Broward Schools’ Runcie could get $740K-plus severance deal; school board to vote Tuesday

The Broward County School Board is expected to vote Tuesday on a more than $740,000 separation agreement its chair negotiated with embattled Superintendent Robert Runcie’s attorney Monday afternoon.

The tentative agreement was reached just hours after Runcie’s attorney, Sherry Culves, called the School Board’s initial counter to a deal she offered last week — one that would have netted her client about $320,000 more — “offensive” because it called for a 30-day notice of separation instead of the 90 days she says his contract stipulated.

The parties came back to the table later in the morning and hashed out an agreement that the nine-member School Board is scheduled to take up for a vote at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Rosalind Osgood, chair of the School Board, who was tasked with negotiating the agreement, relented on the 90-day separation.

The $743,052 sum includes Runcie being paid until Aug. 9 — 90 more days of his $356,000 annual salary — plus an additional $200,000 or so in unused sick and vacation time, 20 weeks’ severance, and payments related to his pension and health insurance. The package also calls for legal costs for Culves, who agreed to cap her fees at $25,000.

A detailed breakdown of the agreement was not available Tuesday evening. But Osgood maintained it should not be viewed as the equivalent of Runcie walking away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

“It’s very important that the takeaway not be that we’re giving all of this money to Mr. Runcie, because that’s not accurate,” Osgood told reporters during a press conference following the negotiations.

“There are certain expenses that are due, like benefits, things to healthcare providers and those types of things like that that we have an obligation as a school board to pay to those entities, to procure, whether it’s medical insurance, dental insurance, whether it’s the retirement plan and those kind of things based on things that we agreed to on contract,” she said.

The agreement also calls for the School Board to pay upfront for Runcie’s attorneys representing him in his criminal case stemming from his April 15 grand jury perjury indictment. Should he be convicted or later plead no contest, Runcie, who has pleaded not guilty to the perjury count, would have to reimburse the district.

Culves last week proposed the School Board pay Runcie around $400,000 on top of his severance package, which she said was the value of his Florida retirement plan based on 10 years of service, plus the equivalent of four years of his employment with the Chicago public school system.

The School Board agreed to pay into Runcie’s retirement for his time in Chicago when he renewed his contract in 2017 to June 30, 2023, but it was contingent on him working for Broward for 10 years, an anniversary he won’t reach until Oct. 5 of this year. Runcie’s contract with the School Board commenced on Oct. 5, 2011; he came to the district from Chicago, where he was chief of staff to the Board of Education.

At the time of his 2017 contract, however, the cost to the district for the Chicago pension reimbursement was quoted at $80,000, not $400,000, the amount Runcie’s attorney cited last week.

Osgood on Monday insisted that number stay the same. And the School Board will pay the money to the Florida Retirement System for Runcie’s pension, not directly to him, as was proposed by Culves. Additionally, the payment is contingent on Runcie not being convicted of the perjury charge, Osgood said.

“Because if they freeze his account, that would just be money wasted. So, we’re trying to honor the fact that Mr. Runcie has completed 95% of his contract, 95% of his obligation with his current contract, we’re trying to stay within the parameters of the law. We’re also trying to protect the board,” Osgood told reporters during a press conference after the meeting.

Walter J. Harvey, Miami-Dade County School Board’s attorney on loan to Broward for the severance negotiations, ended Runcie’s hope to stay on as an employee until Oct. 5.

Culves proposed last week that Runcie, after his 90 days’ employment period ends in August, be able to use accrued unused sick time every business day thereafter until Oct. 5 to get him to his 10-year mark with the district.

Harvey, however, said Monday that sick time is just that: It must be used only if Runcie or a family member is ill.

“It’s contrary to board policy and state law” to use it for other reasons, Harvey said.

Osgood had hoped to negotiate a deal with Runcie last week, but talks ended on Wednesday over questions on Culves’ pension proposal.

Culves on Monday took issue with Harvey’s assertion that Runcie wanted to leave his job. She said her client offered to resign because most of the nine members of the School Board said he should following his indictment.

“I dispute, adamantly, what Mr. Harvey said about it being Mr. Runcie’s initiation of these proceedings. We all know that Mr. Runcie declared his willingness to continue serving this board, and his willingness to step aside was in response to the board’s indication that it wanted something like this,” Culves said.

Grand jury accusations

Gov. Ron DeSantis authorized the statewide grand jury in February 2019. It was tasked with investigating whether fraud was committed when school districts accepted millions of dollars from a state bond issue contingent on implementing school safety measures.

The grand jury was also investigating whether on-campus crime was under-reported by the district. One of the jury’s initial reports, filed in December 2019, cited a Broward Teachers Union’s school safety and discipline survey that alleged students who were reported to school administrators for disciplinary issues were allowed to “have those same students returned to their classes without being disciplined at all, or in some cases, after some sort of ‘conference.’ ”

The grand jury ended on April 17.

The Legislature enacted school safety laws in the wake of the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Seventeen students and faculty members were killed and 17 others were wounded in the attack by gunman Nikolas Cruz that day.

Runcie is accused of contacting at least one person who was a witness in another case the grand jury was investigating. Prosecutors said he lied to the grand jury when asked about that conversation.

The grand jury also indicted district General Counsel Barbara Myrick. Both she and Runcie told the School Board at a meeting on April 27 that they would step down pending their respective separation agreements.

The School Board unanimously approved Myrick’s separation agreement Thursday. She is walking away with $226,000 — a combination of her severance, pension, unused sick and vacation time and health benefits.

Statewide prosecutor Richard Mantei, who works for Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, said he has phone records that show Runcie contacted someone on the grand jury witness list on March 30, the night before he gave his testimony to the grand jury on March 31 and April 1.

That other case resulted in the January indictment of the school district’s former technology chief, Tony Hunter, who was charged with buying $17 million worth of flat screen monitors for the district from his friend’s company in Georgia and circumventing the bidding process.

Hunter is charged with one count of bid tampering and one count of unlawful compensation in the pending case. He pleaded not guilty.

Mantei said Myrick also contacted someone on the Hunter case’s witness list before she testified to the grand jury last month.