One financial fiasco should have been enough.
But we’re talking about Broward County Public Schools, so it took a second one — and a whopper at that — to force the inevitable departure of Wanda Paul as the district’s chief of operations.
In back-to-back bureaucratic failures, Paul’s operation mishandled an office building lease, then botched a bid procurement to select a vendor to manage a chronically delayed construction program.
But if you’re looking for Paul to accept responsibility for these failures, look elsewhere. She issued a two-sentence resignation letter Sunday, between Christmas and New Year’s, an annual holiday break when too few taxpayers were paying attention and schools were closed.
“Please accept this letter as my formal resignation as Chief of Operations, effective June 5,” Paul wrote. “My last day in the office will be April 3, 2026, to allow for an orderly transition and continuity of operations.”
That’s it. No apology, no mea culpa, no acknowledgement of what forced Paul out — that she helped create a crisis that will not soon fix itself.
A state of emergency
Superintendent Howard Hepburn declared an emergency in mid-December over the lapse in construction oversight and warned that a slowdown could lead to failures in school life-safety systems, “which creates a risk of injury or death.”
In the first case, the district somehow needed to spend $2.6 million to rent staff space, even as it faces historic declines in student enrollment, with plans to close seven schools while offering its own headquarters for sale or lease, and with a budget shortfall approaching $100 million.
At a meeting on Nov. 4, board members learned that taxpayers were on the hook for $275,000 in rent even before any employees were working there.
Those optics were awful enough. But school board members broke the lease that was tilted in the landlord’s favor, again due to a lack of due diligence. The building’s owner is suing the district, in part for alleged damage to its reputation.
The greater reputational damage here is to the school district, and to the school board, for what appears to everyone as self-inflicted wounds. It will be a long time before the nation’s sixth-largest school district will be able to ask voters for more money.
Still on the payroll
We had heard rumblings of Paul’s resignation for weeks, and Hepburn was well aware that she had lost the board’s confidence. In an editorial on Dec. 28, we noted that she was “vulnerable.”
Hours after the editorial appeared, the board’s newest member, Adam Cervera, demanded Paul resign.
“The scale, repetition and impact of these breakdowns leave no credible path forward under the current leadership structure,” Cervera said in a statement.
Paul will leave, eventually. She remains on the payroll for five months, including two months of accrued leave, at her yearly salary of $221,450. That will not restore public confidence in how Broward schools are managed.
Broward Superintendent Howard Hepburn, pictured on Aug. 26, may be facing a crisis of confidence after his operations chief had no option but to quit. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
After all that’s happened, it’s best that Paul not be part of any “orderly transition.”
This may be a pivotal moment for Hepburn. One more fiscal fiasco could be politically catastrophic.
Time for decisive action
After only a year-and-a-half as superintendent, and weeks after a glowing job review, Hepburn needs to take decisive action to restore trust with teachers, parents and board members. A single resignation isn’t enough.
Next Tuesday, Jan. 6, Hepburn is scheduled to present a plan of corrective action to his nine School Board bosses, five of whom are up for election in 2026 (if all five run).
The atmosphere is thick with suspicion, and that can make the campaign trail a very treacherous place for board members.
The size of the district and the frequency and magnitude of the challenges remain daunting. At the last board meeting Dec. 16, the agenda backup materials totaled 3,074 pages. Meetings run for seven, eight, nine hours. The work is vastly tougher when the staff and board don’t trust each other.
Blaming staff in this case appears justified. But it is not a solution. In the end, only the board members are accountable to voters.
In the uproar over the botched lease, board member Allen Zeman cautioned against finger-pointing and challenged his colleagues to keep asking questions.
“It’s our responsibility to review contracts. It’s our responsibility to ask questions, and it’s on the Broward County School Board for making this mistake,” Zeman said. “I don’t think that we can walk away from our own responsibility.”
And so, a new year begins for Broward County Public Schools.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.