The Grand Jury met seventeen (17) times and received testimony from seventy eight (78) witnesses in its review of the 1997 Interim Report on School Construction. These witnesses included parents, teachers, architects, engineers, contractors, and school administrators, along with building inspectors, auditors, custodians, project managers, present and former School Board administrators, and five School Board Members. These witnesses testified in detail about construction issues in over forty (40) schools.

In this report we will address the School Board's attempts to fix schools built from 1987 to 1996. As noted in the 1997 report, these schools marked a significant change in School Board philosophy: aesthetically pleasing schools would be built instead of the "shoe boxes" built in earlier years. One such school was Riverside Elementary, a prototype for four other schools. In addition, the School Board used three other prototypes to build thirty (30) more elementary schools during these ten years. Unfortunately, these new schools and school additions have become construction and maintenance nightmares. Nearly every school built during this time period has had water intrusion and nearly all of them now need substantial roof repairs and air conditioning redesign and/or replacement. In our subtropical climate where sixty (60) inches of rain fall every year, leaks from roofs, walls, and windows have caused tremendous amounts of excess moisture to enter our schools. This moisture has not only rotted the interiors of our schools, it has also allowed, and actually fostered, the growth of mold and mildew.

Exposure to mold and mildew is a health risk for students, teachers, and other building occupants. Mold in fact is now a considerable problem at many of our schools. How the School Board is addressing this problem will be the focus of this report, as the health and safety of our students, teachers, and school employees depend on the School Board's resolve to fix the mold and mildew problems which pervade our school system.

We will also address the current School Board construction program and consider how well the schools that have opened since 1996 have functioned. In addition, we will discuss two recurring problems from 1997: the occupation of unfinished schools and the School Board's failure to correct construction defects in recently opened schools. This report will also discuss two new problems which have emerged since the 1997 report: the effect of lobbyists on the School Board's selection process of construction professionals and the School Board's decision to allow construction of many schools without final approved plans.

We will also discuss how the School Board Maintenance Division interacts with the Facilities and Construction Management Division and whether there should be changes in the maintenance procedures for our schools.

After a brief introduction, this report will discuss the following topics:

1. The problem of mold and mildew in our schools

a. Health problems of students and teachers

b. Governmental studies of mold and mildew

c. Current mold and mildew remediation practices

d. Remediation and repair of prototype schools

e. Costs of remediation of schools with mold and mildew problems

f. Litigation arising out of mold and mildew claims

2. Schools constructed since 1996-1997

a. Schools opening just before the issuance of the 1997 Grand Jury report

b. Overview of recent construction

c. The inspection process for new construction

3. Occupation of unfinished schools

4. The "real cost" of school construction

5. Lobbyists' effect on the selection process of construction professionals

The 1997 Grand Jury focused its attention primarily on those schools and school additions which opened between1987 and 1996. Although the 1997 Grand Jury Report briefly mentioned several schools completed in 1996 and 1997, it did not address them in detail.

The report of that Grand Jury named school after school where roofs leaked, windows leaked, and stucco fell off walls. In addition, many of these schools were opened to students prior to completion. Punchlists, that is the list of incomplete items compiled at the end of the project just before the time of occupation, were inches thick and hundreds of pages long for many of the schools built during this time period.

The 1997 Grand Jury Report also published the repair cost estimates for these schools. In schools where repair projects have begun, the cost of repairs has exceeded the School Board's estimates in nearly every instance. In some of these schools, repairs have only just begun after a dozen years of constant leaks. In other schools, repairs could only be partially completed. In still other schools, despite years of leaking roofs, air conditioning failures, and window malfunctions, no repair programs even exist. School Board officials and employees blame much of the delay or inaction on inadequate financial resources and not being able to address everything at once. In addition, they point out that these projects will take considerable time to design and complete. The remediation program, however, is far from complete and this Grand Jury is greatly concerned as to whether the School Board's halting, inconsistent, and sometimes incomplete remediation efforts have adversely affected the health of its students and teachers.

Some of the old problems with school construction continue: the School Board remains under great pressure to open new schools and to enlarge and repair old schools. Each year for the past ten years, an average of more than seven thousand six hundred (7,600) new students have started school in Broward County. This year's relatively small increase of five thousand (5,000) new students is perhaps a sign that this phenomenal growth has slowed, or may be only a one-year aberration. In addition, the pressure to house new students is not uniform county-wide, but concentrated in the western portions of the county, and primarily in such cities as Weston, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Coral Springs, and Parkland. This is where schools must be built if the children are to have classroom space. The older schools in the eastern portions of the county also need repair and/or replacement so valid arguments also exist for building programs in the eastern portion as well as the western portions of our county.

The School Board, much to the dismay of the Grand Jury, has once again begun to occupy schools before they are completed. There are also schools where the punchlist is still incomplete years after the schools have opened. While gigantic punchlists on the order of Sawgrass Springs Middle School (456 pages) no longer seem to be the norm, the disturbing trend to occupy before completion has re-emerged.

Our inquiry has determined that there also is little or no accountability for disastrous school projects. Perhaps the sheer number of failed projects during this time period prevented such accountability, but we are now paying for those mistakes. The average cost of fixing the Riverside Elementary prototypes now exceeds two million ($2,000,000) dollars. The repairs to the Forest Glen Middle School prototypes average nearly one million ($1,000,000) dollars. Sea Castle Elementary School which opened in 1991 now needs approximately one million, five hundred thousand ($1,500,000) dollars to solve its water intrusion problems.

There is also a new problem which has emerged since 1997. The School Board, in its haste to begin projects, did not always insist on complete, approved architectural plans prior to the commencement of construction. Many projects have begun without completed plans and some were nearly finished before the final set of plans was approved. It is small wonder that inspections on these projects have been difficult to perform. In addition, considerable tension has developed between School Board inspectors and Facilities Division personnel during construction due to the status of these plans. Dozens of School Board projects began with only partially completed plans. The Florida Building Code took effect in March, 2002 and governs all school construction designed after that date. New projects can no longer begin with incomplete plans.

Before looking at these issues in more depth, it may be helpful to first provide additional information regarding the School Board construction system.

The School Board generally utilizes one of three construction processes when building large projects. The first method, where the architect independently designs the project and all interested contractors submit sealed bids, is called design-bid-build, or "hard bid". The lowest bidder receives the contract to build the school. The second procedure is called design-build-bid, where the architect and contractor form an entity and submit their proposal for construction to the School Board. The third process is called construction management at risk, where the architect and contractor remain independent of each other but work together in both the design review and the construction phases of the project. In construction management at risk, the contractor submits a guaranteed maximum price for the project unless the School Board approves changes to the project. In the last two instances, the lowest bidder is not necessarily awarded the contract because the School Board can select the short-listed contractor and architect it wishes without regard to the lowest price.

Before 1997, all school construction proceeded by design-bid-build. The lowest bidder received the construction contract and built according to the independent architect's plans. The advantage to this method was that the School Board would get its projects built at a set price, which in theory was the lowest price possible. Only through change orders could the cost of construction increase. In addition, the architect is the representative of the School Board during construction and acts to protect the School Board's interests.

The problem with this method of construction stemmed primarily from contractors who defaulted or fell so far behind that their project completion was years behind schedule. This occurred repeatedly during the 1987-96 period. In response, the School Board modified this procedure by pre-qualifying contractors. This allowed the School Board to weed out some of the more unstable contracting firms and to insure, at least in theory, that all the contractors bidding on a project could financially weather the pressures and volatility of the construction process. The problem with change order price increases has remained, as evidenced by the Liberty Elementary School project where change orders exceeded five hundred thousand ($500,000) dollars, or six percent (6%) of the original construction costs. The modified design-bid-build system is the overwhelmingly preferred method of construction of the Facilities Division which oversees the construction of all new schools, all additions to existing schools, and all repair projects in excess of two hundred thousand ($200,000) dollars.

The second method, design-build-bid, has one great advantage. Both the contractor and architect can be selected without resort to the lowest bidder. Its advocates believe that as a result "better" contractors can be chosen and less capable contractors avoided. The job should also proceed much more smoothly because the architect and contractor are working together as a team on a project they designed. There should also be fewer change orders, although at Parkside Elementary, the change orders exceeded two hundred fifty thousand ($250,000) dollars, or approximately three percent (3%) of the original cost of construction. This process is recommended by established contractors who, as one such contractor testified, believe that the hard bid system all but requires corner cutting and decreased quality in order to build at a set price. It is also generally more expensive than the traditional design-bid-build, "hard bid", system.

The third process is construction management at risk, where the School Board selects the architect and contractor separately, to design and build the project. The construction management at risk method is favored by the School Board, particularly with phased replacement projects where existing schools are gradually replaced by new construction. Under this process, the contractor must justify all expenditures to the School Board even though he has an established maximum price for the project. Change orders have also been expensive under this method; at Silver Shores Elementary School, they totaled over three hundred thirty thousand ($330,000) dollars, or approximately four percent (4%) of the original building cost.

The construction professional selection process also has changed from the time of the 1997 Grand Jury report. Although the Consultant Review Committee (CRC) is still in existence, it is comprised of one School Board Member, approximately eight (8) School Board appointees, representatives of the District PTA and the District Advisory Council, and members of the Facilities Division. The CRC formerly concerned itself primarily with the selection of the architects and engineers for school projects. The contractor was generally chosen by the lowest bid method. Now, because of the design build and construction management at risk processes, the CRC participates in the contractor selection process. It shortlists all architects, engineers, and contractors who make up either the design-build team or who are bidding for the construction management at risk projects.

The School Board's selection of architects and engineers on the traditional design-bid-build projects is usually final, although the Board must still ratify this selection and may refuse to follow that decision for good cause.

The School Board makes the final selection of the design build team and chooses the architect and contractor for the construction management at risk projects. Each of these processes has its advocates and detractors. School Board members point out that fewer projects are late or in default under the design build and construction management at risk processes than under the old design-bid-build system. The advocates of the design-bid-build or "hard bid" process, on the other hand, believe that pre-qualification now weeds out the "bottom feeders" and also enables the School Board to get projects built at the lowest possible cost. Whether the actual cost of a school, that is, the cost of construction and the cost of operation, maintenance, and repair, should be a relevant consideration will be discussed in a subsequent section of this report.

The weakness of the consultant review committee system is that most members of the committee are not construction professionals. They must depend on the Facilities Division for information about the architects, engineers, and contractors who are applying for school projects. How well these professionals' previous school projects have fared is known by only a few individuals. The Maintenance Division does not provide information to this committee about major repair or maintenance problems, if any, on the applicants' previous school projects. Sometimes information is not regularly provided to the committee as to which candidates' projects have failed or the reasons for their failure, according to the testimony of both present and past members of that committee.

The School Board's response to the mold and mildew problem in its schools has undergone several name changes. Initially in 1995-96, it was known as the Mold and Mildew Remediation Project. That changed to the Indoor Air Quality Program or IAQ. The School Board Facilities Division labeled their own program the Indoor Environmental Quality or IEQ project. These names will be used interchangeably throughout this report.

The School Board's Risk Management, Maintenance, and Facilities Division then combined in 1996 and 1997 to produce estimates for mold and mildew remediation. Based on those estimates, the School Board allotted forty four million ($44,000,000) dollars for the remediation of our schools. In 1999, the School Board retained two private engineering firms to study over 125 of the most damaged schools and determine the cost of mold and mildew remediation for each school. How these estimates have varied from the School Board's original estimates will be discussed in more detail in this report.

Although the 1997 Grand Jury Report mentioned mold and mildew concerns with the recently constructed schools on pages 21 and 24, the report's focus was not on this topic. However, shortly after the report was issued, the School Board announced a forty four million ($44,000,000) dollar program to address the mold and mildew problem in approximately 150 schools. This represented at least sixty percent (60%) of all schools then in operation in the district, highlighting the fact that the problem of mold and mildew has grown in importance and severity.

The public's awareness of this problem has likewise increased. There have been local media articles about mold-ridden schools. Television news programs have begun to feature stories on the subject. Mold and mildew remediation, after a long dormancy, has finally begun in earnest for many schools. In addition, the Grand Jury has received testimony from teachers, school employees, parents and administrators about health problems which are not only increasing in severity but also coinciding with prolonged exposure to mold and mildew in our schools.

Health problems for teachers generally involve allergies. Many witnesses testified that before they began teaching at a particular school, their allergies either did not exist or were relatively benign. After several years in such rain-soaked schools as Sea Castle or Riverside, however, there was testimony that their allergies have become substantial health problems. Eight teachers and two administrators from five different schools testified that their symptoms often disappeared over lengthy vacations or over the summer recess, only to reappear within days of their return to school. In many of these witnesses' classrooms, telltale musty odors and disintegrating paper products indicated the presence of mold spores.

Several teachers testified that their symptoms have increased both in number and in severity the longer they have taught at a particular school. For example, one teacher told us that she first had sinus problems from allergies. Later, she began to suffer from allergic hives outbreaks which became so extensive that on one occasion the outbreak covered a 12 X 18 inch area on her torso. Steroidal medicines and antihistamines have become necessary to combat this problem. At the same school, another teacher testified that her allergies cause her continual headaches and fatigue. By the end of the teaching week, she suffers near-total voice loss. This teacher's symptoms disappear over the weekend, only to begin the next week in school. Two of her colleagues who teach the same grade as she, have lost much of their sense of smell. This teacher testified that when she asked these teachers why they did not move out of their rooms one day when paint fumes from the repainting of the school were very strong, they told her that they could not smell the fumes.

In a second school, a teacher testified when she had polled her fellow teachers and school staff in early 2003, thirty percent (30%) of the 110 employees at her school responded that they had sinus and respiratory problems and other health issues which they believed stemmed from poor indoor air quality and the mold and mildew-related conditions at this school.

Medicines such as Allegra, Claritin, and other allergen drugs are part of the daily regimen for these teachers and school personnel in order to avoid secondary bacterial infections from their allergies. Such infections can easily result from untreated sinus allergies, according to a physician who testified. Witnesses also testified that some of their colleagues have been hospitalized for pneumonia from complications from their allergies. Some teachers have suffered four or more bouts of bronchitis in one year. These witnesses believe that the mold conditions in their schools, and in particular, their classrooms have contributed greatly to their health problems. CAT scans, sinus surgeries, and steroidal treatment have become necessary for some teachers and school employees who were previously allergy free before they began working in schools where mold is or has been prevalent.

