tally yeah I'm ready okay uh let's go ahead and start this morning's meeting and Joyce will ask you to do a roll call please okay um Dave Tally here Amy McDonald Michael Dixon he's here okay uh Mark bmaster Kathleen wiel LeAndre camel here Alyssa doin here okay all right Mr tally I'm here I'm sorry my my audio is off I'm sorry okay okay so we have a quorum right yes we have four okay uh I can't really see the room but if we want to go ahead and start down at one end and do the introductions that would be fine yeah sure Bob Bliss off office of Inspector General Rand Los ig's office Teresa Michael Inspector General Chris cha Daniels Christina Daniels office of Inspector General Joyce Edison office of Inspector General and Carrie High Council to Inspector General Heather Frederick Chief Financial Officer okay Frank are you there I thought he was yes sir okay welcome all right we'll go to uh take a minute and look at the agenda are are there any additions or deletions to the agenda Terry no additions or deletions however we cannot approve the minutes since we are not physically present so if we can just we'll look at those and then approve them at the next meeting okay then all I can do for the second one is just have you review those minutes and uh we'll approve those at the next meeting uh are there any public comments hearing none we'll go to the IG update uh Miss Michael okay perfect again I want to thank everybody for being here today um we have a couple of things things I wanted to talk about and we did this virtually I take your time very seriously but we have had uh quite a few months since we've actually met so I wanted to update everybody cover a few things that have been going on uh and also answer any questions if any of the audit committee members or any of the stakeholders may have uh one of the first things I wanted to discuss was the my evaluation we were not able to to meet to formally approve the the evaluation that the audit committee submitted but technically my contract doesn't require approval it just requires that uh the audit committee submit their scores for review by the board members uh one of the things that I do is when the audit committee members submit their scores I don't see them until the board members actually receive them that way I'm not sitting there trying to prepare the board members for anything so the first time I saw them was when the board memb saw them and as you could see we have the overall rating up there and I do appreciate that very much the 4.9 um greatly greatly appreciate that and the comments that were made um I've also taken a look at them and I've taken notice of some of the comments and one of the uh comments involved uh the phone calls now and I understand that completely the current Matrix says that how I how the office handles all phone calls and I I understand that's almost impossible to be able to judge that so I'm going to look at how I can change the Matrix to to more accurate reflect so that people are more comfortable in their response in that matter so I will look at that and address that issue uh I also if there is anything on the evaluation process C that the audit committee would like to see differently anything you'd like me to do differently or my staff to do that make it um a little bit easier for you a little bit more palatable please let me know I try to do as much as I can to make it as painless as possible for for everyone but I understand that that it is time consuming so if you have any questions or concerns about the overall evaluation um or you like to make any comments directly to me about the overall valuation I believe now would be a good time I think overall this is Dave I think overall that the format of the V the evaluation was uh was well done so I commend you on the structure of that and I see that Kathy wagle has joined us great welcome Miss Mel if there if there's no concerns on that matter um then we'll go on to the next issue and this is kind of the the little bit more important one that I wanted to discuss and that is the new pending legislation that we have all right and it's CS for sb714 um let's see if we can get that one raised over from the other computer now what that is there's a pending legisl that the Senate and the house has approved right now as of this morning it was engrossed and enrolled so it's just pending being sent to the governor and if signed by the governor which I imagine he will because this is a republican-backed uh amendment I can't imagine that he's going to veto it this will have a severe impact on the ig's office as well as office of professional stand standards and other agencies that conduct administrative investigations that are based on ethics related type complaints and essentially what had happened was the initial proposed legislation was just directed towards the Florida Commission on ethics in Tallahassee and I had been tracking that because that some of the process that the Florida Commission on ethics was using I was going to try to adopt so as I was watching that go through the process at the very very last stop they added this language here which you're seeing and this language here is where there was a significant impact to local political entities such as ourselves the school district as well as the local Commission on ethics that also affect local IGS and what this language is saying is that prior to initiating any investigation we have to have a written sworn affidavit submit by somebody who has personal or direct knowledge of the allegations being reported and they have to sign and swear to that affidavit so we can no longer take Anonymous complaints all of the allegations have to be based again on personal direct knowledge so no hearsay it prohibits the initiation of a complaint or investigation by the IG so if the Palm Beach Post