TALLAHASSEE — Seeking to “restore confidence” in its mission, directors of an embattled foundation affiliated with First Lady Casey DeSantis’ signature Hope Florida welfare-assistance program on Thursday agreed to strengthen the nonprofit’s structure amid widening scrutiny by the Florida House.
The Hope Florida Foundation Inc. directors finalized the changes in an online meeting that had to be aborted earlier Thursday after it was flooded with racial and anti-Semitic slurs and pornography.
Before the hours-long delay in the meeting, Joshua Hay, the foundation’s president, acknowledged the growing attention on the nonprofit, which is affiliated with the state Department of Children and Families and was launched in 2023.
“This has been an eventful week for the Hope Florida Foundation. Questions were asked. Answers were provided, and lessons were learned. I acknowledge there is a remaining curiosity to settle, as evidenced by many of you present on today’s call,” Hay said. “It’s time we turned things around at the foundation.”
Hay testified under oath Tuesday before the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, which is closely scrutinizing the foundation’s receipt of $10 million as part of a $67 million legal settlement that Centene, Florida’s largest Medicaid managed-care company, made last fall with the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
After receiving the money from the settlement, the foundation gave $5 million grants to Secure Florida’s Future, a nonprofit tied to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Save our Society from Drugs.
Those groups within days made contributions to Keep Florida Clean, a political committee headed by James Uthmeier, who was then Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff and is now state attorney general. Keep Florida Clean fought a proposed constitutional amendment in November that would have allowed recreational use of marijuana.
The House’s probe has fueled a feud between House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and the governor, who traded barbs this week in an increasingly personal and unusually public clash.
“It doesn’t seem like the $10 million, and the way that it was funneled to different organizations, was done properly. That is my opinion,” Perez told reporters Wednesday.
DeSantis, meanwhile, painted Perez and the Republican House as “liberal leftists” and announced the expansion of the Hope Florida program — which operates across numerous state agencies — to state college campuses.
An ally of DeSantis identified as “Chris,” who was clad in a “Ron DeSantis for Governor” T-shirt, was among the speakers who joined the foundation board meeting Thursday to champion Hope Florida and denounce detractors of the governor and first lady. Casey DeSantis is being floated as a possible gubernatorial candidate next year.
“It’s just sad to see that we have people that are attacking something that is helping so many people to get off of government assistance,” he said. “And there are people that appear to be doing this, or I know are doing this, for political reasons to go after the first lady because they possibly see her as a political threat.”
But House Health Care Budget Chairman Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican who has led the inquiry into the foundation, warned the board of directors on Thursday that the use of the grant money for the anti-marijuana campaign could jeopardize its status as a nonprofit organization known as a 501(c)(3). Andrade has suggested that Uthmeier improperly used the foundation to funnel money to the committee for political purposes.
“I believe, based on the information we received from Save Our Society from Drugs and from Secure Florida's Future, that a fraud was committed on y'all in order to extract those two $5 million grants,” Andrade said.
Andrade encouraged the board “to strongly consider recouping those funds” from the grant recipients “because otherwise, I do believe that you will run afoul of IRS requirements for the use of your funds as a 501(c)(3).” which is a nonprofit organization that qualifies for certain state and federal tax exemptions.
After restarting the meeting following the delay, the board adopted bylaws; signed off on a federal tax form for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, known as a 990; approved other governance documents; and underwent a brief training from attorney Jeff Aaron on the state’s open-government laws, which apply to the foundation.
Hay said he was consulting with the foundation’s newly hired accounting firm about “monitoring procedures we can put in place going forward, and also from a retrospective standpoint, if there's any illicit use of funds, the potential of all that.”
The documents approved Thursday show the foundation received more than $800,000 between its inception in August 2023 and June 30, 2024. The St. Joe Community Foundation, which gave $200,000 topped the donations. Other top donors included The Steven and Natalie Herring Family Foundation, which gave $100,000; Tampa Electric Co., which gave $123,408; Centene Management Company LLC, which contributed $95,223; and Simply Healthcare Plans, Inc., which gave $98,408.
The foundation distributed $40,000, with $10,000 grants going to Fort Myers-based Trailways Camp; Baby Basics of Collier, Inc., which provides diapers to families; the Pregnancy Crisis Center of Lake City, an anti-abortion resource center; and the Mount Sinai Medical Center, the records show.
Hay, who is president and CEO of Indelible Solutions, on Thursday took at least part of the blame for the foundation’s shortcomings.
“Accountability matters, and as chairman, I take some responsibility for the control gaps that have emerged in our operations, but I also believe in redemption, resilience and recommitment,” Hay said.
Hay announced that his company — which has had more than 30 contracts totaling more than $119 million with state agencies, including the Department of Children and Families, since 2021 — was making a $25,000 donation to the foundation “with the purpose of direct benefit to individuals and families who need our support the most.”
Hay also addressed questions that were raised during his appearance at Andrade’s committee about Indelible’s contracts with the state.
“I am eager to fulfill the request of the Health Care Budget Subcommittee members so that they may get comfort that Indelible has not delivered or received any payments from the Hope Florida Foundation or the Hope Florida program or any agency supporting the deployment of Hope Florida navigators,” Hay said.