As bad as the situation with many teachers is, the Grand Jury believes that our school children might be at an even greater risk. One allergy expert testified that the onset of allergies is more likely to occur among young children than adults because a child's immune system is less developed. A young child's lung capacity is also less than an adult's, so the child will breathe many more times per hour than an adult, according to an expert on allergies. If a classroom's air is filled with mold spores, the children might therefore inhale more mold spores than an adult. As many as one third of the population is genetically predisposed towards allergies, according to this witness, and exposure to mold can trigger an allergic reaction. Although allergies can begin at any age, constant exposure to indoor molds can trigger allergic reactions in previously healthy children.

Whether the indoor mold in our schools directly causes allergies in children is uncertain. However, there is evidence to link school children's exposure to mold and their subsequent allergy problems. Witnesses have testified that they have repeatedly seen children begin the school year without any apparent allergy symptoms and soon afterwards develop black circles under their eyes, runny noses, and constant cold like symptoms which continue the entire year. One parent at Riverside Elementary testified that her child had required antibiotics four times for his bacterial infections during his Kindergarten year alone. The next year, at another school, this child has had no such infections. Another parent testified that all four of her children have attended Sea Castle Elementary in Miramar. All four of them experienced allergy problems as long as they have attended that school. The two now in middle school do not have nearly as severe allergy symptoms as they did when they were at Sea Castle. Each child's symptoms would abate or even disappear during vacations and summer recesses. This parent testified that she also developed allergies which began after several years of volunteering in a Kindergarten classroom. Her own symptoms have also greatly diminished since she quit volunteering at Sea Castle Elementary.

All of this might be merely a coincidence, however, the repetitive patterns at different schools involving teachers, staff, and students strongly suggest to this Grand Jury that there may very well be links between prolonged exposure to moldy classroom conditions and the onset or aggravation of allergies. Even if the allergic reactions are mild, we believe that exposure to mold and mildew not only can be harmful to children's health but also be detrimental to their learning process, particularly when the allergy-causing substances are constantly present and the children's symptoms last the entire school year.

Another disturbing fact about allergies is that children with allergies are more prone to develop asthma than children without allergies. Children with asthma also face a greater risk of asthmatic attack if they are exposed to mold spores than if their indoor environment is mold free, according to the testimony of both a physician and an indoor environmental hygienist.

This physician and indoor environmental hygienist testified that it is difficult to state with certainty whether exposure to mold will cause a specific allergic or toxic reaction. The scientific community has not yet reached a consensus as to what level of mold spore concentration is likely to cause allergic reactions. One recent study has stated that a concentration of two thousand (2,000) mold spores per cubic meter is unhealthy for school children, but the experts who testified have expressed doubt that any such figure could be established.

These experts testified that exposure to mold toxins is nevertheless a health risk, particularly for children. Although each person's reaction to mold can be different, and the idiosyncratic nature of responses to mold make it difficult to establish a link between exposure to mold and subsequent health problems, every study we considered and every expert who testified emphasized that mold spores can be hazardous to health and that the allergic reactions to mold can be severe and prolonged.

Witnesses testified that some parents at Central Park Elementary in Plantation have decided to transfer their children to another school, Fox Trail, in Davie, because of the health problems their children have experienced while attending Central Park. Fox Trail has had fewer problems with water intrusion or air conditioning inadequacies than Central Park, and consequently fewer mold and mildew problems, according to employees of both schools. Both schools scored A's on their F-CAT exams, but changing schools strictly for health reasons should not be necessary.

According to every document we have seen and according to every expert who has testified, elimination of excess moisture is the key to controlling mold in our schools. The greatest source of excess moisture, according to a witness who has dealt with our school system's mold and mildew problem for many years, is roof leaks. Roof leaks in this county, where sixty (60) inches of rain fall every year, have been part of daily life for far too many of our schools. While it might appear to be a rather elementary observation, it is essential that our schools do not leak. It is also vital for the School Board to speed up and complete the repairs of schools where the roofs are leaking.

This rather apparent fact has seemed to escape the attention of the School Board and its administration, at least until very recently. Nearly every school built between 1987 and 1996 has had leaking roofs. One school, Riverside Elementary, had forty-one (41) roof leaks the day it opened in 1988, according to school personnel there. The design of the roofing details on many of our schools has been given short shrift by architects, according to a construction expert who examined these schools. Even where the roofs have been properly designed, contractors have not always built them according to specifications. An architect and an engineer both cited problems with the design and construction of the parapet (the decorative portion of the wall rising above the roof's surface) as being the source of leaks in many of our schools. Either these parapets were designed poorly, or were poorly constructed, or both, according to an expert who testified to the Grand Jury. Correcting this area of the roof has been a major undertaking in dozens of our schools.

Another roofing problem cited by these experts has resulted from the plastering over of downspouts. This has occurred in several schools, particularly those built from the Central Park prototype. At another school, the roof drain system could not handle the heavy rainfall during the summer months and excess water leaked into the building. In order to fix this school's roof leaks, the roof needed complete redesign, according to a Facilities Division project manager.

Our school roofs may not only have been poorly designed and poorly constructed, they may also have been poorly maintained. In instance after instance, witnesses testified that the Maintenance Division roofing crews would supposedly repair a particular school's roof only to have the same area leak at the next rain. The Grand Jury is not persuaded that all of the roofing problems should be blamed on the architect or contractor. In addition, when video tapes show one of the Maintenance Division's roofing supervisors choosing to spend up to four consecutive hours a day running errands, resting at home, and visiting Jai Alai frontons during work hours and doing nothing related to his job as a roofing supervisor, there is clearly a lack of supervision and accountability.

Another Maintenance Division supervisor suggested that the allergy problems of our school children and teachers might in fact be caused by such things as cat dander in their homes rather than the moldy conditions in their schools. While theoretically possible, this surmise is contradicted by the fact that schools that do not leak or have air conditioning problems generally do not have large numbers of sick children and teachers who suffer from allergies. It may also explain why the mold and mildew program has progressed so slowly and why there is little concern with insuring that roof repairs are done correctly. We think that part of the blame with our roof leaks rests with the Maintenance Division.

Recommendation:

1. The School Board must immediately identify and repair all major roof leaks in its schools. We do not expect that every roof leak will be fixed immediately, but there is no reason to have schools that have leaked for years and not been repaired or which have supposedly been repaired but continue to leak. Some of these schools have not even been identified as schools with water intrusion problems.

An increasing number of governmental agencies throughout this country have taken action to address mold and mildew problems in public buildings. These agencies have realized that prolonged exposure to indoor mold and mildew spores might cause serious health problems to their building's occupants, particularly school children. This realization, however, is fairly recent. An expert in environmental sciences has testified that one of the first publications by any agency on the subject of mold and mildew was issued in 1993 by the City of New York when it published "Guidelines on Assessment and Remediation of Fungi in Indoor Environments". In 2001, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, hereinafter EPA, published "Mold Remediation in Schools and Commercial Buildings". Several State agencies have also issued guidelines on this topic, particularly mold problems in schools. In 2001, the California Department of Health Sciences issued a publication entitled, "Mold in My School; What do I do?" Likewise, in 2001, the Minnesota Department of Health issued "Recommended Best Practices for Mold Investigations in Minnesota Schools".

It appears that no Florida agency or political subdivision has yet addressed the subject of mold and mildew remediation in any official capacity despite the fact that Florida has one of the wettest, warmest climates in America where mold flourishes year round indoors and out.

In reviewing these agencies' publications, it would be helpful first to discuss their commonalities and then to discuss the limitations and restrictions on these studies. First, every governmental publication on the subject of mold and mildew stresses that preventing excess moisture is the most important step to take in controlling mold. It is of course impossible to exclude all moisture-laden air from any building. Just normal everyday use of the building will warm and humidify the air inside. In addition, EPA standards require that at least fifteen (15) cubic meters of fresh air per minute be allowed into air conditioned buildings at all times. These sources of moisture are not the cause of a building's mold problems (unless the air conditioning system is malfunctioning). The primary source is building leaks, particularly roof leaks. The governmental studies repeatedly stress the need to fix roof leaks. As the Minnesota study asserted, "The key to solving a school mold problem would always be to correct the source of excess moisture and remove mold contamination".

Another important measure in mold prevention is to reduce and keep humidity levels below sixty percent (60%) and ideally between thirty to fifty percent (30%-50%), according to the EPA guidelines. This requires a well maintained and properly functioning air conditioning system.

All of the studies point out the potential hazards of mold contamination. The New York City study summarizes these risks as follows: "Inhalation of fungal spores, fragments, or metabolites (mycotoxins and volatile organic compounds) from a wide variety of fungi may lead to or exacerbate any immunological (allergic) reactions, cause toxic effects, or cause infections". The EPA study points out that even dead mold is potentially dangerous. "Dead mold is still allergenic and some dead molds are potentially toxic". The California publication mentioned above urges schools to "establish a regular schedule for inspecting roofs, ceilings, floors, walls, and carpeting for water leakage and mold growth or moldy odor".

Another recommendation common to these studies is that "visible contamination" (that is visible mold growth on surface areas to which people have access) must be remediated, that is, removed promptly. These studies set out procedures to be utilized to remediate mold problems, including how to clean moldy materials, or if they are contaminated, how these materials should be removed. Even small isolated areas of mold contamination, such as stained ceiling tiles or a small spot on the wall, call for the use of respiratory protection and glove and eye protection for the workers engaged in the remediation, according to EPA guidelines. The work area where such cleanup is occurring should also be unoccupied, according to both the New York and EPA guidelines. These guidelines also recommend that contaminated materials which cannot be cleaned and must be thrown away should first be placed in a sealed plastic bag prior to removal.

For larger areas of mold growth, the New York City and EPA guidelines recommend, in addition to the above procedures, that all personnel involved in remediation be trained in the handling of hazardous materials. In addition, all work areas and all adjacent areas should be protected with plastic sheets and all air conditioning ducts and other ventilating ducts should be sealed. Areas adjacent to the clean up area should be unoccupied, according to these guidelines.

For extensive areas of contamination, which is defined by the New York City study as one hundred contiguous square feet in any particular area, both the New York City and EPA guidelines recommend that full face respirators and disposable protective clothing be worn by the persons who are engaged in the remediation. All workers should wear protection for their hands and feet and should have already received training in the handling of hazardous materials. These studies recommend the usage of air locks and exhaust fans. There should be complete isolation of all contaminated areas from occupied areas by means of plastic sheeting sealed with duct tape to prevent mold contamination from spreading.

The EPA guidelines point out that once mold is disturbed its spores become airborne. The risk of respiratory exposure to mold spores thereby increases, so workers must take care not to inhale these spores. The EPA recommends the usage of "Personal Protective Equipment" for all workers engaged in clean-up to prevent the inhalation of mold and mold spores as well as mold contact with their skin or eyes. These studies stress that because contact with mold spores can be dangerous, any clean-up projects of mold must be monitored carefully for the safety of the workers involved. We again note that South Florida with its sixty (60) inches of rain per year and subtropical temperatures is ideal for mold growth and proliferation, yet there are no rules or laws governing mold remediation in public buildings.

The information contained in the New York and EPA guidelines as well as the California and Minnesota publications is readily available. The following are sources for the above mentioned studies

· EPA- www.epa.gov/iaq/molds/i-e-rppe.html

· New York City- www.ci.nyc.ny.us/hotmail/doh/hotmail.epi/moldrptl.html

· Minnesota- Department of Health- Environmental Health Division, P.O. Box 64975, St.

Paul, Minnesota 55164-0975

· California- www.cal-iaq.org or www.dhs.ca.gov/ps/deodc/ehib/EHIB2/topics/mold.html

Finally, we note that California in 2001 enacted legislation entitled, "Toxic Mold Protection Act of 2001". This statute directs the California Department of Health Services to determine whether it is feasible to set permissible exposure limits for indoor molds and to develop guidelines or standards for the following issues:

1. Assessment of the health threat posed by indoor molds;

2. Determination of valid measures for identification and sampling of molds; and

3. Provision of practical guidelines for mold abatement and abatement of water

intrusion. The web site for this legislation is www.cal-iaq.org//SB732update.html.

Recommendations:

It is clear that the State of Florida or at least the Broward County School System needs to enact and implement rules regarding mold abatement in public buildings.

1. The Florida Legislature should enact legislation requiring rules to be promulgated

regarding abatement procedures for mold and mildew in public buildings.

2. That until such legislation and rules take effect the School Board must

establish and distribute written procedures that follow the EPA guidelines for its personnel and all contractors engaged in mold abatement.

3. The EPA has recently made available to all schools "The Indoor Quality Tools for

Schools" action kit. This free educational packet helps school personnel to learn about and take steps to correct mold problems in their schools.

The governmental publications discussed above have certain limitations. First, they do not have the effect of law. They are only recommended practices. Second, it is clear that much more research in this area is needed to determine the effects of exposure to mold spores on human beings.

Experts in allergy medicine and indoor environmental hygiene testified to the Grand Jury that while no one in this field of study denies that exposure to mold and mildew can be hazardous and may lead to health problems, no one can yet state with certainty whether exposure to mold will in fact cause health problems in any particular person. There is no consensus as to what concentration of mold spores or what time period of exposure will likely result in allergenic reactions. As one expert in environmental sciences testified, this is because mold does not directly cause damage or injury to the body. Instead, it triggers allergenic reactions which can range from relatively minor problems, such as runny noses, to severe allergic reactions, such as hives, all the way to toxic conditions which may actually endanger a person's health. This expert pointed out that molds' mycotoxins are different from other toxins where the toxic level can be determined. For example, he testified, science can quantify what amount of acetone in the body would be likely to cause death, but the scientific community has not yet reached a consensus that exposure to a certain amount of mold spores or a specific concentration of airborne spores is likely to be harmful.