does a wonderful oose a and says that half of the the district is on the take unless they're willing to name their sources and those sources come in and give an affidavit we can't look at it uh it also causes some problems where if we have a person that gives you know says you know I overheard this issue um and I think it's very important again overhearing something doesn't work we have to have somebody that has Direct personal knowledge of that some of the concerns that also have is that um once if if we initiate an investigation based on hearsay or if somebody makes a report and they don't have direct personal knowledge and they know that they don't have direct personal knowledge of this but go forward anyways and misrepresent it then that person could be liable for attorney's fees and any Associated costs so I imagine that this is going to have a severe impact on people reporting naturally and we also going to probably have an increase on people re requesting whistleblower status because that will at least protect their their identity but they still will have to come forward and do the sworn affidavit they still have to have personal and direct knowledge so some of the questions that that we are working on because the the legislation is vague in some areas is what is it definition of an investigation uh we are looking at you know can we start an inquiry or preliminary review and is that enough for us to be able to start an investigation once we have some information again those are some legal questions that both our Council and the school board's General councel are looking into um there's also questions about once we've initiated an investigation or or an audit and we discover something else throughout that purpose of that can we go forward with it or do we have to have somebody with direct knowledge you know can this be an offshoot again those are all questions that we are looking at to try to address all right what are we doing to prepare for this number one uh We've developed the affidavit process to comply with the new legislation we have a vacant intake um person Morgan left who is our other intake uh counselor and she's moved up to Tallahassee so we now have a new intake coordinator position because of these new requirements the new intake coordinator is going to have to be a an investigator essentially because they're going to have to go out and take sworn affidavits they're going to have to know how to interview they're going to have to know how to to understand the Whistleblower statutes what heay is um and it's going to be a very complicated and arduous process so we've revived the that job description that has to go in front of the board I'm hoping to get that in front of the next board and if that's approved then we can go forward in hiring that new person um I also again I believe that we're going to have uptake in people requesting whistleblower status now every complaint that we receive we do an informal review for whistleblower uh status but if somebody actually requests whistleblower then we do a formal intake of that and that's has some very specific steps very specific deadlines and that's something that the new intake person will have to do again this also affects Ops uh and anybody else who does investigations within the district that are non-criminal this will have no impact on school police so I can imagine if we have any complaints that slightly could be might be criminal in nature especially if it has to do with health safety welfare we're going to send those to school police immediately I don't want to take the chance that we are ignoring a complaint because we don't have a sworn affidavit from somebody and it's Anonymous um yet there could be a child or a staff member in danger so there's going to be an uptake with school police receiving complaints as well uh also we are looking at identifying some other ways in which we can uh get the process from cares to the staff as quickly as possible and the reviews because I don't know exactly how this is going to impact our investigations if we're going to have a lot more investigations a lot less nobody knows that's essentially the update on the legislation does anybody have any questions I'm not sure where you start I I understand that yeah wow wow I have to think about it myself I don't have any comments right this minute though Mr chair yes um I I asked at the board meeting um what we were going to do about the anonymous line that comes into the the outside vendor that we use um Madam IG can you explain how that's going to affect that and what steps you've taken with respect to the anonymous line I guess can't take anonymous calls that unless somebody's willing to come in and sign the affidavit is that correct right so what what we're going to do is we're not going to refuse the the call we will take the call even if they say they're going to be anonymous they're just not going to be able to initiate an investigation so what we'll probably end up doing is refer that to management for their information and they can take action based on that if there's not enough for us to initiate a formal investigation into it I don't want to shut down the line completely you know just in case we do have somebody that is reporting you know a health safety and Welfare on a child you know we could have a non-verbal autistic child um and you know the parent wants to make a complaint you know we want to we want to take those it it's going to take some you know we're going to have to do a lot more vetting we're going to have to reach out to people and say okay I understand you're anonymous if we have an email we're going to say we can't go go forward unless you're willing to give us a sworn statement if they're not willing then we're just going to send it to management for information purposes uh but I