The board approved the reforms in light of ex-board member Lubby Navarro’s arrest on fraud and grand theft charges. NBC6’s Ari Odzer reports
The Miami-Dade County School Board voted to police itself Wednesday.
The accusations against former board member Lubby Navarro hit the school district like a tidal wave, as the superintendent and school board members worried about losing public support and trust. She’s charged with spending more than $100,000 on personal items, charging them to her school district-issued purchase card.
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WATCH HERENavarro’s former colleagues were shocked by the allegations.
“They’re all extremely problematic and reprehensible, and this alleged conduct cannot be tolerated,” said school board chair Mari Tere Rojas.
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Rojas introduced an item calling for more stringent auditing procedures, saying Navarro’s alleged spending spree of taxpayer dollars lasted at least a year.
“The board needs to know how and why these expenditures and increases occurred and were allowed for a period of 12 months,” Rojas said.
The board approved a series of reforms, including immediate audits of the board members’ purchase cards and annual audits of the board members and the superintendent, and they’re waiting for more recommendations from the county’s inspector general.
“There should be an oversight from outside and I welcome it, our finances should be fully transparent, everything in government’s transparent, as are my emails, my communications, so definitely, I welcome it,” said board member Roberto Alonso.
“I think that the inspector general will be suggesting some measures that I surely will be supportive of to ensure that moving forward, nothing like we’ve seen outlined in the arrest warrant will be able to happen,” added board member Luisa Santos.
Board member Dr. Steve Gallon said like any other problem, this issue can be tackled effectively.
“We always want to streamline and make improvements, we do that from an academic standpoint, we do that from an operational standpoint, we do that from a safety and security standpoint and obviously, we should do that from a financial responsibility standpoint,” Gallon said.
Until now, the district had not audited school board members since 2011.
“You trust but you verify,” said superintendent Dr. Jose Dotres in a news conference after the board approved the reform package.
Dotres said he strongly supports the board’s action to beef up the auditing process.
“Every single thing that is important has been audited, and now what we’ve realized is, we’re gonna look again at our purchasing procedures and any tweaks, any strengthening we have to do, we’ll do them,” Dotres said.