The experts who testified before the Grand Jury also stated that there are also disputes over the methods of collecting and testing air samples to determine the concentration of mold spores. It is not clear how many samples from a large classroom, such as those at Riverside Elementary, should be taken in order to get valid tests. Some rooms might require as much as ten samples in order to get a representative sample. In addition, it is also not certain whether the type of mold present in the room is significant. Opinions on this point have changed. For example, Stachyboytrys mold contamination was once thought to be the biggest threat posed by indoor mold. The New York City study began in 1993, solely to address the effects of this particular mold contamination. The study was expanded to include all fungi. As the summary of the study explained, "Based both on a view of the literature regarding fungi and comments obtained by a review panel consisting of experts in the field of microbiology and health sciences, it was necessary to expand the study beyond simply Stachyboytrys molds." Despite its label as a toxic and even deadly mold, Stachyboytrys might not be as dangerous as other molds because it appears to be less likely to release airborne spores, according to expert witnesses who testified. If no direct contact with the mold occurs, its toxins might not be released. Other spores which become airborne more readily might therefore be more likely to affect a person's respiratory system.

The research in this area might require years of further work, according to these experts' testimony, before anyone can say with certainty how molds affect human beings. One recent study in 2001 by Harriet Hammann, Senior Toxicologist for the Washington State Department of Health, entitled, "Is Indoor Mold Contamination a Threat to Health?", cited nine (9) major research problems regarding establishment of links between toxic mold contaminated buildings and illnesses. Some of those problems are:

1) Experiments generally do not involve inhalation of mycotoxins (the toxic substances produced by mold spores) yet inhalation is the most probable route for indoor exposure.

2) Microbial contamination in buildings can vary greatly depending on the location of growing organisms and exposure pathways. Presence in a building alone does not constitute exposure.

3) Mycotoxins in human or animal tissues are not yet measurable.

This summary of the limitations to the studies of mold exposure is not intended to discount or downplay the health issues associated with exposure to mold. Everyone agrees that exposure to mold is potentially hazardous. This summary is being offered both as a caution to those who would call for every school building containing mold to be bulldozed and every student transferred and as an admonition to our School Board and its staff to address the problem as promptly as possible. Inaction or dilatory, half-hearted efforts to remediate mold in our schools may turn out to be reckless disregard for the health and safety of our children and teachers. Again, we strongly urge the establishment and implementation of mold abatement procedures by our School Board. Models and examples of such procedures are as readily accessible as the Internet.

Given the extensive and elaborate guidelines first set out by New York City and later spelled out in even greater detail by the 2001 EPA guidelines, this Grand Jury considered whether and to what extent the remediation procedures in our schools follow these guidelines. On the one hand, the School Board Maintenance crews now seem to be following them, at least when they are involved in large projects of remediation where water damaged interior walls and insulation are removed from our schools. One employee who has remediated mold and mildew for over six years testified that at first there were no guidelines. He wore no protection at all as he ripped out the moldy wall board, rotten insulation, and other water-damaged materials. Beginning in 1997, however, he has worn what has been described as a "moon suit". He wears a helmet equipped with a respirator, loose fitting coveralls fastened tightly at the neck, wrists, and ankles and protective footwear and gloves. We saw pictures of these "space men" as they worked at Central Park Elementary.

In addition to requiring protective clothing for the workers exposed to mold, the Maintenance Department at the School Board requires for these large projects that visquine sheeting be used to sequester the remediation area from the rest of the school. The air is vented to the outdoors and all room air ducts are sealed so that the mold spores cannot be spread by the air conditioning system throughout the building. Every occupant of the room must be relocated once the remediation has begun. We saw pictures of contaminated materials placed in a dumpster, but it is not clear whether they were first placed in sealed bags prior to their removal, as to the EPA and NYC studies recommended. It appears that the Maintenance Division can follow procedures similar to those recommended by the EPA and New York City, if it so chooses.

The Grand Jury, however, heard testimony from a School Board Maintenance Division worker that for routine repair projects where the workers encounter mold and mildew, the School Board does not always follow abatement procedures. The workers do not wear protective clothing or respirators when they encounter mold. No one seals off the work area, the workers are not outfitted with protective equipment, and the moldy, rotten materials are not placed in sealed containers. This witness testified that the Maintenance Division carpenters often encounter mold in the course of their repair work but are too afraid of possible reprisal to object or protest.

This worker also testified that he developed severe respiratory problems following a prolonged exposure to mold and mildew at a Walker Elementary repair project in the mid-1990's. These health problems have continued to the present and restrict his ability to work. He estimated that in order to address the mold and mildew problem on its repair sites, the School Board would need a large crew of specially trained and equipped carpenters. According to this witness, mold and mildew are found at schools throughout the county. This Grand Jury is concerned that where mold and mildew is present, failure to insist on proper equipment exposes School Board employees to unnecessary and possibly dangerous health risks even on small repair projects.

Some outside contractors who work for the School Board are also engaged in questionable practices. At Riverside Elementary School, a school employee testified that she watched workers dressed only in T-shirts, shorts, and sneakers removing moldy wall material. The workers piled these boards a few feet from where she was sitting at her office desk. No one was wearing a respirator and nothing was done to seal off the work area from the rest of the school. No one told this school employee to move out of the area during the remediation work. Shortly after the boards were piled up in front of her, the School employee experienced a disfiguring allergic reaction. Her face swelled up from chin to ear, causing her to go first to the emergency room and then to her doctor to receive treatment. In addition, the workers, who were not properly equipped by their employers for remediation may have risked their own health. The School Board employee who suffered the above-mentioned allergic reaction testified that the foreman of these workers rebuked her for giving dust masks to the men as they were pulling down the walls near her office. The contractor's representative accused her of "interfering" with his project.

Also at Riverside, just before opening day in the fall of 2002, a group of PTA mothers and their children were selling T-shirts to raise funds. This occurred in an area adjacent to the school's cafetorium where the contractor was removing water damaged walls and insulation. No one, including the general contractor, the subcontractor, or any School Board personnel, told these ladies and their children that the remediation was ongoing nearby, nor did anyone suggest to them that they should move to another location. Only the structural inspector, who later incurred her supervisor's displeasure, spoke to them of the potential problems of remaining in the area.

Has the situation improved at Riverside? Not according to a school visitor who testified that on a weekend in February, 2003, she visited the school and saw interior wall remediation being done. The work area had not been sealed off and the workers wore no mask or protective gear. The workers also did not seal the materials being removed.

The remediation program at this school, as noted elsewhere in this report, has created a serious public relations problem for the School Board. It is of no matter that the school will probably be much cleaner, more watertight, and much less afflicted with mold than it was at any time in the recent past. What matters is that parents and employees at this school are very concerned that the conditions during this remediation are unsafe. The School Board, despite its assurances that changes in the remediation procedure would be made, has not yet seen fit to ensure that the conditions have in fact been rectified, according to a parent's testimony. The School Board could alleviate these concerns and help restore the faith of concerned parents and employees of the school by requiring and insuring that everyone engaged in mold remediation perform that task in conformity with the EPA and New York City guidelines. By doing so, the School Board could protect the health not only of our teachers, students, and parents but also those of the workers. Such requirements might add some expense and perhaps cause some delay to the project, however, we believe that the seriousness of the problem requires strong action by the School Board.

It is not illegal in Florida to remediate in the manner at Riverside Elementary School described above, because there are no laws on the subject in this state. Nevertheless, it is reprehensible that the School Board allowed its employees, parents, and children to be exposed to the potential hazards of airborne molds from its contractor's failure to seal off the construction area. We believe that the School Board should not only insist on properly equipping its own workers but also demand that outside contractors who work on mold and mildew remediation projects in our schools properly equip their employees.

Recommendations:

1) Fix our schools' roof leaks and water intrusion problems as quickly as possible.

As the Minnesota study said, "Mold growth simply should not be tolerated in schools. When such growth is evident, the critical cause, excess moisture, should be corrected."

2) The School Board should ensure that all mold remediation be done in a safe

manner and require that any contractor engaging in mold remediation employ the procedures set out in the EPA guidelines.

The School Board constructed schools from the same design on four different occasions during the period from 1987 to 1996. As noted in the 1997 Grand Jury Report, the reuse of these designs occurred within a very short period of time. Problems with design and construction were often not corrected before the design was utilized again.

A. Riverside Prototype

Over the past fifteen (15) years, the School Board may have lost the public's confidence in its ability to spend taxpayers' money wisely in the construction of our schools. Whether this loss of confidence is well taken is debatable. However, the cost of fixing water-damaged schools is enormous. In keeping with the decision referred to in a previous Grand Jury Report to "let architects be architects", the School Board chose to build Riverside Elementary, and four other elementary schools, Country Isles, Sandpiper, Silver Ridge, and Coral Park in a very short period of time. Riverside Elementary opened its doors in the winter of 1987-88 with forty one (41) roof leaks and has continued to leak at least until the fall of 2002. All of the schools built from the Riverside prototype have had leak problems almost from the day they opened. One Sandpiper teacher testified that whenever the rain would pour into her classroom, she would group her students and move to the highest point of the room, the least likely area to flood, to await the end of the rain. Buckets, wastebaskets, and any other available receptacles would be placed to catch the water which poured from the roofs of this classroom. A teacher at Riverside testified that her students would become excited as the water poured in through the ceiling as everybody scrambled to move things away from the deluge. Fourteen (14) years later it will cost at least two million ($2,000,000) dollars per school to repair. In 1987 and 1988 they cost just under seven million ($7,000,000) dollars to build.

In addition to the roof problems which have plagued the schools of the Riverside design, these schools have had severe difficulty with their air conditioning systems. These problems are so extensive that one expert in air conditioning redesign who was called in to analyze this school testified that he divided his recommendations into both short and long-term solutions. The expert testified that the short-term solution might not last long enough to make it worthwhile, but a long-term solution would require extensive reconstruction and redesign of the system and would likely cost much more money.

The school's air conditioning system is unusual for a large building. Schools of this design use a direct expansion system much like a private home. The rest of the schools in our district generally use chilled water systems which cost twenty five percent (25%) to thirty five percent (35%) more to install than a direct expansion system, according to a construction professional, but are much less difficult to maintain. The air conditioning systems in all five schools built from this design have deteriorated so rapidly that they now require almost continuous maintenance in order just to operate, according to this expert.

Another problem with the air conditioning in these schools is that the fresh air dampers remain in the open position and allow too much outside air to enter. This excess outside air is often humid and helps create excessive moisture inside the school, particularly during the nighttime and weekend hours when the system is not operating. Because the system is divided into twenty-one (21) separate air handlers which handle two or three rooms apiece, there have also been problems getting consistent temperatures in the rooms. When one room becomes too cool and the air conditioning system is adjusted, this often causes the second or third room on this system to become too warm and humid. With the present system, according to a witness knowledgeable about the school, it is very difficult to maintain consistent and even temperatures. The cost of the short-term solution for these schools' air conditioning systems was estimated to be at least one hundred twenty five thousand ($125,000) dollars per school. The "long-term" solution might require much more money.

There are also possible additional costs for these schools unrelated to the construction and repair costs. The effect of mold and mildew upon the health of their students and teachers has not yet been determined. Twelve (12) years of almost continuous leaks and resultant indoor air quality problems might have compromised the health of these schools' students, teachers, and other employees. Failure to have corrected these problems before 2001 might subject the School Board to civil liability. If liability is established, the consequences of building these architecturally pleasing schools might be disastrous.

B. Central Park Prototype

As the 1997 Grand Jury Report noted, the School Board built multiple schools from the same prototype on three more occasions. The prototype used to build Central Park Elementary and nine other schools was also unsuccessful. All ten (10) of these schools were opened within twenty four (24) months of each other. They also began to experience water intrusion problems shortly after they opened, however, these were not as severe as those of the Riverside prototype. We note that two elementary schools from this design now scheduled for repair, Indian Trace and Sea Castle, will cost over eight hundred and fifty thousand ($850,000) dollars and one million five hundred thousand ($1,500,000) dollars, respectively, according to School Board documents.

In the schools of the Central Park design, there will likely be additional costs besides those necessary to stop the water intrusion. None of these schools, according to the IAQ project list of the School Board Facilities Department, has yet had its air conditioning system renovated despite years of problems with the system. The design of these air conditioning systems, where most of the system is contained in ceiling portions of the schools' classrooms and hallways, is questionable. Chilled water pipes, drain pans, and air handlers are all located there and their placement has resulted in units which are both difficult to service and prone to leaks, according to a witness knowledgeable about the system. The water from the leaks has seeped into the walls and ceiling tiles in many of these schools, exacerbating the mold and mildew problems caused by roof and wall leaks.

In addition, it appears that the air conditioning systems in these schools may be oversized. As an air conditioning expert explained to us, the oversized fan coil units cool the rooms so quickly that they do not remove sufficient amounts of humidity before shutting down. The rooms become cool but remain damp, which is a favorable condition for further mold growth. Although there are several ways to address the problem, what in principle must be done is to cause the cooling units to lengthen the cooling process and thus dehumidify the air, according to this air conditioning expert witness.

Like the Riverside prototype schools, the air conditioning systems in these schools have experienced problems from the fresh air dampers remaining open, which cause too much outside air to come into the building, particularly when the air conditioning units are shut down. One method of correction is to interlock the exhaust vents systems so that they close when the system is shut off.

The renovation for the air conditioning systems for Central Park may cost as much as one hundred and eighty thousand ($180,000) dollars. Renovating each of the other nine elementary schools, Winston Park, Country Hills, Sea Castle, Hawkes Bluff, Park Springs, Indian Trace, Charles Drew, Quiet Waters, and Pompano Elementary, might be equally as expensive. All are slated for air conditioning redesign, according to the Facilities Department IAQ/IEQ document published in 2002.

C. Croissant Park Prototype

The third use of prototypes built Croissant Park Elementary and nine other schools throughout the School District. Several of these schools are now scheduled for remediation. The cost of the remediation programs has varied from school to school but ranges as high as six hundred forty three thousand ($643,000) dollars for Thurgood Marshall Elementary in Fort Lauderdale. However, there is no money allocated for Eagle Ridge, Chapel Trail, and Eagle Point, whose problems will be more fully discussed below.

The effectiveness of the remediation programs for these schools has also varied. For example, Croissant Park at long last seems to have corrected its mold and mildew/indoor air quality problems. At one time, the school could not even use certain rooms due to water intrusion and mold and mildew problems. Things were so bad there that the school's faculty filed a school-wide grievance over conditions at that school. Now, all parts of the school are usable and no faculty members have requested relocation from their rooms. There are also no signs of water intrusion, according to an administrator there. The latest round of repairs at this school cost two hundred eighty thousand ($280,000) dollars, according to School Board figures.

