Broward College Trustees Exert New Control Over Foundation Board

Tensions are brewing between the Broward College Board of Trustees and the college’s foundation as the board exercises more control over who runs the foundation, arguing the foundation lacks oversight and the college has financially suffered for it.

Months ago, the board laid the groundwork for the move, granting itself the power to appoint and remove foundation board members in January, decisions previously within the purview of the foundation. Then, last week, the Board of Trustees used its newfound control to make major changes to the foundation’s leadership. In a controversial move, the trustees approved seven foundation board members and removed a longtime member who is executive director of the Florida ACLU and involved in a lawsuit against the state. Another foundation board member was urged to step down and did so. (The Sun Sentinel reported that the board is now 13 members.)

Some onlookers from inside and outside of the foundation are chafing at the increasing interference and worry appointees of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the Board of Trustees have political motives. Trustees deny any political agenda, claiming the direct-support organization needs an overhaul after years of poorly managed funds.

The board previously had little say in who governed the independent, nonprofit foundation.

Alexis Yarbrough, chair of the Board of Trustees, told Inside Higher Ed that the board was in the process of developing a memorandum of understanding with the foundation, a requirement from the state auditor general, when the board’s general counsel raised concerns to trustees that they lacked any real control over the foundation, unlike state universities. The State University System Board of Governors already requires trustees at its universities to approve the leaders of direct-support organizations. The lawyer recommended Broward follow their lead.

Yarbrough argued the Broward College Foundation in particular needs more oversight. She said the foundation lost approximately $20 million in investments in 2022 and continued to use the same financial manager. The foundation also projected raising $10 million last year when they in fact raised closer to $3.5 million. She also reported the foundation hadn’t balanced its checkbook since 2023. In response, trustees are also considering reviving another now-defunct direct-support organization to specifically oversee invested funds, if the current foundation agrees to such an arrangement.

“The foundation raises money from donors to support our programs, our endowments, our student scholarships,” Yarbrough said. “We commit to students and faculty … promises based upon a commitment we receive from the foundation. We have to be able to rely on that commitment … There has to be some measure of oversight to ensure that people are fulfilling their fiduciary obligations.”

At the same time, “nobody’s a bad actor here,” she added. People join foundation boards because “they love the college, they love the students.”

Raymond Monteleone, the former chairman of the foundation, pushed back in an interview with The Sun Sentinel that college staff handled the foundation’s paperwork and the foundation also struggled to obtain necessary financial information from the college, such as year-to-date income and expenses, because of administrative turnover.

“We were trying to get stuff done and get through our audits, but it was like pulling teeth,” Monteleone told The Sun Sentinel.

Oversight or ‘Hijacking’?

Bacardi Jackson, the long-time foundation board member ousted last week, argued at an April 15 meeting that the trustees overstepped their bounds.

“I have never been fired from a job or removed from a post until today,” Jackson said. “For over 10 years, I have faithfully and diligently served on the Broward College Foundation Board, including as its chair. …Under what authority are you appointing and removing trustees to a separate legal entity?”

Trustees claimed they removed Jackson because she wouldn’t sign a required code of ethics for the role—and because her position as the executive director of the Florida ACLU chapter represents a conflict of interest. The chapter is suing the state over its anti-DEI policies.

Yarbrough countered that the college is a “creature of the state.”

“You are not serving us if you are in litigation to strike down the very laws and policies that we abide,” she said. “Our Board of Trustees follows that law. We adopted our general education curriculum pursuant to that law. You’re saying what we are doing is unconstitutional. That is, by its essence, contrary and adverse to the interest of the college.”

She added that Jackson’s removal has nothing to do with “the merits of the litigation.”

“There’s no ideology conversation here. That has nothing to do with the financial oversight or whether you were a good board member or a bad member. You literally are not checking the box required to be a board member," she said referring to the unsigned code of ethics.

But some don’t buy it. In a message to friends and colleagues, Jackson encouraged people to speak out at the April board meeting, and multiple community members spoke up on Jackson’s behalf.

