Broward County’s mayor vowed never to delegate the county’s authority on construction projects following an audit report that was highly critical of the costs of the new training facility at the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
“It has to go through a regular process where we are in charge of what happens with the money,” Mayor Nan Rich said at Thursday’s county commission meeting.
It’s the first time county commissioners, as a body, commented on the audit, which was released earlier this month.
The 72-page final report said the project’s initial estimated cost was $34 million, but the final project is currently anticipated to cost more than double at $73.7 million. Funding for the training center is short $9.2 million, the audit concluded.
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The new center has among other things: tactical firing ranges, classrooms, training labs and an auditorium.
“The base issue that allowed this to occur is the delegation of authority,” said Broward County Auditor Robert Melton. “It wasn’t all the Sheriff’s office fault, sometimes there was confusion with the county department involved in that.”
Sheriff Gregory Tony was not at Thursday’s commission meeting, but when the audit was published, it included a response from BSO where they said the report failed to consider a number of factors beyond their control that resulted in the increased costs.
Melton told commissioners the sheriff wanted the best for the project, but added the county had a responsibility to the taxpayers and should have been calling the shots.
“Since the building is a county building, the county owns it, not the Sheriff, the county needs to remain in control,” Melton said.
NBC6 News was the first to report the contents of the final audit. In it, the auditor wrote that $22 million was spent on change orders that included a $7.4 million wellness center that boasts of a physical therapy room with a sauna and cold plunge tub.
Past coverage
In Thursday’s meeting, several commissioners and the auditor mentioned the newly published letter from the Broward Lieutenants Association that claims “BSO is still severely underfunded” by the county and highlights issues at the department like “mass staffing shortages due to severely underpaid salaries that BSO Communications was dealing with in 2022 which resulted in numerous 911 call issues.”
The auditor told the commission their research found the sheriff’s office re-allocated about $8.6 million from other funds to put towards the training center. Of that figure, $4.8 million was taken from salaries.
“Much of that salary money was due to natural attrition, vacancies but the Sheriff’s office actually told us some of it was intentionally delaying filling of some positions,” Melton said.
“We are all getting emails talking about the salaries not being up to Palm Beach’s…and to hear that it went there instead, that bothers me,” said Tim Ryan, one of several Broward County commissioners who addressed the audit.
“This is not the outcome that the public would have wanted,” said Michael Udine, another commissioner.