On the other hand, Riverglades Elementary, which cost over five hundred and ninety thousand ($590,000) dollars for its remediation program, still has roof leaks. Mold and mildew continue to grow in several buildings. We examined recent photographs which document wall damage from moisture intrusion. In some rooms, the moisture problem is so extensive that electrical outlets are unusable. Despite these rather glaring problems which exist throughout the school, the School Board's IAQ website for this school states that the exterior and roof repairs "are complete".

Several other schools of this design have scheduled expensive repair programs. Welleby Elementary, is in the midst of a five hundred forty thousand ($540,000) dollar remediation program; Sawgrass Elementary's exterior repairs now under way will cost an estimated five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000), according to School Board figures.

An expert in architectural design testified that schools built from this design can often be difficult to remediate once they begin to leak. One reason is that each school is designed with many metal screeds, that is, decorative metal pieces attached to the exterior walls throughout the school. These metal screeds expand and contract at a different rate than the stucco or the material to which they are attached and this expansion differential causes openings to form in the stucco where water can seep in. This expert said that these decorative pieces will require constant maintenance and could well be a continual leak source in the future.

In addition, the Croissant Park prototypes have had roof leaks particularly at the parapets, necessitating roof repairs. Also, according to one expert in air conditioning matters who analyzed the schools' air conditioning systems, these schools will also likely need modifications to their air conditioning systems because they might be oversized. The same problem of too-rapid cooling exists in these schools as in the Central Park designs, according to an expert in this field.

The air conditioning remediations are in the design process for many of the schools built from this design. Embassy Creek Elementary, which recently completed a two hundred seventy thousand ($270,000) dollar repair project for its exterior and interior, now needs air conditioning design work. Other schools from this prototype are also scheduled for air conditioning re-design and remediation, but the corrective action has not yet begun. As noted, Eagle Point, Chapel Trail, and Eagle Ridge Elementary Schools, three problem-filled schools, are not even scheduled for exterior and roof repairs, let alone air conditioning redesign.

D. Riverland Prototype

The next prototype usage occurred when Riverland and nine other schools were built. The repair costs at these schools are often staggering. The estimate for the remediation at Dillard Elementary exceeds one million ($1,000,000) dollars. This does not include any air conditioning work which might be necessary. West Hollywood and Miramar Elementary, which according to personnel at both schools so far appear to be successful IAQ projects, have cost one million two hundred thousand ($1,200,000) dollars and one million three hundred sixty thousand ($1,360,000) dollars respectively. The budget for Virginia Shuman Young Elementary's renovation project is now one million one hundred ninety thousand ($1,190,000) dollars.

As daunting as these figures are, they are even more demoralizing when compared to the cost estimates for schools built before 1987. Markham Elementary's repair estimate is one hundred sixty thousand ($160,000) dollars. Mirror Lake, which was built in 1969, was repaired for two hundred ninety thousand ($290,000) dollars.

Recommendations:

1. The folly of reusing untested prototypes is even more evident in 2003 than it was in 1997. We cannot overemphasize the importance of analyzing and evaluating new designs for schools prior to their reuse. The "old" schools have held up much better than those prototype reuses built from 1987 to 1996. We strongly recommend that the School Board carefully analyze every school design that it intends to use as a prototype to ensure that the design is structurally sound before it is reused.

2. We urge the School Board to bear in mind that the primary function of a building built with public funds is to provide shelter from the weather, not to make "architectural statements" or enhance the aesthetics of our neighborhoods. The first priority of any school construction in South Florida should be to keep out the rain. The second should be to make sure the air conditioning systems effectively cool and dehumidify the buildings.

.

One of the difficulties in correcting leak problems in our schools is that the leaks have existed for so long that the extent of the resultant damage to the school is very difficult to estimate. Without opening up the school walls and roofs, the scope of repairs needed cannot always be ascertained with accuracy. In addition, once the problems have been identified, the School Board has not always made sure that they are properly corrected. Two recent mold and mildew projects exemplify these problems.

The first is Sea Castle Elementary. In 1998, the School Board estimated that repairs would cost three hundred ten thousand ($310,000) dollars. In 1999-2000, the School Board's engineering expert, Gaudet Associates Inc., estimated that the school would cost one million, one hundred fifty thousand ($1,150,000) dollars, which is nearly four times as much as the original estimate. Now, the project will cost even more than the one million, one hundred fifty thousand ($1,150,000) dollars because a new roof is needed for this school even though it is less than twelve years old. No one had ever realized prior to the remediation project how severely damaged the school really was. Although it is rare to replace an entire roof in twelve (12) years, according to School Board personnel, that roof has leaked for years. A former teacher there testified that the roof leaks were so bad that the walls became "pregnant", that is, they bulged out from warping due to water intrusion, but no one made a thorough assessment of the damage there before Gaudet Associates. It will now cost one million, five hundred thousand ($1,500,000) dollars, according to the School Board's budget.

The second example is Central Park Elementary. The architectural plans for remediation called for a certain limited scope of repairs. That work was completed in full, according to School Board documents. During the one-year warranty period for the repair work, however, the architect's representative found no less than seven instances of questionable workmanship and alleged failures to perform the work. According to School Board employees and an architectural expert's testimony, these errors and mistakes involved repairs done on the roof and parapet systems in the same areas where the school had long experienced leaks. The school is still having indoor air quality problems, according to teachers there. Clammy, smelly rooms exist throughout the school. It is likely that additional funds will be necessary to correct the water intrusion problems at Central Park, but whether the School Board or the contractor is responsible for those repairs is not yet clear because there is now a lawsuit between the repair contractor and the School Board.

In addition, there is another problem with the School Board's mold remediation program. The School Board, per the recommendation of its indoor environmental hygienist, has instructed its custodial employees to remove all visible signs of mold and mildew and to prevent its spread throughout the schools. This expert recommended that mold growth on walls, books, or other surfaces is to be cleaned immediately. Waterstained ceiling tiles need to be replaced. Moldy papers and books must be discarded. It should be noted that this recommendation follows the EPA guidelines. The School Board, however, has not always addressed the major cause of the mold and mildew, namely, the water intrusion problem. There have been instances where entire interior wall sections were replaced because of mold infestation but the leaking roofs immediately over these walls were not repaired. The School Board employee who testified about this matter acknowledged the wastefulness of this all too temporary solution but defended the decision to replace the walls. To him, the health and safety of the room's occupants, required immediate action and the Facilities Division's remediation program for this school was mired in delay and inaction, so this employee directed removal and replacement of the walls.

The problem of accurately estimating the cost of repairs for mold and mildew remediation is not limited to these two schools. The School Board originally estimated these repair costs with its own staff. The School Board then hired two private engineering firms to estimate the cost of remediating the mold and mildew problems at over one hundred twenty five (125) schools. Not all of the over one hundred fifty (150) schools listed in the mold and mildew program were studied by these outside firms. As noted, one firm was Gaudet Associates Inc., of Palm Beach County. The second firm was Evans Environmental and Geosciences, a Miami-Dade County firm. The estimates for seventy nine (79) schools which Gaudet Associates inspected exceeded the School Board's estimates by a factor of 2½ to 1 ($69,427,280 vs. $27,484,899). Although some projects included in this total are not scheduled for mold and mildew remediation because they are now part of a phased replacement plan, the cost differential for the remaining schools is still enormous.

The actual costs of repair have also exceeded the School Board's original estimates. For instance, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, three million, two hundred thousand ($3,200,000) dollars has been spent in remediation since 1997. However, one building still has not been renovated due to lack of funds. According to the testimony of several School Board employees, the extent of the repair costs might explain the reluctance on the part of the Facilities Division to begin mold and mildew remediation projects until very recently. As both a current and former employee testified, the potential health problems posed by mold and mildew have long been known to the School Board, particularly to its Division of Risk Management. Except for occasional maintenance projects, however, the mold and mildew remediation program did not begin in earnest for many of its schools, such as Riverside and Country Isles, until 2001.

The mold and mildew remediation program was reorganized in 2000 when Thomas Calhoun became the Deputy Superintendent for Facilities and Construction Management. He determined that a more efficient, less disruptive, and ultimately cheaper method of implementing the remediation program would be to encompass the mold and mildew programs in a full site renovation project. Under this concept, which is also known as "bundling", all renovations, replacements, and major repairs would be folded into one project under one architect, one construction company, and one School Board project manager. Such a project would proceed in phases over a period of some months or years. The areas under construction could thus be isolated from the rest of the school. The Facilities Division believes that such a program would result in quicker, better run projects which would actually save money due to economies of scale. In addition, the Facilities Division believes that a phased project actually is less disruptive than a series of small projects done over the course of several years. Because the contract amount would generally be larger if it were one contract for the entire school, the Facilities Division believes that these whole site project contracts will attract better contractors and design professionals than smaller projects.

The "bundling" concept has received criticism. First, the mold and mildew projects seem to have been delayed while entire whole site renovation plans are developed. In addition, the mold and mildew remediation program might be curtailed or completely omitted because the Project Manager for that school might decide that there is a greater need for other projects, such as track and field renovations, than for roof repairs. This concept gives great discretion to the project managers.

The Facilities Department responds to this criticism by noting that schools in dire need of mold and mildew remediation can be addressed, and should be addressed, separately and expeditiously. In addition, a witness from the Facilities Division pointed out that the Mold and Mildew Program was already behind schedule and had accomplished very little prior to Mr. Calhoun's tenure. Not much of the forty four million ($44,000,000) dollars originally allocated in 1997 had been spent prior to 2000, according to School Board witnesses. Many projects were behind schedule and others had not yet commenced.

In addition, because formulation of a whole site renovation plan for a particular school should include input from all interested parties, including representatives from the school's administration and parental groups, the Facilities Division believes that prioritization of indoor air quality programs could still occur when schools obviously need repairs. This argument is not convincing, however, as testimony indicated that in many schools mold and mildew problems have been given short shrift or completely ignored. For instance, at Davie Elementary, where thirty percent (30%) of the faculty believe that their health problems stem from poor indoor air quality due to mold and mildew growth, the remediation project budget is eighty thousand ($80,000) dollars, or four percent of the Riverside budget. At Eagle Ridge and Eagle Point, there is no mold and mildew program in existence as of February, 2003, despite years of roof leaks. At Riverglades Elementary, as previously noted, the school still has roof leaks and mold and mildew growth in various parts of the school, although no new funding is allocated for this school.

Whether the "bundling" or Whole Site Renovation concept proves to be successful in eradicating mold and mildew has not yet been determined. In theory, it could work so long as there is sufficient attention to the problem and adequate funding to address the problems at each school. In order for the concept to work, however, there must be competent Project Managers who recognize and prioritize problems needing correction at every school. This has not always occurred.

Recommendation:

There are numerous schools discussed in this report that have documented water intrusion problems but have no mold and mildew remediation program scheduled or even budgeted. Whether these schools' water intrusion problems should be addressed separately or "bundled" is not the Grand Jury's decision, however, someone must ensure that these schools get proper attention.

It is clear that once the problems of water intrusion and mold and mildew growth became evident, the School Board has been extremely slow to react. This slow response is difficult to understand because the problems in those schools built from untested and uncorrected prototypes were very apparent soon after they were occupied.

The School Board's response has also been erratic. For instance, some schools like Croissant Park received thorough repairs while others, like Virginia Shuman Young Elementary, have not. The indoor air quality was so poor at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary that when polls were taken in 1998 and in 2001, thirty percent (30%) of the parents thought that their children's medical problems were very likely caused by or aggravated by conditions at the school. A parent at this school testified that the leak problems were obvious at least as early as 1996. According to a former custodian at Virginia Shuman Young, the mold problems began almost immediately after the school opened in 1993. They became so extensive that mold would grow in the school's carpets during the summer recess. Despite these conditions, Facilities Division representatives told the parents that their school was not even on the "Top Fifty" list of problem schools.

The School Board's response to the problems at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary has been less than forthright. A parent recalled meeting after meeting where School Board representatives would first deny the existence of any problems, next downplay these problems, and then claim financial inability to correct them. Despite pressure from parents' groups, the School Board only attempted to placate the parents. A Facilities Division official would promise that action would soon be taken to fix these schools. However, a long time School Board employee who attended these meetings testified that these "dog and pony shows" were really shams. After these meetings, this official would tell his staff to ignore what he had just said and nothing would be done. Finally and grudgingly, the School Board began to address the problems. As noted, there is now one million, one hundred and ninety thousand ($1,190,000) dollars budgeted for repairing this school. What disturbs the Grand Jury is that it appears that these repairs might never have been intended to be completed.

This attempt to appease parents having legitimate complaints was not limited to Virginia Shuman Young, according to a former School Board employee. Promises, delays, and general denials of problems were common as the Facilities Division dealt with angry parents or teachers upset with their schools throughout Broward County. This witness testified that the Facilities Division would refuse to acknowledge that mold and mildew were a problem in our schools even when dealing with other School Board divisions.

Virginia Shuman Young may finally be properly renovated. In contrast, Central Park Elementary remains unfixed thirteen (13) years after it opened. The problems there seem just as bad. One teacher there testified that before 2003 she had been receiving four (4) allergy shots a week to cope with her allergies. Although she has now found an allergy medicine which has alleviated her symptoms so that she no longer has to take these allergy shots, she has had severe secondary infections during the school year as a result of her allergies. Other teachers at this school testified that their symptoms have grown more severe over the years and that many faculty members now regularly take Claritin, Allegra, and other antihistamines. The allergy problems of their students also seem to be worsening. The students often begin the school year with no apparent allergy problems or no apparent signs of allergies, but soon develop black circles under their eyes, continual headaches and other sinus conditions. Several students have transferred to Fox Trail Elementary, a nearby school in Davie, because of their continuous health problems.

In addition, a teacher at Central Park testified that she often teaches in very humid and poorly ventilated conditions. With her own humidity gauge, she has noted that her room repeatedly measures over seventy five percent (75%) relative humidity. This is a much higher humidity level than what is recommended by the New York City and EPA guidelines.

We do not know why the roof and the air conditioning problems at Central Park remain uncorrected, however, we believe that given the obvious health problems among many of its staff and at least some of its students, the School Board should take action immediately.