don't want to shut down the the influx of information uh just based on the fact that I cannot initiate a formal investigation again we don't know if I can initiate a review can I in initiate an inquiry you know that right now those are legal questions that still haven't been answered so I don't want to shut down we're just going to cause us a lot more work on how we handle and process those complaints okay thank you are there any other stat that um kind of have this rule in place that we can kind of use as guidance or is this kind of a a new wave or a new thing guess well the commission on ethics this is how they handle complaints and that's how I was looking at handling those complaints for those issues that go to towards the myself the school board members um towards you know the superintendent The General Counsel I was going to use that same process because there's no vetting of those complaints you know once you file a complaint according to our policy I have somebody has to investigate it when you make those complaints against the board members or myself so I was trying to kind of Follow that process and essentially they want that same process to be done for everyone now some of the the thought or the rationale from what watching all the committee hearings was that they're afraid that anybody could weaponize making a complaint especially right before an election and then you'd have this complaint and the person's being investigated and turns out it's nothing but it could affect their election what they don't un realize is that you can make that complaint and the Palm Beach Post can do a huge expose on that and it's just going to be out there no one's ever going to investigate to clear you because we don't have a sworn affidavit so you're going to have a lot of unanswered allegations out there so I don't think this is going to have the effect that they had communicated was their intent okay are there any other questions of uh of Terry so essentially what now I'm watching this a couple of times a day to see when it goes to the to the governor for a signature uh the legislation states that once it's signed it'll be effective in October we will be ready uh that's going to require a lot of training by my staff to understand that they cannot look at everything just because they see something that looks like it's a problem um we're going to work with Ops and the general council's office to make sure that that we are following uh the laws and again we don't make the laws we just enforce the rules and we'll ensure that we're following whatever legislation Tallahassee puts out H don't I don't Envy you we'll handle it just fine we we got a good team here we'll make the adjustments I know you will okay are there any other questions or comments of uh Terry pertaining toh Senate Bill 74 okay Mr chair LeAndre here yes is it possible um we can have this item come back before us um At a next meeting when we are in person um to give us I just need some opportunity to digest it but also if at all possible how would this can you lay out a road map your current road map and what this legislation would do with your road map once you get the complaint um Madam IG yes I have I already have a flowchart prepared that was show um again you know I have the process laid out on how to take an affidavit what the requirements in the affidavit will will need to be in order for it to be legally sufficient for us to continue and I will present all that information at our next meeting and what I plan to do all the way up until when it's signed is that at every audit committee I'll update you on our progress if there's any developments so those will just be part of our normal um audit committee briefing and I'll have I'll have all the process maps and the affidavits and the instructions for everything available for you all uh when we're in person at our next meeting thank you Mr chair Madame IG great anything else if not we'll go on to item five uh the internal funds audit as of April 4th good morning the uh excuse me the FI 23's uh internal funds audit all the F workor has been completed and then uh for this years uh we found that 36 school had no uh significant findings for the remaining 139 schools as of yesterday we have received the principal's response from 121 schools and we are still waiting for the responses from 18 schools the districtwide management letter has been sent to the Chief Financial officers for review and the response is still on April 30th so once we get the response uh the report will be ready to present to the audit committee at next meeting in May is there any questions about the status of the internal funds okay thank you very much thanks uh we'll go on now to item six compliance and quality assurance Terry yeah hi good morning this is Bob Bliss officer okay compliance quality insurance um attached to your agenda uh mostly as an FYI you'll find two quarter reports that summarize our office's procurement related activities um in there you'll see we attended all six of the monthly construction oversight and review committee meetings as well as the two quarterly independent sales C tax oversight committee meetings that were held we also attended a total of five contract evaluation committee meetings and five contract negotiation meetings and those meetings involve the total contract value of more than $60 million now while we attend those meetings we make observations and uh you'll see a few that we made in these reports in the column entitled potential issues concerns and uh the good news is those concerns were quickly addressed by management at the time and that's all I have to say and unless on these reports unless anybody has any questions any questions of Bob okay we'll move on and uh item seven the investigations there are six of them and Joyce previously sent those