After months of drama, Pinellas Juvenile Welfare Board to start CEO search over

Five months into a contentious CEO search and three hours into a monthly meeting, the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County decided Thursday that it would not move forward with installing Glen Gilzean as its next leader.

Since January, the special district funded by taxpayer dollars has seen infighting between board members and threats of legal action from the interim CEO’s lawyer.

Gilzean, a popular appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis who was accused of misspending millions in his last appointment, was a front-runner for CEO alongside the interim, Mike Mikurak. In April, the board voted 6-5 to select Gilzean. A second vote was required before the selection became official.

On Thursday, the board ultimately voted to cancel the vote and start the search from scratch. Chief Operating Officer Karen Boggess was appointed as the new interim CEO.

The 11-member board is made up of county officials and gubernatorial appointees who are responsible for deciding how to allocate the $100 million annual budget to fund programs supporting children and families.

Here’s how Thursday’s meeting played out:

Motion to call off the search

Mikurak retained a lawyer who alleged that gubernatorial appointee Renee Chiea defamed Mikurak at a February meeting when she said the board had misspent money years ago when he was a board member.

His lawyer, Shane Vogt, threatened to sue over her comments and, more broadly, over how the CEO search was conducted.

He sent a demand letter to the board in late March seeking records from board members’ phones.

Those records revealed that Brian Aungst Jr., a gubernatorial appointee, had texted several prominent Republicans around the state about how votes for Gilzean were “gettable” from county officials and that he would “get it done.”

On April 29, Vogt sent a settlement proposal to the board that would entail calling off the CEO search and starting over.

Vogt spoke about the settlement at Thursday’s meeting. Chiea’s lawyer, Luke Lirot, refuted the claim that defamatory comments were made and encouraged the board to vote as they wished.

Public Defender Sara Mollo — who was the tiebreaker at the April vote — proposed a motion to conduct a second vote for Gilzean.

Before the vote, Pinellas schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick said he still believed the board should start over.

“No. 1, I am not interested in this becoming a political process. I said that months ago, and it clearly has,” he said. “This should be about supporting kids. The public records we have seen show the nature of how involved this has become behind the scenes. We should be embarrassed for that.”

Aungst then came out with a change of heart by calling for a motion to cancel the second vote and start a search from scratch with the help of a contracted search firm.

“We still don’t have consensus, and the community doesn’t have consensus,” he said. “I’m concerned about the organization. I don’t want meetings like this; we never used to have them.”

Gubernatorial appointee Melissa Rutland, who previously voted for Gilzean, said she agreed with Aungst and supported adding candidates to the search.

The motion passed by a vote of 5-4, with Mollo and gubernatorial appointees Chiea, Alicia McShea and Kristen Gnage voting against and Rutland and Aungst voting in favor. They were joined by Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Latvala, Circuit Judge Patrice Moore and board chairperson Jim Millican, who is also a gubernatorial appointee. (Hendrick had to leave the meeting for another obligation. State Attorney Bruce Bartlett was out of town.)

Question of who would serve as interim CEO

After it was decided that the search would start over, some board members expressed discomfort with Mikurak remaining the interim because of the settlement terms.

The offer asked that Mikurak be compensated $50,000 to resolve the civil claims against Chiea. It also asked for $50,000 in attorneys’ fees.

Mikurak said he would “take my demand off the table as long as we can move forward and put the children first.”

Aungst moved to extend Mikurak’s contract, but the motion was denied 4-5.

Mollo then suggested Boggess for the interim position.

Boggess has been with the organization for 20 years and took a minute to collect herself before responding.

“I live in this community. I’m a parent, I’m a taxpayer, I love the work that we get to do here,” she said tearfully. “The staff here do so much, and I would be honored to help give stability to this organization.”

The motion passed, with Chiea being the only “no.”

What community members had to say

Pinellas County Commissioner René Flowers was one of several community members to weigh in with support for the vote being canceled during public comment.

“Tallahassee has never put its finger or foot on the pedal … they never got involved in this process,” she said. “I strongly encourage you to start this process over so that those who are serving in the community, those who are working under JWB, know exactly what they’re getting.”

Linda Lerner, who spent three decades on the Pinellas County School Board and sat next to Gilzean when he served for a year in 2012, said she was concerned that there wasn’t more discussion about the allegations of his misspending as the Orange County supervisor of elections.

“The facts, as I have seen reported, was that he spent $9.9 million without approval, and one weekend he spent $4.3 million and left his office without enough money to pay employees,” she said. “He is accused of breaking many Florida statutes.”

Gilzean has denied the allegations against him and filed a lawsuit against the county that he dropped when he left office in January 2025.

Others spoke in support of Gilzean, including Mike Sutton, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Tampa Bay Gulfside.

Sutton said he told Gilzean to apply for CEO, not the governor’s office. The Tampa Bay Times has reported several stories about the CEO search controversy this year.

“I’ll say that one more time for our friends at the Tampa Bay Times so they can properly report on it for their last 12 readers who are still standing,” he said. “Glen has been professionally transparent all along the way.”

Sutton and Gilzean did not respond to requests for interviews.

The meeting was adjourned after nearly four hours. An update on the new CEO search will be heard at the next meeting, June 25.

Read the article as originally published at https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas/2026/05/21/pinellas-juvenile-welfare-board-ceo-search/