At Virginia Shuman Young Elementary, there is a firm belief among parents that had they not exerted extreme pressure through constant requests and complaints, nothing would ever have been done at their school to correct their problems. The parents even offered to volunteer their time to rip up the carpet in order to speed up the tile and carpet replacement program. In contrast, at Central Park Elementary, there are no such active parents groups, only a growing number of teachers and staff members whose health symptoms have worsened over the years. Teachers by law cannot go on strike, they can only file for workers compensation to restore their sick time, or file suit for damages or pursue other legal remedies, at their own cost. So far, no class action suit has been filed against the Broward County School Board by a teachers' group at any school for damages from exposure to mold and mildew.

None of the teachers and parents testified that they expected that their school would be fixed immediately, however, the School Board has delayed repairs to our schools for so long that legitimate delays, such as contractor problems at Virginia Shuman Young, seem like excuses. The School Board has begun to renovate many of its schools where there have been leak problems, and has planned and funded other renovations, but waiting ten to fourteen years to fix leaks, air conditioning failures, and mold and mildew growth is far too long. In addition, the failings of the Riverglades remediation project, where the expenditure of nearly six hundred thousand ($600,000) dollars has still not corrected the roof leaks and water intrusion, is unsettling. The School Board cannot convince the public that it intends to solve its mold and mildew problems until schools like Central Park and Riverglades are fully remediated.

This Grand Jury heard testimony that the number of claims against the School Board for workers compensation due to indoor air quality issues has increased over the past ten years. The "deductible" for all workers compensation claims is now one million ($1,000,000) dollars. Two years ago it was five hundred thousand ($500,000) dollars, according to a School Board employee. Part of that cost increase is due to mold and mildew claims. The number of lawsuits arising out of mold and mildew issues is also increasing. At least one parent has threatened suit against the School Board for allegedly negligently exposing her child to mold spores during the renovation program at Riverside. So far, however, actual suits against the School Board for mold and mildew related problems have been relatively few. Several have been settled and several are pending. This relative inaction, however, may be ending soon, according to the testimony of a School Board employee knowledgeable about such matters.

Elsewhere, the number of suits alleging damages from mold and mildew issues is rapidly increasing, according to several witnesses. In Palm Beach County, an attorney has one suit pending and promises sixty (60) more in the near future, according to published news accounts. A recent legal seminar in Atlanta in the fall of 2002 focused solely on the issues associated with mold and mildew litigation. The legal community nationwide is increasingly focusing on mold litigation. As one speaker said at the Atlanta seminar, some lawyers' motto is "Mold is gold".

This Grand Jury believes that more and more suits against the School Board are likely to occur in the future. Where illnesses of the student and/or teacher population at a school coincide with leaking roofs and mold and mildew conditions that have long gone without correction, it is not difficult to envision lawsuits against the School Board for neglecting to correct the problem. In addition, if the attempts to remediate are as clumsy as those at Riverside, lawsuits for negligent remediation may result. According to one witness, class action lawsuits by teachers against school districts have already been filed in Washington and Texas.

Class action suits based on symptoms such as the loss of smell, bleeding sinuses, large scale hives outbreaks, and disfiguring allergenic swellings among faculty members at several schools might be forthcoming. Claims that elementary school students need CAT scans, sinus surgeries, or even hospitalization for asthma attacks because of their exposure to mold and mildew in unremediated schools could also trigger similar suits. The School Board failed to correct obvious water intrusion problems at Riverside and other schools for over a dozen years. Mold and mildew are unquestionably present in these schools. Whether a causal relationship exists between the symptoms of teachers and students and their exposure to mold and mildew has not yet been determined. However, there have been judgments for mold and mildew damages elsewhere in excess of one million ($1,000,000) dollars against building architects and contractors. In Martin County, for example, an eleven million ($11,000,000) dollar verdict was awarded in the case of Centex-Rooney v. Martin County, 706 So. 2d 20 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997), against the builder of that county's new courthouse.

Several School Board members and high ranking members of the School Board Administration have testified that they are at least aware of the potential mold and mildew litigation problem facing the School Board. Nevertheless, we question whether the School Board is aware of the extent of the problem and whether the School Board has established proper and thorough mold and mildew remediation programs to fix every school.

As an example of the Grand Jury's concern in this regard, we cite the Quest School in Hollywood. The school's IAQ budget is eight thousand ($8,000) dollars, according to the 1998 estimate and the current Capital Expenditure Program. According to the Gaudet Associates, Inc., 2000 estimate for mold and mildew remediation, the cost would be one million, eight hundred thousand ($1,800,000) dollars. Obviously there is no way to reconcile these two estimates: either the Quest's Schools IEQ problem is miniscule or it is a very serious one, almost on the scale of West Hollywood, Sea Castle, or even Riverside Elementary School.

A second example is Horizon Elementary, where a school employee testified that she entered a room where mold covered everything inside. That school's IAQ budget is only eighty thousand ($80,000) dollars, and is solely designated for air conditioning work.

We do not have the wherewithal as a Grand Jury to examine all 250 schools in the system. We do not know whether there may be other schools like Davie Elementary, where the School Board's IAQ budget is only eighty thousand ($80,000) dollars, in spite of many faculty members' belief that severe IAQ problems exist, or schools like Quest, where the budget seems inadequate to correct the problem. The huge discrepancies between the estimates of the outside experts and those of the School Board cause this Grand Jury to question whether the School Board has fully recognized the extent of its mold and mildew/IAQ problems.

Recommendations:

Failure to remediate our schools is not only shortsighted and poor public policy, it may result in numerous lawsuits. To rectify the mold and mildew problem the School Board should do the following:

1. Identify and verify the extent of its Indoor Air Quality problems in all of its

schools. Where there is a discrepancy between the original and current estimates, undertake a thorough examination of the school to determine which is correct and fund those remediations completely.

2. Ensure that the entire school is remediated, not like Riverglades Elementary

that still has mold and mildew and leak problems, or Marjory Stoneman Douglas, which could not be completed due to budget shortfalls.

3. Inform the parents, school staff, and the general public about the remediation

programs at each school. What will be done, how it will be accomplished, and when it will occur are essential points of information. What allegedly occurred at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary and elsewhere, namely, false or misleading promises and years of inaction, should not recur. Correcting the mold and mildew problems and preventing their recurrence in new schools might well be expensive and difficult; however, it is long overdue.

4. Parent groups have the right to voice concern when mold and mildew problems

are evident and the School Board has the responsibility to evaluate and remediate the problem in a timely manner.

In 1997, the Grand Jury was cautiously optimistic about several schools which had opened a few years prior to the issuance of the report. It said on page 12 of that report:

"Your Grand Jury has been advised that the later uses of this design, (that is, the Croissant Park prototype) have not had the moisture intrusion problems that Croissant Park, Welleby, et. al., have had at least to the same degree." The report listed four (4) such schools: Eagle Ridge, Eagle Point, Chapel Trail, and Lauderhill- Paul Turner Elementary School. These schools had been built in the mid 1990's and were the last schools built from this prototype.

We have learned unfortunately that the previous Grand Jury Report was overly optimistic as to three of these schools. Eagle Ridge and Eagle Point, according to witnesses from each school, have had roof leaks, window leaks, and other sources of water intrusion almost from their opening day. We examined pictures of eroded hallway walls, water stained classroom ceilings, stained ceiling tiles and classroom walls, and cracked exterior stucco at Eagle Point in Weston. Air conditioning problems, leaks, and water drainage problems have plagued both Eagle Ridge and Eagle Point. Despite testimony of years of leaks at these schools, there are no plans for major repairs or renovations at these schools to address these problems.

We note, however, that since this Grand Jury began receiving testimony on school construction issues in January, 2003, there might well have been some efforts made at Eagle Ridge in Coral Springs to address the problems there. According to testimony of a School Board employee, roof repairs and window repairs have been made. Whether these repairs have corrected the leak problems will not be known until the next rainy season. Nevertheless, we are encouraged that for whatever reason the School Board has begun to fix that school.

Another school built from the same design as Eagle Point and Eagle Ridge which is also having problems is Chapel Trail Elementary in Pembroke Pines. According to the testimony of a School Board employee, that school has had roof leaks and other water intrusion problems almost from the day it opened 1995. Chapel Trail also has a ground water intrusion problem; its office floors are several feet below the surrounding land, and when the rainy season comes, water seeps from the ground into the school and damages the floors and walls in the office area. In addition to its current problems, it may soon develop other leaks. We learned that the South Area Maintenance Division allegedly told the school that it will not be repainted until 2007. Almost any building in the South Florida environment not evaluated and properly maintained for twelve (12) years has the potential for developing problems resulting in costly repairs. It is hard to imagine that any school would not leak if it were not repainted for a dozen years.

While not so spectacularly bad as Croissant Park was in the early 1990's, these three schools, Eagle Ridge, Eagle Point, and Chapel Trail, still have had substantial and prolonged water intrusion problems. According to the School Board's Capital Expenditure plan, none of these schools are scheduled for major repairs. We cannot understand why these obvious problems have not even been acknowledged, let alone addressed by the School Board. Perhaps no one in the policymaking area of the Facilities Department is aware of them. Other schools built from the Croissant Park design, however, have current repair programs ranging in cost from two hundred eighty thousand ($280,000) dollars to over six hundred thousand ($600,000) dollars. It is likely that an equivalent program is needed for these three schools.

Another school completed shortly before the 1997 Grand Jury Report was issued is Silver Palms Elementary in Pembroke Pines. Built from a completely new design, different from any school built previously, this school has unfortunately had substantial problems almost from its opening day. According to the punchlist and warranty items list created shortly after the school opened, the following problems existed in 1998:

1. Stucco cracks

2. Expansion joint leakage

3. Ponding on roof

4. Leaking windows and non-operable emergency windows

In addition, there were other problems. The masonry wall expansion joints had cracks and needed repair. The interior walls were cracked, dead sod had not been replaced, and stucco cracks were present on the exterior of the school. According to the warranty list, the toilets continually backed up, blisters had developed in the membrane of the roof, and some fire alarms had not been certified. Numerous air conditioning problems were noted as well.

The school has experienced extensive problems since that time. Its exterior windows do not close properly, there are roof leaks, and the air conditioning system needs repairs every week, according to a School Board employee. We examined a list of the Maintenance Division work orders compiled for this school since 1997. In the first two years of operation, 1997 and 1998, the work orders list indicated that there were forty nine (49) requests for air conditioning repairs, fifty three (53) requests for plumbing or drain failures, and seven requests to repair roof leaks. The problems have continued: for the year 2002, the totals are: 38 air conditioning repair calls, sixteen (16) toilet and sewer malfunctions, and six instances of roof leaks. Despite what seem to be numerous problems at this school, there are no current major repair plans to correct them at the present time.

Another school, Sawgrass Springs Middle School, opened in 1996. Its premises were occupied months before a substantial completion certificate was issued to the contractor in 1997. The punchlist was four hundred fifty six (456) pages long. Each page of the punchlist typically contained numerous missing or incomplete items. We were not surprised to receive testimony that the school now needs major repairs and that numerous and substantial equipment malfunctions have occurred at this school almost from the day it opened. For example, whenever the water systems and meters are tested, the entire water supply to the school must be shut off for two hours until the testing can be completed. Obviously, no occupied school can operate without drinking water or functioning toilets, so this annual test must be scheduled on those days when the student body is absent. The problem stems from a missing bypass valve. Regardless of the reason for this oversight, this situation should not occur.

At this school there is also a full-time maintenance department repairman. Despite his diligent efforts the following problems exist at Sawgrass Springs:

1. Roof drains are not sealed properly and leak.

2. Corrugated steel roofing material has not been sealed properly.

3. Covered walkways allow rainwater to enter, causing the electric fixture to short

circuit.

4. Large decorative planters placed next to the exterior wall of the administrative

building have no drainage. Water leaks into the adjacent interior walls because of this oversight.

5. The school's jalousie windows have defective cranks and cannot close properly.

In addition, some window cranks are so close to adjacent walls that the windows cannot be opened.

6. Many of the classrooms do not have heating units in their air conditioning

systems.

7. Many electrical rooms in most custodial closets do not have exhaust fans.

We examined photographs taken in March, 2003, which document many of the above problems. Once again, there is nothing allotted for remediation of the problems at this school in the current School Board Facilities Capital Expenditure Program, at least through the year 2005. All of the problem areas have been documented in work order requests to the Maintenance Division.

Recommendations:

1) Fix the roof leaks at Eagle Point, Eagle Ridge, Chapel Trails, Silver Palms and

Sawgrass Springs.

2) Install the missing equipment at Sawgrass Springs.

3) Repair the malfunctioning air conditioning and plumbing systems at these

schools, particularly at Silver Palms, Eagle Point, and Eagle Ridge.

4) Do not open schools before they are finished.

5) Every School Advisory Forum (SAF) or other appropriate parent group should request copies of the monthly maintenance logs for their schools. This would allow this group to learn what problems recur and are not fixed at their schools. These logs are all matters of public record.

The Grand Jury conducted a brief overview of recent school construction. Witnesses knowledgeable about these schools provided the following information as to schools constructed since the 1997 report or which had opened just prior to that report.

