9486 in the collection
Florida State Ed More Worried About Tests than Children Put in Harm's Way by Crooks
The train wreck otherwise known as the Miami-Dade County school district can't possibly be salvaged by a state oversight board acting alone. A battalion of prosecutors is also needed.
As documented in a recent Herald series, the school district has blown millions upon millions of dollars on shoddy construction, laughably inexperienced architects and highly dubious cost adjustments.
The waste on school projects is so routine and institutionalized that random incompetence must be ruled out. It's impossible to believe that any group of bureaucrats -- even in South Florida -- could be so collectively and consistently derelict over the course of 15 years.
Despite appearances to the contrary, the Miami-Dade school administration wasn't just a bunch of halfwits running amok. It was a criminal enterprise that needed to be attacked as such.
All that wasted money didn't just evaporate. It went into a multitude of pockets, and finding out whose pockets shouldn't be too difficult.
What could be more important than tracking down, prosecuting and locking up those responsible for victimizing thousands of kids?
And that's the real crime here. While taxpayers are being serially ripped off, it's the children who are paying the highest price for the school district's misconduct. They're the ones being crammed into overcrowded classrooms inside crumbling firetraps.
In 1988, Miami-Dade voters approved a $980 million bond issue for building schools to keep up with the county's bloating population. A high school economics class could have handled the windfall more responsibly than the school district.
Most schools that got built were completed long after they were supposed to be done, and they were packed well beyond capacity on opening day. The average delay on projects was more than two years, and 30 projects sat idle for more than five years. As the kids stewed in portables, the costs spiraled upward.
According to The Herald's analysis, 39 of 44 new schools surpassed their construction budgets by a total of $117 million -- or enough to build 10 new elementary schools.
Who screwed up? You name it -- architects, engineers, builders. Even when competent work was being done, district staffers were allowed to make costly last-minute changes.
Getting to the gnarly root of the scandal would be frustrating, but not impossible. All it would take is a couple of sharp federal prosecutors and, say, a half-dozen FBI agents.
The most logical place to begin is the School Board, which has unfathomably awarded more than $228 million in repeat business to 21 contractors who've been late with previous projects, failed to finish them entirely or did half-ass jobs on those they did finish.
Gosh, do you think any of those contractors had personal or political connections to certain School Board members?
One intriguing case involves Roma Construction, which in 1990 was hired to build Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary. The school ended up 390 days late in construction, and Roma withdrew before the work was done.
Yet four years later, the board gave Roma a $14.6 million contract to build Paul Bell Middle School. Afterward, the district successfully filed for damages, claiming Roma had put in the wrong walls and cafeteria floor, screwed up the electrical system and failed to finish the concrete.
Imagine that.
Left on its own, the School Board undoubtedly would give Roma an even-bigger contract the next time around. That's why Gov. Jeb Bush and legislators have intervened, forcing the district to cooperate with a state oversight board.
Parents are at their wit's end. Teachers are pulling their hair out. Principals are pleading for help.
So much money has been squandered on construction fiascoes that more than 44,000 fire and safety hazards in hundreds of schools remain uncorrected.
Miami Senior High has 486 outstanding violations all by itself. If it was a burger joint it would have been shut down as a public menace.
That the School Board has been willing to leave thousands of children in harm's way, despite repeated warnings from fire marshals, is nothing short of criminal.
Consider this: Adding together local bond funds, state construction dollars and property tax revenues, the Miami-Dade school district has taken in nearly $6 billion to build and maintain schools over the last 15 years.
Six billion dollars -- and they can't afford a $50 smoke detector.
State oversight is the least you should expect, since it's obvious that the School Board can't be trusted with a nickel. It's even more obvious that big-league skimming has been going on, and that some people in high places belong in prison. Where the fire sprinklers probably work just fine.
— Carl Hiaasen
Putting students in harm's way is criminal
Miami Herald
Feb. 23,, 2003
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/5234337.htm
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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