to all the committee members so uh we'll go on with that are there any uh are there any general comments okay we're hearing none our next scheduled meeting is going to be on May 10th and uh with that is there any further business to come before the committee Mr chair yes the um I don't know if Miss Michaels has advised any any the audom members in the past but we have these continuing contracts that U that I guess the new state law is going to allow up to $7 million uh the limit I don't fully understand how they work other than the fact that once the board approves continuing contracts we have one that's zero to two two million and we approved one that's two million to four million those those items can you hear me m Mr chair can you hear okay yes okay so once those those contined contracts are approved by the board the board doesn't get to see anything that's spent on that money it's never reported to us it does not go to construction oversight Review Committee so um so I'm I've been working with the superintendent uh to come up with a couple things first of all U I think the continuing contracts expenditures especially if they go up to $7 million without the board ever seeing them should go to construction oversight Review Committee which would then give all of you the the ability to see anything that comes up because I've asked it the construction um oversight Review Committee finds an issue um that they're not pleased with that that is reported to the board which then would give you all the opportunity to review that also so it concerns me that you know that the administration could spend up to $7 million under the new statute and and the board never sees those expenditures neither does the construction oversight Review Committee see them the other thing that you the superintendent and I are working together on is the the uh and having an outside evalu evaluate the bids that come in because currently I understand I is the one that [Music] EV also gets a piece of every project my understanding almost every project that the that the district spends money on constructionwise and uh Acom is the one that's evaluating the bids so it's I'm not suggesting they do anything nefarious here but there is the opportunity since they have the they get a percentage of the overall contract and they are also the ones that are determining whether the bids that we're getting are you know fair and reasonable so uh I know the superintendent has indicated me that that you know they're they're currently looking for an outside third party firm that will be retained to evaluate bids that come in um which will certainly help um the uh Bob Bliss is part of the of the uh of the auditing since he he sees a lot of the construction cont I just wanted to bring it to your attention I'm sure there'll be more information coming to you once the board acts on those on those items great thank you Frank you're welcome Mr chair LeAndre here in light of what um Mr barer just shared with us do we I am sitting here wondering if we need to put together a more stringent policy um just from the a from that perspective we should make a recommendation to the board for a uh a more stringent policy in place so that we're not missing that $7 million um loophole now I won I don't know legally if that needs some additional if it's if we're able to do it but I think we should have something in place um in in in light of that but that's just me asking okay Heather yes I did want to to mention that the the uh the Florida statute or the legislature did pass increasing that limit for the continuing contracts contracts up to $7 million uh but we were going to continue to leave it internally at the $4 million threshold we were not planning to increase it um and then the reason for the the increase is you know costs have escalated and so it does the board does approve but they approve at um the the Consolidated level so we'll say we'll bring to the board an agenda item saying we're going to spend $80 million on continuing contracts and then we don't bring each individual contract to the board and it's just because there are so many at that that lower dollar amount um it it assists with not slowing down the project and so I just wanted to at least mention that we were not planning to increase up to that $7 million to give the audit committee um some comfort on that as well as Mr Barbieri and then within the uh CFO division another process that we wanted to implement which will just supplement what's already being performed by the inspector General's office and the work by um Mr Bob blz is having a um a hiring a construction auditor that will audit each of the um the contract of uh billing invoices and it's it doesn't supplement what it doesn't replace what the Inspector General is doing uh it is like I said supplementing it and it's more of a control on the on the business side um where it's a verifying that all the bills are correct um and it's just another addition check that we're verifying you know all the billing information so just wanted to give some guidance um and an additional information to the committee on that um so we're working through trying to procure um that contract it is best practice um and several districts across the the state um have a construction audit firm and so we are going to be putting that in place as well um over the upcoming months okay thank you heather any questions or comments of of Heather's presentation no questions but that's why I love this um committee the Forward Thinking from the from the staff and the team here I appreciate that Heather great okay is there any further business to come before the committee if not again the next meeting is scheduled for May 10th and with that I will declare the meeting ajour thank you all for joining us virtually and have a nice weekend thank you