended Leonardi’s news conference.
“We welcome the governor and his team, as well as his CFO to come help us find further efficiency, because we, like the governor, are committed to spending taxpayer dollars responsibly,” Leonardi said Tuesday morning. “We welcome the state’s expertise to strengthen accountability.”
While both supported a DOGE effort, the two news conferences presented vastly different depictions of the district. Leonardi said there had been serious problems in the past, but the district is now A-rated based on academics and has a School Board that takes swift action whenever problems arise.
“We are not talking about the Broward County Public Schools of the past. We are talking about the new Broward schools, the district that is stronger, more accountable, and more transparent than ever,” she said.
In 2022, a statewide grand jury found mismanagement of a voter-approved $800 million bond referendum for school construction. As a result, Gov. Ron DeSantis removed and replaced four School Board members. None of those appointees are still on the School Board.
DeSantis appointed Cervera to the School Board in April after Board member Brenda Fam, who was elected in 2022, moved out of the area.
Cervera emphasized there has been a series of recent failures. They include:
- A $2.6 million office lease that School Board members viewed as wasteful and unneeded;
- An audit that found the district botched an effort to find a manager for its construction program;
- Bonuses of up to $14,000 that were paid to administrators making more than $200,000 a year out of referendum dollars intended to benefit teachers and low-paid staff.
In all three cases, the School Board took action to try to rectify the issues quickly after they became public. The board canceled the questionable office lease in November, rejected all bids for the construction program manager in December and stopped giving referendum dollars to high-paid employees in January. It also ordered an audit to find out how the bonus issue happened.
Cervera issued a public statement on Dec. 30 calling for Chief Operating Officer Wanda Paul to resign based on concerns about the office lease and the construction manager solicitation. She submitted her resignation later the same day.
“These are not small. These are not bookkeeping errors. These are absolute failures of district leadership that directly harm our students, our teachers, and our community,” Cervera said Tuesday. “These recent missteps are not something that happened years ago, or with the old board. This is happening right now in front of our very eyes.”
Leonardi said she sees Cervera’s call for DOGE as similar to what she had already called for in media interviews on Monday and the press conference on Tuesday morning.
“I’m glad he’s joining me and my colleagues in that call to help find efficiencies in our system,” Leonardi said.