1. Elementary Schools

a. Watkins Elementary

This school, mentioned in the 1997 report, has had continuous and widespread problems with its air conditioning system. The school's roof has leaked for at least five years. There are also stucco cracks in the exterior walls.

b. Silver Palms

Built in 1996, roof leaks, air conditioning failures and continuing plumbing malfunctions have occurred since 1996-1997, as previously noted.

c. Tradewinds

Built in 1996, there are recurring air conditioning and roof leak problems that remain uncorrected.

d. Gator Run

Built in 1998, there were a few roof leaks stemming from an uncovered vent. Two windows leaked, but have been fixed. The air conditioning equipment and the other major equipment are working well. The elevator problems have been corrected.

e. Fox Trail

Opened in 1998, there are no roof leaks and no major air conditioning problems at this school.

f. Everglades

Opened in August, 2000, there were roof leaks. These were fixed immediately and have not recurred. One window leaked but has now been fixed. No stucco delamination has occurred and the air conditioning system has functioned well.

e. Silver Lakes

Opened in 1998, there are no roof leaks, no air conditioning problems, and no window leaks. The paint has lasted well.

h. Coconut Palm

Opened in 2001, this school developed roof leaks only after air conditioning equipment was fenced in on the roof. The original roof did not leak. There are three window areas that leaked because a wall vent had not been sealed properly. The contractor is in the process of fixing both the roof and the wall vent leaks. The air conditioning problems which arose during the warranty period were fixed by the contractor and there have been no further problems.

i. Plantation Elementary

Opened in August, 2000, this school has had continual problems with its air conditioning system. Recently, there have been rooms with mold and mildew growth. The windows do not close properly at this school. The elevator is continually out of order and the paint is peeling inside the school.

j. Challenger Elementary

Opened in August, 2001, there are no roof or window leaks, however, the school playground does not drain properly. It appears that the water drains stand higher than the surrounding ground. The fire sprinkler system burst open and flooded several classrooms within the past few months. The tile floors have many uneven areas creating a wavy appearance in large portions of the school.

k. Sunset Lakes

Opened in August, 2002, there are no roof leaks, no air conditioning problems, no window leaks, and no equipment failures. The school is operating extremely effectively.

l. Manatee Bay

Opened in August, 2002, there are window leaks but no roof leaks. There are no air conditioning failures, but the system might not yet be balanced. There are wall cracks from floor to ceiling in the hallways which have not been fixed. There are no drainage problems in the playground areas.

m. Liberty

Opened in August, 2002. Roof leaks developed from air conditioning equipment fencing work done on the roof, but these have been fixed. There are no air conditioning problems, no window leaks, and no equipment failures.

n. Park Lakes

Opened in August, 2002, the contractor is still on site. There have been no roof leaks, no window leaks, no air conditioning problems, and no signs of mold and mildew. This is particularly significant because during construction, mold and mildew were found on the interior walls where the windows had not been installed completed before the dry wall was put up. This project, however, was over six months late and the playground is still unusable because it has not yet been properly finished. The bus turning area is also not completed and the buses are relegated to the rear of the school, along with all other traffic.

2. Middle Schools

a. Indian Ridge

Opened in 1996, this school has had continuous roof leaks since the day it opened. Repairs were completed in January, 2003. There have been air conditioning problems. The underground condenser pipes have ruptured on five different occasions, causing shutdown of the system. The pipes are a lesser grade PVC than called for in the original School Board specifications, according to testimony of a School Board employee.

b. McNicol Middle

Opened in 1998, this school has had several roof leaks recently which the Maintenance Department has apparently been unable to fix. The drainage around the school is very poor. The ground area seems to be pitched to the sidewalks rather than to the drains. As a result, when it rains there are floods, and children have to wade through puddles just to get to school. Many door frames have worked loose and the walkway overhangs leak.

c. Lyons Creek

Opened in August, 2000, from the same design as McNicol, this school has had roof leaks since 2001. The leaks come through light fixtures. The sidewalks flood because the ground does not drain properly. The elevator has malfunctioned since the school opened. The paint is peeling inside the school and the school's doors are rusting on this two-year old school.

d. Falcon Cove

Opened in 2000, this school has had continual problems with the elevator malfunctioning, the ground area not draining properly, and the paint inside the school peeling from the walls. It appears that the exterior water drains are higher than the sidewalks.

e. Millenium

Opened in August, 2002. The ground area around this school does not drain. It shares a site with Challenger Elementary School. According to witnesses' testimony, the water stands in the play fields for days because the drains are higher than the surrounding ground. The fire sprinkler system has twice burst and flooded part of the school. There are no roof or window leaks. The air conditioning system has worked well.

As is evident from the above discussion, roof leaks are much less of a problem with schools opened since 1998 than those built from 1986 to 1997. Indian Ridge Middle School and Tradewinds, Watkins, and Silver Palms Elementary Schools, all of which opened in the period from 1996 to 1998, have had serious air conditioning problems. Indian Ridge and Silver Palms have also had bad leak problems for over the last six years, although it appears that Indian Ridge may have finally fixed its roof leaks.

Fortunately, these same problems have not emerged in the schools opened after 1998, except for the problems cited above in Plantation Elementary and McNicol, Falcon Cove, and Lyons Creek Middle Schools. As these obvious problems have existed from the day these schools opened, we do not understand why no one fixed them before the contractor was released from his obligations and why they remain uncorrected. The middle schools each cost over twenty million ($20,000,000) dollars to build.

Elementary schools, so far, have fared better than the middle schools. Except for Plantation Elementary's air conditioning and equipment failures, few schools have had significant problems. In contrast, Riverside Elementary School opened in 1988 with forty one (41) roof leaks.

Recommendations:

1. Whenever the contractor engages in such risky practices as applying dry wall

before the building is watertight, the School Board should exercise special vigilance to insure that any water damage or mold and mildew growth is immediately addressed. At Westglades Middle School and Park Lakes Elementary School there was water damage to the drywall resulting in mold and mildew growth because the contractors chose to apply drywall during the rainy season before the roofs and windows were completed. We are advised that all problems have been corrected, however, eradication of mold and mildew growth has historically been difficult for the School Board.

2. When the School Board chooses to reuse a school design, all change orders and

corrections to the original plans have not always been incorporated into the drawings for the new school before construction begins. At several elementary schools, the same problems recurred at each reuse of the prototype. This caused delay and additional expense and should have been avoided. There is no reason why the School Board cannot insist that all change orders and corrections be made and plans revised accordingly and incorporated prior to the reuse of any prototype design.

It is quite obvious that one source of problems with school construction from 1987 to 1996, as reflected in the 1997 Grand Jury Report, was inadequate inspections. The inspection process missed such rudimentary matters as the failure to install roof drains, the stuccoing over of roof drains, and the plugging up of window drain holes. How this could have occurred is not immediately clear to this Grand Jury; however, it is doubtful that anyone over-inspected those projects, and it is much more likely that these egregious problems resulted from poor inspections.

School inspectors are supposed to work independently of the Facilities Division. Their supervisor is the Building Official; his supervisor reports directly to the Superintendent and not to the Facilities Division. This organizational independence should allow both independent and thorough inspections to occur. However, there have been problems with the current inspection program. We have received testimony that tremendous animosity exists between some members of the inspection team and the Facilities Department, these inspectors and their colleagues, and these inspectors and their supervisors. There is now a lawsuit pending against the School Board filed by two inspectors and an inspector supervisor. We have heard testimony that legitimate citations of business errors or defects have been ignored and that construction continued. We have also heard testimony that one inspector would cite a contractor solely for cosmetic defects. Both sides seem to view each other with suspicion and dislike, and each side seems to regard the other as ignorant, intransigent, and motivated by bad faith. We have also heard testimony which supports both sides' arguments. On the one hand, several witnesses have testified that it is possible for an unreasonable inspector to shut down every job by a hyper-technical application of obscure building code provisions. These code provisions might in fact have nothing to do with the soundness of the building, but by red tagging the project for these supposed violations, the inspector can stop a project. On the other hand, it is apparent that without vigilant inspectors, the School Board will be victimized. Several contractors have engaged in corner cutting, slipshod construction and sometimes outright violations of contract specifications, according to several inspectors. Having tough and aggressive inspectors therefore seems highly desirable. Without somebody looking out for the best interest of the taxpayers, schools may continue to be built as poorly as they were ten to fifteen years ago.

We heard testimony about a current contractor who not only failed to apply stucco per the School Board's specifications (specifications learned the hard way through the extensive failure of the stucco system in the mid 1990's) but who also deliberately substituted cheaper and lower quality materials in direct violation of the contract. The inspector instructed the contractor to replace this cheap material, which also violated the manufacturer's specifications, but so far the contractor has refused to do so, hoping, we suppose, that the School Board would overlook these breaches.

We do not comment on the merits of the lawsuit; we only note that there must be a balance struck between poor inspection and antagonistic, nitpicking inspections that serve only to slow the project and to create hostility at the jobsite.

The School Board Facilities Division's decision to begin construction without complete architectural plans has created glaring problems for the School Board inspectors. On nearly every project begun in the last several years, construction began before the plans were finally approved. Often, the plans were not completed until well into the construction phase, according to several inspectors. At one project, the Rock Island Elementary School Replacement Project, the final plans were not completed until one week before the school was occupied.

Inspectors have testified that conducting inspections without final approved plans is very difficult. At the massive South Broward High School Phase Replacement Project, where the thirty million ($30,000,000) dollar project proceeded in separate stages, the final plans in some instances were produced after construction had been completed by the contractor, not before, as should have been the case. According to one witness's testimony, the inspector did not know what was supposed to be built before the inspection took place. This witness described a pell-mell inspection process where plans were modified up until the end of the project and a chaotic final construction phase.

The previous building code in this state apparently did not require final approved plans before construction could begin, according to witnesses. The new building code, which took effect in March, 2002, applies to all projects designed after that date. Approved plans are now required prior to construction. All projects henceforth must begin with sealed plans.

It is our belief that approved plans would have been to the School Board's advantage had they employed them on every project. As one employee of the School Board testified, the more complete the plans, the more efficiently the construction program can proceed. This witness pointed out that the need for change orders is thereby reduced, the need for clarification from the architect and engineers is far less, and the areas of conflict and confusion between the inspector, the contractor, and the architect are much smaller in scope. In addition, delays and added expense can be avoided. Another inspector stated that the contractor has a much better bargaining position when the project begins with non-final plans than when final plans are in place prior to bid. On projects with incomplete plans, the contractor can legitimately pursue change orders and claims for delay because no one, including the architect, knows for certain what is to be built. The School Board Facilities Division has taken an enormous risk by beginning all of its recent construction projects without approved plans.

In addition, it appears that for years the School Board had no standardized protocol for inspectors to follow when closing out a completed project. This lack of standardization could well have led to inconsistency and mistakes during those inspections. A standardized procedure is now being implemented. It is our recommendation that such procedure be enforced and followed for all future projects.

Finally, there was testimony from both Facilities Division employees and the building inspectors that the quality of the architectural plans submitted for school construction is very poor. Witness after witness deplored the inaccurate, incomplete, and inadequate plans which are being produced. One inspector blamed the payment structure: until recently, an architect would receive nearly all of his fee when his plans were submitted, but not necessarily approved. Many plans need corrections, some require repeated submittals. There is little incentive to correct plans if the architect has already been paid. In the past, inadequate roofing plans have plagued many of the prototype reuses. The failure to insist on quality plans might prove to be as serious a shortcoming for our newer schools as it was for those built ten to fifteen (10-15) years ago. It may also be as serious a problem as beginning construction without approved plans.

We are advised that the payment structure for architectural fees has been changed. Payment now will not occur until the plans reach a certain level of accuracy and completion. Whether this policy will be followed in the future is uncertain, but it is critical for the School Board to enforce this new policy if the School Board is to receive quality architectural plans.

Recommendations:

1. The School Board should implement a standardized protocol for inspections of the entire construction process and for closing out a completed school construction project.

2. The architectural contracts should be reviewed for possible revision. Too often

consultants have been paid for incomplete and/or inadequate architectural plans. Both the contractual language and the consultant payment structure need revision to ensure better quality plans.

Testimony from School Board building inspectors, project managers, Maintenance Division employees and top Facilities Division administrators indicate that there are several systemic problems with school construction. One such problem is the lack of interdivisional communication between the Maintenance and Facilities Divisions, particularly when a school first opens. The status of any warranty items (those items which have broken down or malfunctioned within the first year of operation and which were never repaired or replaced) is seldom communicated to the Maintenance Division, according to a Maintenance Division employee. If an item is on the warranty list, it is the responsibility of the contractor to repair or replace the item. When work orders are placed, the Maintenance Division has no way to know whether the contractor should be making the repairs or whether the School Board should do so. A glaring example of this problem occurred years ago at Riverside Elementary School. The school began operation with forty one (41) leaks. For fourteen (14) years, the roof has never stopped leaking, yet the Maintenance Division somehow took on the responsibility to fix the roof. Another example is with the drainage problems at McNicol, Falcon Cove, and Lyons Creek Middle Schools. School grounds are supposed to drain away from the sidewalks and walkways, yet at these schools, according to School Board witnesses, the ground is pitched towards the sidewalks. The sidewalks have always flooded. The one-year construction warranty period, however, has long since expired for these schools. It would seem that this problem should have been the responsibility of the contractor, but it is not certain whether the School Board will bear the costs of fixing this drainage problem.

There is also no requirement for the warranty list to be provided to or reviewed by the Maintenance Division. There simply is no communication as to this document.

A second problem stems from the very short construction time limits for our schools. Elementary schools have a twelve (12) month time period, middle schools generally have eighteen (18) to twenty (20) months, and high schools twenty four (24) months. School overcrowding creates enormous pressure on the Facilities Division to open schools. As noted in the 1997 Grand Jury Report, and as discussed elsewhere in this report, schools are occupied before completion because of overcrowding. This gives a contractor great leverage in contractual matters. The School Board, needing the facility, is in a weak position to insist on full and absolute compliance with construction specifications. Several inspectors testified that they are pressured, directly or indirectly, to accept lesser quality construction just so the school can open.

On a recent school project this pressure was evident when the contractor asked the School Board inspectors and the project manager for "cooperation" in a meeting where a School Board Member was in attendance. The project was late and the school year was about to begin. The contractor, according to several Uniform Building Code Inspection and Facilities Division personnel, has flagrantly and repeatedly violated his contractual obligations. Some of the delay was directly attributable to these violations. This request for "cooperation", according to an inspector was nothing more than an attempt to coerce the inspection staff into accepting substandard construction so the school could open.

A contractor can also bargain for the release of retainage (that percentage, usually ten percent (10%), which is held back to insure completion and correction of all construction matters) when the contractor knows that the school "must" open at the beginning of the school year.

To address this problem, one school inspection administrator has recommended that the School Board "send a message," that is, refuse to give in to the pressure caused by the deadline for opening the school, and force the contractor to uphold his responsibilities under the contract. This would no doubt cause dislocation and disruption, at least for that project, but the School Board, according to multiple witnesses, has almost never stood firm against a contractor who uses improper tactics. The School Board has historically made accommodations just so the school can open. Although there are contingency plans in place if the school cannot open, the pressure to open is always present. The School Board's building timeline too often plays into the hands of less reputable contractors. Testimony from several School Board employees indicated that they are concerned that School Board members and senior administrators may take the side of contractors in payment disputes, particularly when a project is behind schedule, against their own staff.

