Uthmeier to Investigate Broward Schools Laptop Contracts After Watchdog Says Staff Misled the Board

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier says his office will investigate how Broward County Public Schools handled a string of student laptop contracts, after a county watchdog concluded that district staff mismanaged the bidding, misled the School Board and awarded a deployment contract to a vendor that allegedly submitted falsified paperwork to qualify.

Uthmeier announced the move on social media late last week, and a spokesperson for his office confirmed to WLRN on Oct. 9 that the Attorney General's office is looking into the matter. The findings had already been referred to Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor's office, which said it welcomes working with the state. The episode puts the second-largest school district in Florida under fresh state scrutiny at a moment when it is also weighing school closures and a shrinking enrollment.

What Uthmeier said

In his post, Uthmeier tied the new review to criticism he raised more than a year ago.

"We raised concerns regarding this process last year, and the IG's report failed to alleviate those concerns," Uthmeier wrote on X. "We plan to investigate this further."

The South Florida Sun Sentinel first reported Uthmeier's comments. Paula McMahon, a spokesperson for Pryor, told the newspaper that prosecutors from the two offices intend to discuss the case and that the State Attorney's Office welcomes collaboration, raising the possibility of a joint inquiry.

Uthmeier's office did not say what form its investigation would take or whether it would rely on the Office of Statewide Prosecution, the unit inside the Attorney General's office that handles cases spanning multiple judicial circuits or brought by statewide grand juries.

What the inspector general found

The probe follows a final report released in late September by Broward County Inspector General Carol "Jodie" Breece, whose office has jurisdiction over county government, Broward's municipalities and, under an interlocal agreement, the School Board. According to accounts of the 623-page report published by WLRN and Florida Politics, investigators examined three solicitations the district ran between September 2023 and October 2024 for computer purchases and distribution services worth more than $40 million. The program ultimately put roughly 80,000 laptops in the hands of students.

The inspector general concluded that district staff did not commit misconduct or gross mismanagement as those terms are defined for the office's purposes. But the report found that staff mismanaged the procurement process and misled the School Board, and that a then-economic development and diversity compliance officer, who has since retired, tried to steer business to a Fort Lauderdale company, Phone and Pad Warehouse, also known as iPad and iPhone Warehouse LLC.

Investigators said the company's owner obtained information that had not been disclosed to other bidders and used it to try to secure work. They did not find probable cause for bid tampering charges against district employees because they could not establish who leaked the confidential bidding information.

Three rounds of bidding

The report traces a procurement that was started and scrapped twice before a contract was signed.

• First solicitation: HP finished first and was headed for School Board approval. After second-place Lenovo, the district's longtime computer supplier, signaled it would protest, staff recommended canceling every bid, citing the absence of Chromebooks among the device options. Investigators concluded the underlying goal was to keep Lenovo from receiving the contract. A district procurement employee had recommended simply extending Lenovo's existing contract, an option estimated to cost $11.3 million less than rebidding, according to the Sun Sentinel.
• Second solicitation: The compliance officer and the Fort Lauderdale vendor sought to persuade the low bidder, Figgers Communications, to hire the vendor as a subcontractor for device distribution. Figgers refused, and the district canceled that competition too. The report found two district staff members misled the School Board about whether staff had access to bid prices.
• Third solicitation: The district split the work into separate contracts for devices and for deployment. Staff recommended HP for the equipment and the Fort Lauderdale company for distribution. That equipment solicitation excluded Chromebooks and Android devices, even though their absence had been cited as the reason to cancel the first round.

The warehouse lease

The most serious allegations involve how the deployment vendor qualified. Bidders were required to show at least 10,000 square feet of warehouse space. According to the report, the company submitted a modified lease listing 10,800 square feet when it actually rented 4,800 square feet, and the district paid the company based on those representations.

The contract the company won runs five years and is worth about $540,625 a year through 2030. Investigators calculated that awarding the deployment work to the alternate vendor would have cost the district $108,750 less over the life of the contract.

The inspector general's office concluded that the company's owner may have violated state laws covering two third-degree felonies, including knowingly providing false information that became part of a public record, and a second-degree misdemeanor for making false official statements, and referred those findings to prosecutors. No one has been charged. A lawyer for the owner disputed aspects of the findings and said the company's limited response should not be read as accepting the allegations. The two district employees cited in the report have disputed its findings: one denied intentionally misleading the School Board, and the other challenged the investigation's methods and denied helping steer business to the vendor.

How the district has responded

Superintendent Howard Hepburn removed the district's interim technology chief in August. He confirmed plans last week to recommend firing two employees, CBS News reported, and told the Sun Sentinel he would seek to end the district's contract with the deployment vendor. Broward Schools did not respond to WLRN's request for comment on the Attorney General's announcement.

The inspector general made 11 recommendations to the School Board, including tighter protection of bidding information, stronger checks of vendor qualifications and annual procurement training for staff. Breece's office has asked for an update on the district's progress by Dec. 29.

A history of state scrutiny

The laptop purchases have been on Uthmeier's radar since July 2025, when he posted about what he called questionable contracts awarded by the Broward School Board without naming them. The post came shortly before the board voted on a laptop contract that WLRN reported would cost the district about $115 million, and days after Gov. Ron DeSantis and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia announced on July 22, 2025, that the state's Department of Government Efficiency would audit Broward County government.

It is also not the first time technology spending has drawn state prosecutors to the district. In 2021, a statewide grand jury that began by examining school safety after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting indicted a former Broward Schools chief information officer on bid tampering and unlawful compensation charges tied to about $17 million in interactive classroom displays. The Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution handled that case.

The new investigation lands as the district confronts other pressures. The School Board is weighing a new round of school closures with about 61,000 empty seats across its campuses, and Broward County government is separately embroiled in a budget dispute that has prompted a review of Sheriff Gregory Tony's spending. For a district that has asked residents to support it through enrollment losses and closures, questions about how it spent tens of millions of dollars on student devices carry added weight.

What's next

Prosecutors from the Attorney General's office and Pryor's office are expected to meet to decide how to proceed, and any decision to file charges would come from one of those offices, not the inspector general. Hepburn's recommended terminations would need School Board action, as would any move to cancel the deployment contract, which the district can pursue separately from the criminal referral. The district's response to the inspector general's 11 recommendations is due Dec. 29, and the School Board's handling of the report is likely to surface at upcoming board meetings as members also debate the closure plan.