By Florida Each day Investigations
FORT LAUDERDALE — One week after a blistering inner audit uncovered severe flaws in Broward County Public Faculties’ newest building procurement, district management returned to the Faculty Board Tuesday asking for a do-over— a transfer critics say comes solely after Superintendent Howard Hepburn and Chief Operations Officer Wanda Paul drove the method right into a useless finish of their very own making.
Superintendent Hepburn introduced plans to ask the Board to reject all bids submitted underneath RFQ 26-059, the very solicitation his administration rushed ahead regardless of repeated warnings from Board members and inner authorized counsel.
The choice successfully concedes what the audit made clear: the procurement course of was essentially damaged from the beginning.
However rejecting the bids doesn’t erase the harm. As a substitute, it leaves the Board dealing with the identical disaster members warned about months in the past — no clear path ahead, looming deadlines, and the true risk of declaring an “emergency” to increase AECOM’s contract as a result of management did not plan.
A Manufactured Disaster — Then a Reset
The audit, authored by Chief Auditor Dave Rhodes, concluded that RFQ 26-059 was tormented by planning deficiencies, procedural deviations, and a rushed timeline that will have violated Florida’s aggressive choice legal guidelines.
But at Tuesday’s assembly, the administration framed rejection of the bids as a accountable corrective step — with out acknowledging that Hepburn and Wanda Paul had been the architects of the urgency now being cited as justification.
District spokesman John Sullivan mentioned the Superintendent is “persevering with to overview” the audit and can decide “applicable subsequent steps,” including that personnel issues might be addressed later.
That response did little to reassure Board members or observers who word that the identical management that triggered the issue is now asking for extra time and discretion to repair it.
Warnings Ignored — On the Report
The present disaster didn’t come out of nowhere.
As early as April, Board members publicly warned Superintendent Hepburn and COO Wanda Paul that the district was on a harmful timeline. Board Chair Sarah Leonardi cautioned that the Board may discover itself in January 2026 with no choices if procurement went sideways.
Her concern was direct and specific.
Wanda Paul dismissed the warning.
“I believe that we’ve ample time even when there’s a protest,” Paul informed the Board in April, assuring members that workers had discovered from previous failures and would do issues in a different way.
The audit now proves that assurance was flatly incorrect.
Not solely was there inadequate time — the administration did not comply with primary procurement steps, ignored the Board’s instruction to overview the RFQ earlier than issuance, after which leaned on “urgency” to justify bypassing analysis safeguards.
Hepburn’s Non-Involvement Declare Rings Hole
Superintendent Hepburn has tried to distance himself from probably the most controversial selections, telling auditors he “was not concerned” in directing the {Qualifications} Choice Analysis Committee (QSEC) to waive scoring and rating.
However the audit — and the timeline — inform a unique story.
Hepburn:
• Allowed RFQ 26-059 to be issued with out Board overview, regardless of specific path to carry it again,
• Presided over a procurement that collapsed underneath predictable authorized and procedural flaws,
• Didn’t intervene when QSEC was stripped of its statutory function, and
• Now asks the Board to wash up the mess by rejecting bids and contemplating emergency actions.
Management, critics argue, can’t be prevented just by claiming non-involvement after the implications arrive.
Wanda Paul’s Position: Strain, Assurances, and a Damaged Course of
If Hepburn enabled the failure, the audit makes clear that COO Wanda Paul drove it.
Auditors documented that:
• Paul pushed workers and authorized counsel to maintain all three distributors in play even after none met monetary necessities,
• Paul was recognized by the Assistant Normal Counsel because the administrator who wished to proceed regardless,
• Paul oversaw a solicitation riddled with contradictions — two companies vs. “at least two,” CMA-OR vs. program administration, monetary standards nobody may justify,
• And Paul assured the Board repeatedly that timelines had been underneath management — assurances now confirmed false.
When QSEC met on October 15, members weren’t given vendor supplies, had been introduced with pre-written motions, and had been steered into waiving analysis altogether.
One movement referenced the “Faculty Board Administration’s need” to barter with all three companies — a need auditors traced instantly again to Wanda Paul.
Now the ‘Emergency’ They Had been Warned About
Satirically, the emergency situation district attorneys warned towards earlier this yr — and that Paul downplayed — has now arrived.
AECOM’s contract expires January 17, 2026. District attorneys had beforehand informed the Board that extensions past that date had been usually prohibited and legally dangerous.
Now, with RFQ 26-059 seemingly useless, Board member Allen Zeman says the district could don’t have any alternative however to declare an emergency and prolong AECOM anyway — exactly the result Board members feared and management assured them wouldn’t occur.
“That is precisely the place we mentioned we didn’t wish to be,” one Board observer famous privately after Tuesday’s assembly.
Jacobs, Piggybacking, and the Unanswered Query
The audit — and subsequent reporting — additionally revived lingering considerations about Jacobs Engineering.
Earlier this yr, Wanda Paul tried to piggyback a Duval County contract with Jacobs — an effort the Board rejected. Jacobs later reemerged as considered one of solely three proposers underneath RFQ 26-059.
The audit doesn’t allege favoritism, nevertheless it raises uncomfortable questions: Why was a flawed course of repeatedly bent to maintain all distributors alive, quite than restarted when necessities failed? And why had been aggressive safeguards discarded as an alternative of enforced?
These questions stay unanswered.
Conclusion: Accountability Deferred, Penalties Speedy
Tuesday’s Faculty Board assembly made one factor clear: the administration now admits the method failed.
What it has not admitted — no less than not publicly — is who failed the method.
Superintendent Hepburn and COO Wanda Paul ignored warnings, bypassed oversight, dismissed considerations, and pressed ahead till the system collapsed. Now, they ask the Board for flexibility, emergency authority, and endurance.
The Board should resolve whether or not rejecting RFQ 26-059 is sufficient — or whether or not actual accountability is required earlier than historical past repeats itself but once more.
As a result of if the previous decade has proven something, it’s this:
In Broward County, building crises don’t occur by chance — they occur when management refuses to pay attention.