A third issue concerns construction contract auditing. No one has the specific responsibility to insure that the materials called for in the School Board's specifications or their equivalents, are actually installed. At one recently built middle school, the custodian testified that he learned from a School Board Maintenance worker repairing his school's doors that the doors originally installed were used rather than new ones. While this does not appear to occur with frequency throughout the school district, it is a potential problem. The School Board specifications require high quality materials and only new equipment to be installed in our schools, according to a Facilities Division administrator. The Grand Jury believes that a School Board employee should have the responsibility to ensure that what the School Board receives in its construction projects is what has been specified.

A fourth concern with school construction is the apparently premature release of retainage on some projects. The decision to release retainage usually rests with the project manager and the architect. In at least two instances, Falcon Cove and Lyons Creek Middle Schools, retainage was released even though the electrical punchlist had not been completed. No one verified either verbally or in writing that all electrical work had been done, according to a School Board administrator, prior to the decision to release the retainage. There were also substantial communication problems: the electrical punchlist was not prepared until months after the schools were occupied, which is poor practice, and no one alerted the project manager in writing that the electrical items were incomplete. Nevertheless, the punchlist items were not completed until two years after the school opened. Their completion required the direct involvement of the Deputy Superintendent of Facilities and Construction Management. According to a witness from the School Board's Division of Contract Compliance, premature retainage is less likely to occur in the future because the director of that division must now personally execute a form that authorizes the project manager's release of retainage. This safeguard will help correct the problem, according to School Board employees, however, there still are no procedures for project managers to follow regarding the release of retainage.

Another problem with current construction is incomplete review of payment requisitions. One Facilities Division employee testified that it is nearly impossible for a project manager to verify all payment requests on all of his or her projects. This is particularly true for construction management at risk projects, where all reimbursement items must be listed and approved. On a forty million dollar ($40,000,000) project, such as the new Cypress Bay High School, this witness testified, each submission of requisitions can be sometimes three or four inches thick. Each page of requisitions contains numerous items. Review of hundreds of items is difficult. It is hardly surprising that some contractors take advantage of the lack of review. Espresso machines, television monitors, lobbyist fees, and other questionable reimbursement items were authorized on one project before an audit took place. The School Board, which has approved over one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) for current construction projects, has only three construction auditors. There is no way these three auditors can monitor all School Board projects, or even those over twenty million dollars ($20,000,000). The School Board might not be able to prevent unauthorized reimbursement without further audit personnel.

Another problem with the current construction program is that there are some schools in the eastern part of the county that are under capacity. According to both School Board members and School Board employees, Plantation Elementary, GG Middle School (which will be adjacent to Rock Island Elementary), and Dillard High School will not be at full student capacity. Schools in the west, however, teem with students and some, like Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, have as many as forty (40) portables on their campus.

Recommendations:

1. Solving the problems outlined above will require more than the institution of new

policies and procedures. There must be a change in attitude on the part of the School Board Facilities Division. Vigilance, diligence, and a healthy skepticism towards the architect and contractor would go a long way toward solving these problems. The School Board must also not undermine the Facilities Division's authority in dealing with contractors. Without becoming unfairly punitive, the School Board should hold the construction professionals to the terms of their contract.

2. The School Board Project Managers clearly need assistance. A project manager can have multiple projects each in excess of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) under construction at the same time. Verifying payment requisitions on these projects seems all but impossible, particularly for construction at risk projects. The School Board needs additional personnel trained in construction finance to help monitor its large projects.

3. A boundary shift is necessary to take advantage of eastern schools' excess student capacity. This might prove to be very controversial.

4. There is little or no apparent accountability for the premature release of retainage

monies. Perhaps the problem will be solved by the Contract Compliance Director's new oversight role, but this Grand Jury is concerned that more checks and balances may very well be needed. One possible solution would be to require the contractor and the project manager to jointly execute a document that states that all conditions precedent to the release of retainage have been met before retainage will be released.

The 1997 Grand Jury Report noted (at pages 20-24) that health and safety problems existed at many schools when they opened. A main reason for these problems was that the pressure to build and occupy schools to keep pace with our County's fast growing school population has necessitated early occupation of the schools prior to their completion.

We note that safety problems appear to exist at four schools which have opened during the past twelve (12) months. Each school was occupied before it was completed. Two of these incomplete schools, Westglades and New Renaissance Middle Schools, were badly needed to relieve overcrowding, but the other two, namely, Norcrest Elementary School and Rock Island Elementary replacement school, opened when there were no overcrowding problems. At Norcrest, the School Board chose to occupy a new twenty four (24) classroom addition for only the last two weeks of the 2001-2002 school year. The project was not yet finished and the school had managed to function for nearly an entire year without this addition. The School Board's inspectors recommended against occupying this addition because the construction was still incomplete, however, the School Board chose to ignore that recommendation and moved into the addition in late May, 2002. Photographs document safety hazards present there at the time of the occupation. For example, plumbing fixtures required by code to be padded were left bare, creating a safety hazard for the children. Six months later, a five-page safety punchlist set out dozens of incomplete or omitted safety items in that addition.

At Rock Island Elementary, the School Board placed students in that school on January 13, 2003. The contractor, who is building a middle school on property adjacent to Rock Island Elementary School, is still working on the punchlist for the elementary school two months after occupation. The new elementary school is a replacement school. The old school, though in need of extensive repair and renovation, was still serviceable. The School Board did not need this space, yet it took possession of the new school in late December, 2002, for occupancy three weeks later. Although testimony before this Grand Jury indicated that all life safety issues were complete inside the school when it opened for classes in January, several external safety items were not. Missing traffic control devices and missing bus turn lanes necessitated the hiring of off-duty police officers for the first week of school. The school zone warning lights on the streets near the school also were not operational. As one witness testified, the school could have been entirely completed had the School Board waited another month. Now the contractor shares space with the students and tries to complete the punchlist item after school hours.

At New Renaissance Middle School in Miramar, the school opened without a bus barrier, a required safety item. According to a witness familiar with safety issues, an additional staircase exit had also not been constructed. These two safety items were omitted from the architectural plans, which had been approved by the School Board prior to construction, according to this witness, so these omissions were not the contractual responsibility of the architect or contractor. The Maintenance Division therefore had to erect these two safety items after the school had been occupied.

At Westglades Middle School in Parkland, the school's opening was delayed for five months from August, 2002, to January, 2003, because the contractor had not completed all of the life safety items. When the School Board opened the school in January, 2003, however, there were still unfinished safety items. No protective fences or barriers had been erected to keep students away from the air conditioning chillers, the underground gas tank, or the electrical panels, according to a safety expert. All of these items could have been vandalized by, or could have caused injury to, a student who chanced to have contact with them. In addition, no traffic signs or crosswalks had been erected when the school opened and the school's zone warning lights were also missing, according to the testimony of a School Board employee who witnessed these problems.

Traffic safety is also a concern at other recently opened school sites. At Cypress Bay High School, which opened in August, 2002, the traffic congestion was so extensive that a new service road was needed. It was constructed at a cost of five hundred thousand ($500,000) dollars. At least fifteen other schools have opened since 1997 which had no school zone warning lights in operation, according to a witness familiar with the safety issues. This is contrary to School Board and Broward County policy.

In addition to safety concerns at our new schools, we heard testimony that there is a backlog of up to seven thousand (7,000) incomplete safety items for existing schools. The unspent Capital Budgets for these safety related items now exceeds twenty five million ($25,000,000) dollars. Delays in planning, design, and construction have caused these items to languish for months.

Recommendations:

1. There is no reason to open new schools until all safety items are completed and in operation. In its haste to occupy schools, the School Board has taken unnecessary risks, particularly when the school space has not truly been needed for its students as occurred at Norcrest and Rock Island Elementary Schools. The School Board should simply not open schools that are incomplete. In addition, pushing to occupy the building early causes the warranty period to start before the building is complete.

2. The logjam of incomplete safety items must be addressed. Although simply throwing money at major projects without planning or design is foolish, the School Board needs to fix these safety items. The School Board must reduce the backlog of safety items expeditiously and efficiently.

Two interrelated problems face the School Board. The first concern is the lack of data or the lack of interest in the data as to the "true" costs of a school. The second stems from the absence of a preventive maintenance program.

The cost of construction can be determined once the project has been finished and the school is occupied. Theoretically, the cost of fixing the school's problems within the first year is zero because the contractor's warranty should apply to all items within that first year. All matters appearing on the warranty deficiency list prepared at the end of the first year period are also the responsibility of the contractor unless otherwise agreed. It is clear, however, that the warranty is not always enforced. In fact, one School Board employee testified that he could not identify a single instance of enforcement of a warranty deficiency list. For example, at Silver Palms Elementary, air conditioning problems, roof leaks and defective windows, all were noted on the Warranty Deficiency List in 1998. They remain uncorrected in 2003.

Once the one-year warranty period has expired, the School Board generally bears the responsibility of correcting and fixing problems at the school. The Maintenance Department can undertake all repairs costing less than two hundred thousand ($200,000) dollars per Florida Statute 255.0525. Projects costing more than this amount require an outside contractor. The Maintenance Department performs most of the repairs for most of our schools because the cost is less than two hundred thousand ($200,000) dollars. The Maintenance Department is "work order" driven, that is, its workload largely depends on work orders called in by the schools. Responses to emergencies comprise the bulk of the remainder of the Maintenance Department's work schedule.

Each school receives a monthly printout of the work orders done at the school. This printout describes the work done and establishes a dollar value for that work. It is a cumulative total for the entire year. It should therefore be a good means to determine how well a school is functioning from a structural and operational standpoint. No one, including the Area Superintendent, the Director of Maintenance, the School Board member for that district, nor the Project Manager, seems interested in this information. A brief perusal of these reports might have alerted someone to the fact that Eagle Ridge, for instance, has leaked and has had a malfunctioning air conditioning system almost since it has opened in 1995. It might then have been scheduled for repairs or at least evaluated by an outside engineering firm to determine what repairs might be necessary. There is obviously very little critical analysis of the Maintenance Division's work orders to determine where major repairs are needed.

According to a member of the Maintenance Division, no one has ever asked for copies of these maintenance reports. It is not surprising then that certain schools' maintenance programs can fall through the cracks. For instance, Taravella High School reportedly was not painted until 2003, fourteen years after its last repainting. In 2002, according to a career School Board employee, the school's walls regularly leaked during rainstorms. At Sawgrass Springs, the metal canopy at the entrance of the school now leaks so badly that water enters the electrical conduit and the canopy lights must be disconnected for safety reasons. Sea Castle's roof and wall leaks caused so much interior damage for ten or twelve years that certain rooms could not be utilized. At these and many other schools, students and school personnel have learned to live with their schools' problems and inconveniences or have felt the need to move to another school.

There is no preventive maintenance program on a district-wide basis. Except for the air conditioning coil cleaning crews that have established schedules for their work, the Maintenance Division operates in a reactive mode. If a school's air conditioning system breaks down, it will be scheduled for repairs depending on the extent and severity of the problem. For example, if the entire school or a large portion of the school is without air conditioning, then it is termed an emergency and repair crews react immediately. For lesser areas of outage, reaction time is correspondingly less rapid.

No one replaces major air conditioning parts on a regular basis before they break down. No one schedules roof replacements prior to their total failure. There is no proactive attempt to anticipate problems before they become emergencies, which is a hallmark of preventive maintenance programs.

One reason for this reactive rather than proactive program is a manpower shortage. According to several Maintenance Division employees, there are simply not enough maintenance workers to address all of our schools' repair needs. Not all of the work orders can be performed in a given year. There are now thirty one million (31,000,000) square feet of schools, offices, and warehouses in our school district, according to both Facilities and Maintenance Division administrators. This is nearly a fifty percent (50%) increase from the 1995 total of twenty one million (21,000,000) square feet, yet the number of Maintenance Division employees, approximately 760, has remained the same.

We learned that business corporations are increasingly implementing preventive maintenance programs. Sears and Southland (7-11 stores) have recently converted to this concept. According to media accounts company executives have stated that Sears has had very few emergency air conditioning repair since the company began its preventive maintenance program. It is highly doubtful that these companies or other private companies would ever change to a system of preventive maintenance if it were not cost effective and profitable to do so.

The first step in establishing a preventive maintenance program is to inventory all major building assets. This would entail gathering such information as the cost, the date of purchase or installation, and the present condition of such equipment. It might involve thousands of items, according to a Maintenance Division employee.

Once this information was gathered, the district could begin to plan when replacement of the items should be done. Planning on a large scale is not occurring. We heard testimony that certain items ranging from fifty thousand ($50,000) dollar air conditioning chillers to five thousand ($5,000) dollar SOMAT machines have been stockpiled at various times to be used supposedly as replacement items. There were no installation plans scheduled, so they sat sometimes for over a year without being installed. This accomplished very little and certainly did not constitute preventive maintenance.

A preventive maintenance program would be especially helpful on maintenance items affecting the indoor air quality at our schools. Properly functioning roofs, exterior paint and air conditioning systems are crucial to solving the mold and mildew problems in the district. A preventive maintenance program would not solve roof problems at disasters such as Sea Castle or Riverside, but would prevent relatively well functioning schools from becoming multi-million dollar remediation projects.

Initiation of a preventive maintenance program, or even an inventory system might be expensive and time consuming. It would, however, allow the School Board to plan rather than react to emergencies.

Such a preventive maintenance program would also reduce any need for the rampant favoritism and special "inside" contacts that seem to be needed just for routine repair work. One Board member proudly testified that after she was elected, she was able to get a leaky window fixed at a school in her district. This window had needed repairs for months. As commendable as this Board member's actions were in devoting her time to solving a nagging problem, it is absurd that routine maintenance issues such as a malfunctioning window should rise to the level of the School Board before they are addressed. Preventive maintenance, if properly instituted, should be able to correct such problems long before they come to the School Board's attention.

Recommendations:

1. A preventive maintenance program, particularly with regard to exterior painting, roofing, and air conditioning matters, is needed rather than the current system of reacting to crises. Preventive maintenance might well require an onsite mechanic to maintain and perform minor repairs in air conditioning systems at our larger schools. At large facilities like our high schools, and at joint elementary-middle school sites such as Challenger and Millennium in Tamarac, a full time mechanic could very well be needed to perform routine maintenance on these large systems. Now, as noted above, the district simply reacts to the air conditioning and other problems as they develop. The current system is neither efficient nor effective. New methods in maintaining these vital indoor air quality components might well prove to be very effective.

