Former Plantation Public Works Director Misused $4.5M, Audit Shows

Between masterminding a covert operation to steal catalytic converters from city vehicles and ordering subordinates to use government resources to remodel family members’ homes, reports about the tenure of former Plantation Public Works Director Steven Luther Rodgers read like a bad fanfic script of The Sopranos.

In the quiet, suburban heart of Broward County, Rodgers rose to director of the Plantation Public Works Department in 2019 and served until the city fired him in 2023, following charges of unlawful compensation, official misconduct, and dealing in stolen property. Public works employees, who typically maintain city infrastructure like roads and sewers, described Rodgers as a domineering boss who abused his power by coercing them to do his personal work, according to arrest affidavits from 2023.

But the monetary toll of his actions remained unclear until the Broward Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently announced Rodgers’ department misspent about $4.5 million in 2022 alone, according to the inspector general’s report of the investigation.

“Questionable expenditures of this magnitude are disheartening,” Broward County Inspector General Carol Breece wrote in the report. “They are the product of the Public Works Department’s former disregard for a proper review and approval of employee timecards at both the employee and supervisory levels — an indispensable part of the payroll process. Without this part of a payroll process, there can be no confidence in an organization’s payroll expenditures, which is especially vital when the payroll expenditures are publicly funded.”

While the OIG investigation stands separate from the state’s criminal case against Rodgers and was intended to determine whether current protocols contributed to or curbed potential abuse, inspectors found Rodgers’ department spent millions on payroll expenses lacking adequate documentation, Breece tells New Times.

“The problem was pervasive, it was systemic,” Breece says. “They needed to overhaul the entire way of approaching leave requests and submitting hours worked. It was evident opportunities for error and mischief were high.”

Breece’s investigation focused solely on the final full year of Rodgers’ employment with the city, suggesting that the total loss to questionable expenses could be significantly higher. Plantation City Council has worked with Breece to correct protocol issues she found in the department, she said. City officials didn’t return New Times‘ request for comment.

Rodgers’ attorneys didn’t return a request for comment.

The OIG investigation determined Plantation lacked critical procedures to mitigate mismanagement, leaving the city vulnerable to financial loss at the hands of inattentive or ill-intentioned staff, Breece wrote in her findings. Supervisors weren’t checking the time punches of hourly employees, leaving the responsibility to three office workers who would be physically far removed from the public works’ roving job sites, Breece tells New Times.

For at least the four years Rodgers was in charge, “the timecard editors inherently approved paid time off, deducted unpaid time off, and approved time worked for these employees with ADP for every pay period,” according to the report. “And they did so despite no one having cross-checked, verified, or approved the timecard editor’s work.”

While it’s unclear exactly how many employees benefited from questionable timecard punches, evidence indicates Plantation might have spent two years paying a so-called electrician who was no longer employed by the city, Breece says. The arrest affidavit described a man who would sporadically show up at the office and did no discernible work.

“The three timecard editors would take turns punching in his time for the week,” Breece says. “Whoever’s turn it was would put in 40 hours a week.”

In all, Breece’s investigation found the city paid about $92,000 to the man for seemingly no work at all, she said.

Public Works, Private Perks

According to the arrest affidavit, several employees said Rodgers enlisted them in schemes that appear to have extensively benefited him and those close to him, including:

2018: Took a 2002 Emerson trailer after signing off for it to be disposed of or sold.

2019-2022: Ordered a fleet supervisor and others to steal and sell catalytic converters from at least 12 city vehicles.

2022: Sent a city employee to buy doors for his house in Davie twice. Ordered another city employee to pour a slab of concrete at a private home. Sent a city employee to buy steel in Fort Lauderdale and deliver it to his Davie home.

February 2022: Sent a city employee to paint his girlfriend’s Pembroke Pines apartment at $20/hour for two eight-hour workdays.

July 2022: Ordered a city employee to unload seven five-gallon buckets of dirt at his mother’s house in Davie. Ordered a city employee to bring the city’s scrap metal to his mother’s house.

Rodgers’ criminal case is ongoing, with a court date set for later this month.