Florida School System Lays Off Teachers After Agreeing to Spend $1 Million on Butterfly Gardens: "
From the Sun-Sentinel:
For years, Weston developer Roy Rogers planted gardens designed to lure butterflies to Broward schools, using volunteer labor and donated supplies. His generosity and commitment to teaching kids about nature drew plaudits as did his signature act: placing a butterfly on the tip of a delighted child’s nose.
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Beginning in 2004, however, the gardens and Rogers’ services were no longer free. The district began paying for them.
Ultimately, over the next four years, Rogers’ firm collected more than $394,000 from the school system, mostly for butterfly gardens but also to aid a school in the hunt for grant funding.
Rogers could have been paid more had the district not run into towering deficits. A three-year contract he agreed to in 2007 was worth up to $1 million.
“I sure didn’t get to the $1 million mark!” Rogers said in a recent interview.
The gardens have their defenders, but are dismissed as a “ridiculous,” unnecessary luxury by Broward County PTA Council President Bernie Kemp.
“I don’t agree with it. I don’t support it,” Kemp said, noting that many parents would question why the district would agree to spend up to seven figures to attract butterflies when their children’s schools might have more immediate needs, such as replacing old computers or fire sprinklers.
Though there has been no suggestion that anything unethical or illegal was involved in the creation of the gardens, a statewide grand jury investigating the misuse of public funds within the school system has requested detailed records on the agreement with Rogers and payments to him, documents show.
Rogers, 74, said he welcomes the review.
“I’d like to know they took a look at it and found there wasn’t cronyism or enrichment,” Rogers said, stressing that he has not been implicated in any wrongdoing or questioned by authorities.
The scrutiny, however, could turn awkward for Rogers, who also chairs the Florida Commission on Ethics. The statewide panel is empowered by law to mete out penalties to public servants who do not adhere to official standards of conduct.
Read the whole thing here. Wait…the butterfly guy ALSO chairs the state’s Commission on Ethics? Yeah, it is ‘only’ a million bucks, but the system has faced severe cash shortages and has been forced to layoff teachers. Decisions like this one might go a long way to explain those cash shortages.
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