2. A management information system is needed to allow the Maintenance Division

to become aware of repairs which should be warranty items. A procedure should be instituted where the Facilities Division automatically notifies the Maintenance Division of all punchlist and warranty list items left unresolved when a school opens so that the contractor rather than the School Board is responsible for the repairs and/or replacement of these items.

3. Enforcement of warranties and ensuring the correction of all warranty list items should become a priority for the School Board. Past failures to do so have caused the School Board to be responsible for very costly repairs.

When the Grand Jury reviewed the management audit of Cypress Bay High School, which was a construction management at risk project, it found that the contractor had received reimbursement for several questionable items. These were the fees paid for "community relations service" and an executive search. The fees amounted to cost twenty three thousand ($23,000) and nineteen thousand, five hundred ($19,500), dollars, respectively. Until the audit uncovered these "fees", taxpayers had paid for a lobbyist to lobby the School Board on behalf of the contractor and had paid the contractor's cost of conducting a nationwide search to find a suitable project manager for the contractor. Although this project cost forty million ($40,000,000) dollars and the two items above represent only 1/10 of 1% of the costs, they illustrate two salient points. The first is that lobbyists have become increasingly important in obtaining favorable outcomes with the School Board. Second, contractors on construction management at risk projects must be monitored closely in order to prevent reimbursement for matters that are clearly improper.

The recent selection of modular classroom builders shows the influence of lobbyists on the School Board. According to two Facilities Division witnesses, one contractor was clearly cheaper than the second. His product was also allegedly better, yet after lobbying, the School Board decided to utilize both contractors, resulting in higher cost to the district.

In addition, the tremendously lucrative nature of School Board construction contracts can easily offset the lobbyist fees. An elementary school costs over eight ($8,000,000) million dollars just for construction costs and another two to three million ($2,000,000 to $3,000,000) dollars to equip properly. A middle school costs over twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) to build. The latest high school cost over forty ($40,000,000) million dollars, as previously indicated. Even the modular classroom projects cost three to four hundred thousand ($300,000 to $400,000) dollars apiece. Any contractor who successfully completes such a project will earn a considerable profit even if he has to pay twenty thousand ($20,000) dollars to his lobbyist.

Contractors are not the only persons who stand to make money from School Board construction. Architectural fees often range from five to eight percent of the building's cost. For a twenty four million ($24,000,000) dollar middle school project such as Millennium Middle School, the architectural fees could be nearly two million ($2,000,000) dollars. This fee amount does not ensure high quality architectural plans, as noted above. According to both Facility Division employees and Uniform Building Code Inspectors who testified, many such plans are incomplete and need numerous revisions when they are submitted.

The student population growth in this county, according to School Board documents, has been as high as ten thousand (10,000) students in a single year and has averaged over seven thousand six hundred (7,600) for the past ten years. To keep pace, the School Board must construct the equivalent of eight new elementary schools, five new middle schools, or three new high schools every year. This cost does not include the replacement of antiquated older schools or repair of existing schools. The construction program will likely boom for many years to come.

The sheer size of the present construction program, where one billion, one hundred million ($1,100,000,000) dollars is currently being spent, strongly argues for a different method of selecting and monitoring our construction professionals. Is the present process, which utilizes laypersons, (including all School Board members), as well as professionals in the construction field, the best way to ensure quality construction? Is there perhaps a better, more efficient way to build our schools? One solution, advocated by a former School Board employee, is to create a panel of construction professionals that would include both School Board employees and private business persons who are not doing business with the School Board. This panel would not need to be educated as to why multi-roofed, multi-surfaced buildings like Riverside, Central Park, and Croissant Park, might be difficult to build watertight in our climate where sixty (60) inches of rain falls every year. In addition, the problem presented by incomplete architectural plans, as discussed by numerous witnesses, would be obvious to this panel. Understanding the need for a preventive maintenance program for our schools would also be less difficult for professionals to grasp than laypersons whose expertise lies elsewhere.

The drawback of such a panel of professionals is the apparent lack of accountability. If such a panel presided over a building program similar to the 1987-1996 program where forty (40) out of forty two (42) schools leaked, who would bear the responsibility for such failures? A panel removed from the voters might be completely unaccountable.

It is the Grand Jury's opinion that a new system is needed. The schools built from 1987 to 1996, and several others built before 1999, are largely failures. Their repairs have cost millions of dollars, sometimes representing thirty percent (30%) of the original cost of the building. This money would not be needed for repairs had proper construction and design principles been employed when they were built. Building schools on four different occasions from untested prototypes was just one example of the poor decision-making characterizing that era. A genuine concern on the part of the School Board for the safety of teachers, school children, and workers engaged in the remediation program would strengthen confidence in the School Board. However, the School Board has not yet shown that it can build schools which function effectively for ten (10) to fifteen (15) years without needing major repairs.

In conclusion, the School Board has demonstrated that it can successfully remediate badly leaking, mold filled schools and that it can build new schools, particularly elementary schools, which do not leak. It is clear, however, that the School Board has not always chosen to do so, or has not done so in a timely manner. There are both highly successful mold and mildew remediation projects and incomplete and unsuccessful ones. There are some schools, like West Hollywood Elementary and Croissant Park Elementary, which have been vastly improved since 1997. Other schools, like Riverglades Elementary, have not been fixed. Sawgrass Springs Middle School and Eagle Point Elementary are not even mentioned in the School Board's mold and mildew remediation program. Riverside Elementary is in the midst of its mold and mildew remediation program. Its success or failure will not be known for some time.

Recent construction, that is, those schools that have opened since 1996-97, is clearly better than the construction done from 1987 to 1996. There are still problems, however, as evidenced by Watkins Elementary and Silver Palms Elementary. We are heartened to see that many of the elementary schools opened since 1998 seem to be relatively free of defects, malfunctions, and leaks.

The School Board, however, has taken two serious risks in proceeding with construction without approved final plans and in continuing to occupy incomplete schools. Whether these schools constructed without final approved plans or occupied prior to completion will need very expensive repair programs five or ten years hence will not be known for sometime.

The Maintenance Division, which is now responsible for nearly fifty percent (50%) more school space than seven years ago, may need to be reorganized on a completely different basis. The reactive, work order-driven mode of operation may be antiquated and have limited utility.

Finally, the School Board must address and solve the problems that cause and result from mold and mildew exposure. The health and safety of our teachers, school employees, and most importantly, our children, depend on the School Board's resolve to correct the leaky roofs, windows, and walls in our schools. Remediation of schools' interiors, where mold-rotted walls need replacement, is critical at many schools. These repairs will be expensive, but the failure to do so places both children and adults at risk. Failure to do so may also place the School Board and ultimately the taxpaying residents of this county, at grave financial risk. Lawsuits filed by parents of children or teachers who have been forced to breathe the mold spore-filled air of too many of our schools may become prevalent in the near future. We strongly urge the School Board to properly fund and insure the completion of its mold and mildew remediation program.

If the School Board cannot effect these changes, perhaps an oversight board should be considered.

It may be helpful to repeat the recommendations set forth in the body of this report. They are as follows:

1. The School Board must immediately identify and repair all major roof leaks in its schools. We do not expect that every roof leak will be fixed immediately but there are schools that have leaked for over five years. They have supposedly been repaired, however, they continue to leak. These schools are not even identified as schools with water intrusion problems.

2. The Florida Legislature should enact legislation requiring rules to be promulgated regarding abatement procedures for mold and mildew in public buildings.

3. That until such legislation and rules take effect the School Board must

establish and distribute written procedures that follow the EPA guidelines for its personnel and all contractors engaged in mold abatement.

4. The EPA has recently made available to all schools "The Indoor Quality Tools for

Schools" action kit. This free educational packet helps school personnel to learn about and take steps to correct mold problems in their schools.

5. Fix our schools' roof leaks and water intrusion problems as quickly as possible.

As the Minnesota study said, "Mold growth simply should not be tolerated in schools. When such growth is evident, the critical cause, excess moisture, should be corrected."

6. The School Board should ensure that all mold remediation be done in a safe manner and require that any contractor engaging in mold remediation employ the procedures set out in the EPA guidelines.

7. The folly of reusing untested prototypes is even more evident in 2003 than it was in 1997. We cannot overemphasize the importance of analyzing and evaluating new designs for schools prior to their reuse. The "old" schools have held up much better than those prototype reuses built from 1987 to 1996. We strongly recommend that the School Board carefully analyze every school design that it intends to use as a prototype to ensure that the design is structurally sound before it is used as a prototype.

8. We urge the School Board to bear in mind that the primary function of a building built with public funds is to provide shelter from the weather, not to make "architectural statements" or enhance the aesthetics of our neighborhoods. The first priority of any school construction in South Florida should be to keep out the rain. The second should be to make sure the air conditioning systems effectively cool and dehumidify the buildings.

9. There are numerous schools that have documented water intrusion problems but have no mold and mildew remediation program scheduled or even budgeted. Whether these schools' water intrusion problems should be addressed separately or "bundled" is not the Grand Jury's decision, however, someone must ensure that these schools get proper attention.

10. Identify and verify the extent of its Indoor Air Quality problems in all of its

schools. Where there is a discrepancy between the original and current estimates, undertake a thorough examination of the school to determine which is correct and fund those remediations completely.

11. Ensure that the entire school is remediated, not like Riverglades Elementary

which still has mold and mildew and leak problems, or Marjory Stoneman Douglas, which could not be completed due to budget shortfalls.

12. Inform the parents, school staff, and the general public about the remediation programs at each school. What will be done, how it will be accomplished, and when it will occur are essential points of information. What allegedly occurred at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary and elsewhere, namely, false or misleading promises and years of inaction, should not recur. Correcting the mold and mildew problems and preventing their recurrence in new schools might well be expensive and difficult; however, it is long overdue.

13. Parent groups have the right to voice concern when mold and mildew problems

are evident and the School Board has the responsibility to evaluate and remediate the problem in a timely manner.

14. Fix the roof leaks at Eagle Point, Eagle Ridge, Chapel Trails, Silver Palms and

Sawgrass Springs.

15. Install the missing equipment at Sawgrass Springs.

16. Repair the malfunctioning air conditioning and plumbing systems at these schools, particularly at Silver Palms, Eagle Point, and Eagle Ridge.

17. Do not open schools before they are finished.

18. Every School Advisory Forum (SAF) or other appropriate parent group should request copies of the monthly maintenance logs for their schools. This would allow this group to learn what problems recur and are not fixed at their schools. These logs are all matters of public record.

19. Whenever the contractor engages in such risky practices as applying dry wall before the building is water tight, the School Board should exercise special vigilance to insure that any water damage or mold and mildew growth is immediately addressed. At Westglades Middle School and Park Lakes Elementary School there was water damage to the drywall resulting in mold and mildew growth because the contractors chose to apply drywall during the rainy season before the roofs and windows were completed. We are advised that all problems have been corrected, however, eradication of mold and mildew growth has historically been difficult for the School Board.

20. When the School Board chooses to reuse a school design, all change orders and corrections to the original plans have not always been incorporated into the drawings for the new school before construction begins. At several elementary schools, the same problems recurred at each reuse of the prototype. This caused delay and additional expense and should have been avoided. There is no reason why the School Board cannot insist that all change orders and corrections be made and plans revised accordingly and incorporated prior to the reuse of any prototype design.

21. The School Board should implement a standardized protocol for inspections of the entire construction process and for closing out a completed school construction project.

22. The architectural contracts should be reviewed for possible revision. Too often consultants have been paid for incomplete and/or inadequate architectural plans. Both the contractual language and the consultant payment structure need revision to ensure better quality plans.

23. Solving the problems outlined above will require more than the institution of new policies and procedures. There must be a change in attitude on the part of the School Board Facilities Division. Vigilance, diligence, and a healthy skepticism towards the architect and contractor would go a long way toward solving these problems. The School Board must also not undermine the Facilities Division's authority in dealing with contractors. Without becoming unfairly punitive, the School Board should hold the construction professionals to the terms of their contract.

24. The School Board Project Managers clearly need assistance. A project manager can have multiple projects each in excess of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) under construction at the same time. Verifying payment requisitions on these projects seems all but impossible, particularly for construction at risk projects. The School Board needs additional personnel trained in construction finance to help monitor its large projects.

25. A boundary shift is necessary to take advantage of eastern schools' excess student capacity. This might prove to be very controversial.

26. There is little or no apparent accountability for the premature release of retainage

monies. Perhaps the problem will be solved by the Contract Compliance Director's new oversight role, but this Grand Jury is concerned that more checks and balances might be needed. One possible solution would be to require the contractor and the project manager to jointly execute a document which states that all conditions precedent to the release of retainage have been met before retainage can be released.

27. There is no reason to open new schools unless all safety items are completed and

in operation. In its haste to occupy schools, the School Board has taken unnecessary risks, particularly when this space has not truly been needed for its students as occurred at Norcrest and Rock Island Elementary Schools. The School Board should simply not open schools that are incomplete.

28. The logjam of incomplete safety items must be addressed. Although simply throwing money at major projects without planning or design is foolish, the School Board needs to fix these safety items. Whether additional resources or manpower is needed, the School Board must reduce the backlog of safety items expeditiously and efficiently.

29. A preventive maintenance program, particularly with regard to exterior painting, roofing, and air conditioning matters, is needed rather than the current system of reacting to crises. Preventive maintenance might well require an onsite mechanic to maintain and perform minor repairs in air conditioning systems at our larger schools. Particularly at such large facilities as our high schools, such as Stoneman Douglas or Flanagan High School, or at joint elementary middle school sites such as Challenger and Millennium in Tamarac, a full time mechanic could easily be needed just to perform routine maintenance on these large systems. Now, as noted above, the district simply reacts to the air conditioning and other problems as they develop. The current system is neither efficient nor effective. New methods in maintaining these vital indoor air quality constituents might well prove to be very effective.

30. A management information system is needed to allow the Maintenance Division to become aware of those repairs which should be warranty items. A procedure should be instituted where the Facilities Division automatically notifies the Maintenance Division of all punchlist and warranty list items left unresolved when a school opens so that the contractor rather than the School Board is responsible for the repairs and/or replacement of these items.

31. Enforcement of warranties and ensuring the correction of all warranty list items should become a priority for the School Board. Past failures to do so have been expensive and have necessitated costly repairs.

DATED this 23rd day of April, A.D. 2003