Broward Schools largely spent money from a 2022 referendum for employee pay, safety and mental health as promised to voters, with a couple of exceptions, an audit has found.

One major finding related to a controversial decision in 2024 to use some referendum dollars to provide bonuses of more than $10,000 to the highest-paid administrators. The School Board stopped those payments in January 2026 after the South Florida Sun Sentinel raised questions about them.

Auditors also found that during the 2023-24 school year, when top-paid administrators were ineligible for referendum bonuses, one higher-paid administrator received the money. The employee has reimbursed the district, the audit states.

“Except for the two findings discussed in this report, the audit found no evidence of material noncompliance with voter-approved referendum requirements or systemic weaknesses affecting the administration of referendum funds,” states the report, prepared for the district by S. Davis & Associates, an accounting firm.

The School Board is scheduled to review the audit at a Sept. 15 School Board meeting.

The school district commissioned the audit, which reviewed referendum expenses from 2023 to the present, as it seeks to ask voters to renew the referendum on Nov. 3.

Voters agreed in 2022 to pay $100 per $100,000 in assessed property to help improve employee pay and fund police and security officers and mental health counselors. By state law, the referendum expires in four years, unless voters renew it.

School district officials told the public in 2022 that 75% of the money would be used to increase pay for teachers and staff but didn’t list all the staff members who would be eligible.

In 2023, the School Board agreed to give teachers bonuses that ranged from $500 to $12,0000, and to give most other employees bonuses equal to 5.5% of their salary. That year, the highest-paid administrators, including chiefs, associate superintendents and executive directors, were excluded from getting any referendum dollars.

That changed on July 30, 2024, when the highest-paid employees were approved to also receive 5.5% bonuses. Auditors didn’t take a position on whether it was appropriate to give those employees referendum bonuses. But they did question the way it was done.

The 2024 agenda item said that eligible employees would receive 5.5% bonuses, but didn’t explain that the highest-paid employees were now eligible for the first time. Several School Board members said they didn’t realize they had approved such a significant change.

“There was some process confusion, and we did pay high-priced administrators a bonus out of the referendum money that had the board been aware of it, we absolutely would not have supported it,” Board member Allen Zeman told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

The audit states that “the School Board agenda item accurately reflected the proposed salary schedules but did not fully explain the historical context of the expansion of referendum eligibility to all eligible (administrative) employees. Providing this information would have enhanced transparency and better informed Board deliberations and public understanding.”

Auditors recommended revising the executive summary agenda materials to “provide sufficient historical background and explanation of significant policy changes” for future agendas.

Superintendent Howard Hepburn told the district’s Audit Committee on Aug. 13 that the district has already made those changes.

“We retooled the entire executive summary to provide more detailed information that would help with informed decision-making,” Hepburn said at the meeting. “We also instituted board prep where we meet with the board members prior to the Board meeting for 30 minutes to an hour to answer any questions, to go over any items in greater detail just to make sure they have a clear understanding before they actually get on the dais and start making votes.”

The School Board has also decided to restrict who can receive referendum funds if voters renew it in November. Those with the position of director or above will be ineligible, the board decided.

The second issue identified by the auditors involved an improper referendum payment to one employee. During the 2023-24 school year, directors were eligible to receive referendum dollars, but executive directors were not.

The director of talent acquisition was promoted that school year to an executive director but still received the referendum bonus.

“Following the promotion, the referendum pay should have been stopped since the Executive Director … is not eligible for the supplement,” the district wrote in a management response. “The payments were discontinued, and the overpaid funds were recovered in accordance with District procedures.”

The finding was actually a pleasant surprise for some members of the audit committee.

“I really think that one exception out of more than 27,000 positions is actually quite remarkable from what we often see in here, so I was just kind of amazed,” Mary Fertig, chair of the Audit Committee, said at the Aug. 13 meeting.

Overall, district officials said they were pleased with the results of the audit, which found that teachers and other non-managers were all paid properly, and money was spent on mental health and safety and security properly.

“The independent audit confirms what matters most: Referendum dollars were spent substantially as Broward County voters intended,” district spokesman John Sullivan said. “The auditors found no material deficiencies and confirmed that spending was consistent with the voter-approved categories.”

Sullivan said the audit also identified places where the district can improve.

“We take that seriously,” Sullivan said. “When one employee kept receiving a supplement after becoming ineligible, the District stopped the payments, recovered the money and put additional safeguards in place.”

He added that the district’s job “is to inform the public, not to campaign,” but added, “the audit gives independent validation that these dollars were used as intended. We’ll keep earning the public’s trust through transparency, oversight and accountability, and we’ll make sure voters have what they need to decide the referendum’s future for themselves.”