It's Your Money

Last week the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) released their official Investigative Report on improprieties within the Martin County School District. It documented numerous irregularities and illegal activities that occurred across a number of years in awarding maintenance contracts that cost the District hundreds of thousand of dollars. It also highlighted the lack of supervision and management oversight that allowed the wanton violations of District policies to occur.

The report indicates that soon after our new Superintendent was elected in the fall of 2008 a “concerned citizen” wrote a letter outlining “improprieties” that were occurring within the District’s awarding of maintenance contracts. An internal investigation led by a School District attorney was begun on 1 December 2008. The result of several months of inquiry yielded sufficient evidence for the Superintendent to terminate three employees including the Director of Maintenance and accept the resignation (in lieu of termination) of the District’s Facilities Director. The attorney’s internal report released to the Superintendent on March 23, 2009 concluded that: “…employees of the Martin County School District conspired to circumvent proper job bidding policy and approve work orders and payments … in exchange for illegal kickbacks and favors.”

On August 12 th 2009 the internal investigation was officially handed over to FDLE and Special Agents were provided the documentation from the internal investigation. By August 18th agents had begun interviewing the fired employees. The maintenance director and maintenance specialist, both long term District employees, were told that there was: “strong circumstantial evidence identifying that… (they)… may have committed criminal violations by award (sic) contract jobs and bids … in exchange for bribes in the form of services done on employees’ homes, as well as receiving paid dinners, personal invitations to private parties and receiving paid fishing trips …” Both denied specific allegations but could not back up their position with hard data. In the course of the interview each admitted to violations of school policy that did not rise to the level of criminal activity

On August 31 st the School District provided FDLE Agents with the Florida Auditor General’s investigative analysis of the paid and unpaid invoices for (an Air Conditioning Company) work for the FY 2008/09 school year. The suspected fraudulent billing of hours, labor and materials were reported as $60,272.00 of the $132,014.00 paid. Unpaid invoices indicated questionable billing of labor totaling $84,656.50, material of $81,919.00 and fuel of $1,000.00. The report concluded that: “The total amount of suspected fraud for these invoices…. is $167,575.50.

On September 18 th FDLE Agents interviewed the third individual terminated as a result of the internal investigation. He admitted that: “he had approved and signed invoices in which he had never verified were complete… and that he was overwhelmed in his job and … had rubber stamped many (of the) invoices that came across his desk.”

This 23 page report also goes into detail and provides quotes from the interviews with personnel associated with the company identified with the paid and unpaid invoices listed above. It also provides an extensive explanation of why and how the controversial decision by the Superintendent to remove data from the School Attorney’s computer and hold up release of that data to the company involved in the investigation occurred. We are providing a link to the official FDLE report on our website (www.mctaxpayers.org) as an attachment to this Its Your Money column and suggest that all interested parties read the full story.

The bottom line is that the FDLE and Statewide Prosecutors Office determined that there was: “…a lack of direct evidence to pursue criminal charges and prosecute those identified in the investigation…. for negligence, contract violations, or policy violations.” The report did decide that the case was civil in nature and litigation continues.

We do not have access to enough documentation to question the lack of criminal prosecution. We do hope that the penalties already imposed, those that may result from the civil litigation, and reorganization by the new Superintendent will be sufficient to halt further atrocities of this nature. The pending settlement of the civil suit along with this FDLE report SHOULD validate the Superintendent’s actions in this matter and bring to an end some of the dissension between the School Board and Superintendent. We would certainly like to see the recent improvement in their working relationship continue.