More Muck Unearthed at South Florida Water Management District

The shenanigans at South Florida Water Management District just keep on coming.

This time they involve bad ethics and bad purchasing practice (favoritism in selecting the contractor), bad equipment ($1.5 million in pumps that failed after being installed), bad follow-up (no attempt to collect on the pumps' five-year warranty), and abysmally bad decision-making that makes a joke of fiscal stewardship.

Here's the story in a nutshell -- but you should read the entire, outstanding Dan Christensen investigative piece in Thursday's Broward Bulldog ("Water district loses $1.5 million on Hollywood companys failed pumps; now buying $2 million more").

In 2006 the SFWMD spends $1.5 million on 15 large electric pumps from Morrison Pump. Morrison has "a significant inside political connection" when it wins the bid. Its lawyer, Nicolas Gutierrez, is vice chairman of the districts nine-member governing board in 2006.

But right after the pumps are installed, they fail. When the water management district tries to collect on the five-year warranty, it's told the warranty is void because the pumps were misused. How were they misused? The district never does find out. The district says it will sue ... never does. What it does do, however, is pay $1.85 million of taxpayers' money for replacement pumps from another company.

But wait. That's not all. Read the whole story. There are hugely costly ethical misdeeds up the wazoo on this one.

Then remember the Palm Beach Post's story last month revealing that the SFWMD recently hired its executive director's boyfriend for a $120,000-a-year job in an internal watchdog office. Bottom line: He was hired -- in part, anyway -- to keep an eye on the ethics of his live-in girlfriend.

No wonder Gov. Rick Scott and leaders in the Legislature are looking to save $120 million next year by lumping Floridas five water management districts together -- which is how the Legislature can keep a closer eye on things.

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