Anticipating Defeat, Broward Cancels Vote on Bonds

School officials in Broward County, Fla., pulled a bond referendum from the November ballot last week rather than see it fail at the polls.

The extra year will give the 217,000-student district time to rebuild the confidence of skeptical parents and taxpayers, some of whom are still smarting from promises they say were not kept after a 1987 bond issue.

The delay will also put distance between the school system and its current legal entanglements. The U.S. Attorney's office for the southern district of Florida, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Internal Revenue Service are investigating alleged corruption and mismanagement in the district's construction program. And local prosecutors convened a grand jury last week as part...