Broward vote to hire new superintendent postponed after no-show board members skip meeting
FORT LAUDERDALE - The effort to formally hire a new superintendent for Broward County public schools was thrown into disarray Thursday when the school board was unable to muster a quorum to approve the pending contract for Dr. Peter Licata.
Of the nine members that currently sit on the board, three were already not present for planned events elsewhere, which left six members available to approve the contract for Licata.
But the vote was put on hold when three of the six were no shows, bringing the whole process to a halt.
"I am very disappointed because we had a planned, structured process that went awry," acting Superintendent Earlean Smiley said during a news conference Thursday morning. "As interim superintendent, I need to find out why that happened and make sure that doesn't happen again."
The board negotiated a contract with Licata last week.
Under the agreement, he would receive a three-year pact with a yearly salary of $360,000. Licata also negotiated a severance package should he be fired without cause over the next three years.
During a meeting with reporters Thursday, Licata said the unexpected postponement has not soured him on running the school district.
"I don't scare very easily," he said. "Very few things scare me."
The inaction by the board on the vote disrupted what the district had hoped would be a well planned hiring process.
Licata said his wife had flown into town on a red-eye flight in order to witness the vote to hire her husband. Smiley said the vote would have freed her to leave the district and go into retirement, which is now on hold until the board vote.
"What we are going to do with all the speed we can muster is make it right with Dr. Licata," she said. "If not today, sometime in the very near future."
Officials said the next steps involve meeting with board members to set a date when they will all be available to vote on the contract for Licata.
"We are in the process now of aligning calendars to see when we can get the next date to approve the superintendent contract," Smiley said. "That's what the urgency is for the rest of the day."
Licata, formerly an assistant superintendent in Palm Beach County and a Broward native, was named to replace former schools chief Dr. Vicky Cartwright. In the role, he will preside over the sixth-largest school district in the country.
He received his BA in Business Administration and Political Science at the University of Miami and his MS in Educational Leadership from Barry University, according to his online bio.
Licata earned his Ph.D. in Global Leadership from Lynn University with a focus on Preparing Students for the 21st Century Workforce.