Tallahassee - Friday August 26, 2022: The Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury recommended the suspension of four current Broward County school board members from office. A now-former fifth school board member, Rosalind Osgood, was also named, but she is no longer working as a school board member, and is not subject to the Governor’s executive suspension authority.
A week after the final report Governor Ron DeSantis carried out the recommendation, suspended Broward School Board Members Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson from office. Levinson has called the findings of the report and its recommendations "a political hatchet job."
These suspensions are effective immediately. To read Executive Order 22-202, click here.
The suspended board members represent the district where the Parkland School massacre occurred. The Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury was impaneled by the Florida Supreme Court in February 2019, a year after the Parkland shootings.
“The findings of the Statewide Grand Jury affirm the work of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission," said Governor DeSantis in a release. "It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance.”
The Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury was asked to examine four issues, including the Parkland school shooting, and whether public entities and school officials committed fraud and deceit by mismanaging funds devoted to school safety.
The Jury found that a safety-related alarm that could have possibly saved lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “was and is such a low priority that it remains uninstalled at multiple schools.” The report also found that "students continue to be educated in unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago.”
The report also accuses the suspended board members of mismanaging the SMART Program, a multimillion-dollar bond specifically solicited for school safety and renovation initiatives. The report says that the Board was aware of serious problems with the SMART Program, including former Superintendent Runcie’s inability or unwillingness to manage the problems, yet they did not take action to correct those problems.
A news release from the Governor's office states that the failure of the Board members to improve school facilities and correct safety deficiencies has been "inexcusable" and the statement accuses the board members of showing "a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement, across the district."
To read the full Statewide Grand Jury report, click here.
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at the High School in Parkland, murdering 17 people and injuring 17 others. Cruz has already pleaded guilty and a trial continued to determine whether he will spend life in prison or face the death penalty.
The Governor made the following four appointments to the Broward County School Board to replace the members he suspended:
• Torey Alston, former Commissioner of the Broward County Board of County Commissioners and President of Indelible Solutions;
• Manual “Nandy” A. Serrano, member of the Florida Sports Foundation Board of Directors, and CEO and Founder of Clubhouse Private Wealth;
• Ryan Reiter, a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran and Director of Government Relations for Kaufman Lynn Construction; and
• Kevin Tynan, Attorney with Richardson and Tynan, who previously served on the Broward County School Board and South Broward Hospital District.