“Dump School Bureaucrat Who Signed No-Bid Contract With Insiders”
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The same school bureaucrat who handed out secret no-bid contracts to insiders that paid better than teachers is stonewalling a formal request to reveal other deals she made.
Micky Pope, the chief of support services, rejected an unanimous motion of the school system’s citizen Diversity Committee that she provide copies of all contracts she signed.
Her stalling prompted a call to remove Pope from overseeing the Diversity Committee.
One diversity committee member, who asked that his name not be used, described last Thursday’s Diversity Committee meeting as a “donnybrook.”
“Ms. Pope told us that we might consider making a public records request instead of going through the Committee, she said she was not even sure if we had the authority to do our own “investigation”, and she even went as far as to hint that the records we asked for (again, secret contracts between her, as a school board employee, and members of the Diversity Committee) will probably not able to be produced in time for our next meeting (one month from now),” according to his e-mail description of the events.
Pope’s filibuster promoted this diversity committee member to ask Supertendent Robert Runcie to remove her from supervising the Diversity Committee.
“Since Ms. Pope is at the heart of this controversy, her continued involvement in and influence over the committee cannot be tolerated,” he wrote Runcie.
Runcie could not be reached for comment.
Browardbeat.com disclosed last week that Pope signed a secret no-bid $500-a-day contract with Diversity Committee members Jeanne Jusevic and Jessica Herthel for parent and student training. Most teachers don’t make $500-a-day.
The contracts called for Jusevic and Herthel to promote health and to develop a gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual training manual. Jusevic has no formal training in the subject, while Herthel is a lawyer with an inactive Florida license.
Browardbeat.com’s earlier story is here.
December 9th, 2013 at 1:59 pm
The school system will never clean up its act. This woman will be taken off the Diversity Committee. She will never be fired for breaking the rules. Others are just as guilty about wasting money and giving it to their friends, neighbors and family. Employees like Pope are why the School Board doesn’t want to have an ethics law.
December 9th, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Why would the committee member not make his name known? His statement is not inflammatory and if true, I would think he would want to stand by it. He has a position of responsibility and, I believe, a duty to express himself on such issues; he should not be afraid to speak up.
December 9th, 2013 at 7:28 pm
Any comment from runcie yet?
FROM BUDDY:
No
December 9th, 2013 at 8:10 pm
Risking stating the obvious, if in fact the employee refused to produce the contracts, that employee needs to be removed from her position of authority.
If the contracts reveal collusion or corruption the employee needs to be removed from all public employment and the case referred to some entity in Broward that can actually investigate with a goal of uncovering evidence that would convince a jury.
But that seems to happen rarely here in Broward, doesn’t it.
December 10th, 2013 at 12:12 am
Hey Buddy
Clean up needs to be top down. First, the board members who appointed these two (Jeanne Jusevic and Jessica Herthel)should be kicked out in November 2014 by the voters.
December 10th, 2013 at 8:21 am
How about we pay someone $500.00 a day to teach so kids can actually read, write, and perform basic math skills instead of on crap like this. And we wonder why the rest of the world is miles ahead of us in education. The School Boards are more concerned about teaching this.
December 10th, 2013 at 9:21 am
Maybe take the 100k a year some are being paid to mow the grass at the district and put that towards math teachers or throw in the million or so dollars bcsb has to pay back to the state,both stories were in the ss last week.
Buddy call Runcie and tell him you want to discuss the bond, bet that gets you a call back quick.
Maybe Runcie should focus on getting financial control of the District as it stands now so he has some credibility when he asks the people for a tax increase for his bond.
December 10th, 2013 at 9:35 am
No-bid deals smell of either favoritism, nepotism, or an actual pay-off.
Transparency in Government supersedes the end result.If any Board, Commission or Council isn’t forthright in it’s dealings with anyone and everyone, it casts doubt.
Corruption is plain & simple, if this doesn’t seem right to sooooo many people, chances are it isn’t, and someone from the outside needs to step in and see what happened.
This Board acts under the main School Board, and like past articles state, they are looking for a 1 BILLION dollar bond, let’s see how they handle this little ‘Family” situation before I cast my vote for the BIG BUCKS….
Rico Petrocelli
December 12th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
I smell an inside job smh such a shame I dont know how they sleep at night!
December 12th, 2013 at 8:13 pm
Hey we’re getting ready to give a $170,000 no bid contract to McGladry to watch over our $2,000,000 contract for URS program management. And of course current Facilities Project Management staff will be retained to watch over both!
LMAO Karnack!
December 15th, 2013 at 8:53 am
When everyone realizes that we need a clean sweep of everyone, then things have a chance of improving. We need FBI investigations, reporters doing stories about all of this corruption, and the general public to scream for action. Until this occurs, all of the scum in Broward County will remain in control.
December 16th, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Shameful as usual.. Move on… Nothing new here…
March 13th, 2014 at 9:06 pm
First Nora Ruppert appoints Jursevic to the diversity committee so that she can get no bid contract of $12,000 for three months of work. Now Ruppert is appointing members of the facilities department employees to the external audit committee.
Please someone stop this woman or get her the card for Bev Gallagher’s attorney!