If ever there was a time and a place for a housecleaning, the time is now and the place is the South Florida Water Management District.
SFWMD, the state's second largest property owner, is a sprawling bureaucracy with a fancy building, a fleet of aircraft employees sarcastically refer to as "the South Florida Air Force," and dazzling power over Floridians' pocketbooks, natural resources, water supply and the quality of life for future generations.
True, an entity like that would be an awesome responsibility for any board of governors.
But the SFWMD board has grown insular. It has fallen asleep at the switch. It operates a district with a $1.1 billion budget and more than 1,930 employees, and it does so largely in the dark and maybe even in violation of the public trust.
That was never more obvious than it was in Palm Beach Post reporter Joel Engelhardt's unraveling of one of SFWMD's more unsavory little secrets ("South Florida water district chief's boyfriend hired for 6-figure job") as presented in the newspaper's Sunday edition.
The story says that neither SFWMD Executive Director Carol Wehle nor her boyfriend Bob Howard disclosed that the district -- through its inspector general -- hired Howard last June to serve as one of Wehle & Co.'s watchdogs.
An engineer with no auditing experience, Howard was chosen over four other applicants to the position of engineering auditor.
Again -- to put it more simply this time -- he was hired to keep tabs on his girlfriend, to make sure she wasn't guilty of any wrongdoing on the job.
Howard drew a $120,000-a-year paycheck, he and Wehle kept it quiet, and even after board chairman Eric Buermann found out about the hiring and failure to disclose, he kept it under wraps. Why? Because, Buermann said, it was "a fait accompli" -- a done deal.
It wasn't a fait accompli at all. Dates on records seldom lie.
Howard was set to begin work on June 21. But before Howard's start date, Buermann received an anonymous letter tipping him off about the Wehle-Howard "close personal relationship." According to Engelhardt, that's when Buermann said, I cant tell you that I was happy about it, but again, I learned very late in the game after it was a fait accompli.
He could have reversed the hire, or tried to. He did not.
Buermann, whose term has already expired but stays on because the governor hasn't named his replacement, said he was told Howard would never be in West Palm Beach auditing and dealing with executive management. Hence, no conflict.
In fact, Inspector General John Williams, Howard's boss, told the Post Howard would be working in Jacksonville "75 percent of the time."
He wasn't.
"District records ... show that Howard spent just nine nights in Jacksonville in December, January and February, 14 percent of his time," the Post story said.
Engelhardt got it all. He established the relationship between Wehle and Howard and explained the conflict of interest in considerable detail. He quoted the lame responses of board members. He delivered a feel for the mountain of problems at this forbidding bureaucracy -- without ever having to say what they are.
After I read the story, I phoned three district employees I knew. "Have you known about Wehle and Howard for a long time?" I asked. They laughed. All three were convinced Howard's hiring was a gift to Wehle for services rendered delivering the $197 million U.S. Sugar Corp. land deal. Wehle, by the way, makes $202,000 a year plus the state's most generous employee benefits package.
I asked each employee, "Didn't you want to be a whistleblower?"
They did not. Two of them said they knew Buermann had been told and chose to do nothing. Bad sign, they said. All three admitted they feared losing their job had they reported it to Howard's boss, Inspector General Williams, because Williams had been among the three who hired Howard.
Hopefully, somebody on Rick Scott's staff will make him aware of Engelhardt's story, and soon.
The governor has a golden opportunity right now to change the culture of good-ol'-boy-and-girlisms and the drop in morale they have created at the Water Management District. Five of the district's nine governing board seats have come vacant.
He can find board members who not only want to cut the district's property tax collections by 25 percent, as he has asked, but who are sharp stewards of the state's water priorities and fiscal conservatives who won't buy what they can't afford to maintain in a dismal economy.
Current board members now are questioning what to do with Howard and Wehle, keep them or replace them -- or keep one and replace the other. Scott can make that decision all by himself -- he can make all kinds of personnel decisions by deciding quickly who he next will seat on the Water Management District board.
Spring cleaning time down South, governor.
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Postscript for Gov. Scott
I'll be brief, governor. I just want to pretend for a moment that you're actually listening.
Remember how you said, let me know if I ever break a campaign promise?
OK, I'm letting you know.
How about when you promised to run the state like a business?
Because, when we voted for you, we were pretty sure you meant a good business. You promised to run the state like a good business, right, Gov. Scott?
That causes me to ask why you didnt return my phone calls last week. I logged in quite a few. The importance of returning phone calls is right there in the first chapter of any Business 101 text: "Returning phone calls returns dividends, wins friends and it's good business."
The other day when I called my doctor before the office opened, I got a call-back. I called a jeweler when he was out to lunch -- he called me back. Pretty good businessmen, I'd say.
Maybe you cant get to me personally. But you have a staff. Would it have killed one of your press people to pick up the phone and return my call? They could answer my question, or say the governor hasn't decided, or say they have to meet with the governor, or, for all I care, tell me to go jump off a cliff.
In the end, Gov. Scott, I'm pretty much like my friend's dog Chester. You can do anything to Chester but ignore him.
Don't ignore me. It gives me the impression you're a really bad businessman.
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Columnist Nancy Smith can be reached at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