“What's happened over the past few days with this issue is bigger than any one board member,” Joshua Kaufman, a field organizer for the Florida ACLU chapter, told trustees. “This is about the hijacking of our institutions to impose a dangerous agenda, one that dismantles academic freedom, silences diverse perspectives and leaves staff and students in fear.”

Jackson said in her message to supporters that she isn’t concerned about her removal. She accused trustees of making “misleading” allegations about the foundation losing money when “that loss was in unrealized gain due to stock market fluctuation,” and she raised other concerns about the board’s management of Broward.

“This is about the unfettered takeover of our colleges and universities across the state to implement an insidious supremacist agenda, to destroy academic freedom and free speech, and to undermine decades of progress made in serving one of the most diverse student bodies with one of the most diverse staffs likely in the entire state,” she wrote.

The Sun Sentinel also reported that the college’s new president Torey Alston asked Ginger Martin, the foundation board’s vice chair, to step down, which she did.

“I have spent the last several weeks going through meeting minutes of the Foundation,” Alston wrote in a message to Martin, provided to Inside Higher Ed by the college. “There was a clear lack of leadership across the board, and there was no sounding of an alarm to college leadership on glaring fiscal issues.”

Meanwhile, the foundation board has been hemorrhaging members since Broward’s former president Gregory Haile abruptly resigned in September 2023 without explanation amid tensions with the Board of Trustees.

Yarbrough said part of the reason for approving new foundation board members was to recover some of those losses.

“That’s very normal—a president recruits people to join the foundation. They’re usually aligned with the president’s vision,” Yarbrough said. “…That’s why we have the power to appoint … because we need to make sure that there are people sitting there in those seats so they can actually have an organizational meeting.”

The Bigger Picture

Broward College isn’t the only Florida higher ed institution that’s dealt with power struggles between its foundation board and its Board of Trustees.

In November of last year, trustees at New College of Florida, also appointed by DeSantis, similarly shifted policies to exercise more control over the New College of Florida Foundation. The Board of Trustees gave the president, former Republican state politician Richard Corcoran, the power to remove foundation board members without cause. They also voted to allow the college’s board chair to appoint up to three representatives to the foundation board.

The move sparked backlash from some New College alumni who worried college leaders wanted access to the foundation’s restricted funds. Administrators argued the foundation misspent money and needed better oversight.

David Bass, vice president for program strategy and development at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, said nationally, it’s most common for higher ed foundation boards to be “independent and self-perpetuating,” meaning boards themselves recruit new members, or “in unusual circumstances” decide if a member should leave.

He emphasized that this more typical structure comes with some advantages. Foundations for public colleges were historically “intended to have a slightly arms-length relationship with the institution,” he said, so that they, as independent private entities, could facilitate philanthropic gifts that “might not be practical or efficient” for the college itself to handle. Some donors also feel more comfortable giving gifts when they know a dedicated board is overseeing them and ensuring the funds are used in accordance with the donors’ wishes.

Bass also believes politically appointed or elected trustees and foundation boards tend to attract different kinds of members that bring different skills to the table.

Foundation board members tend to be “people with the means and influence in the community to provide philanthropic leadership and serve as disinterested advocates for the college or university,” he said. “A foundation board presents an opportunity to engage volunteer leaders with a great mix of skills, relationships, passion, commitment to be really effective fundraisers and philanthropic advocates for the organization.”

He said institutional leaders should be the ones setting fundraising priorities, but he recommends a “close consultative collaboration” between foundation board members and trustees with “very regular, consistent communication and full transparency between the boards.”

Yarbrough said she’s taken aback by how “loose” institutional oversight is over many foundations.

“This issue of control, it’s a real issue,” she said. “I understand some people being concerned about it, because they think there might be another agenda at play. I get that.” But if foundations argue “I’m going to go raise money in your name and you can count on me to deliver that money to you” then they “drop the ball” or “start taking positions contrary to you … there’s something inherently flawed in that.”