Tensions erupt in House over DeSantis-backed Hope Florida program’s $10M windfall

For two hours Tuesday, a panel of House lawmakers asked pointed questions of leaders for the state’s main health care administration agency.

Rep. Alex Andrade, who chairs the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, didn’t like the answers.

“I’m more stunned, than anything else, by the responses, the demeanor, the flippancy (toward) the serious questions we have,” Andrade, R-Pensacola, told reporters after the hearing. “This is an endemic problem in state agencies right now and it’s something that we’ve got to work on.”

Shevaun Harris, the secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, had struggled to answer questions on a series of issues related to Hope Florida, a program spearheaded by First Lady Casey DeSantis that tries to connect Floridians receiving welfare and Medicaid with other services to help move them off government assistance.

Andrade and other members of the panel expressed alarm over $10 million that went to the Hope Florida Foundation as part of a settlement between AHCA and Centene, a large provider of services under Florida’s Medicaid managed care plans.

Under state law, money from settlements must be reported by state agencies to the Legislature, but this wasn’t.

As Harris explained, the overall settlement was $67 million, with $57 million going to AHCA. It had to do with overpayments related to pharmacy benefit managers, she said, but the other $10 million was a donation from Centene to the Hope Florida Foundation, so the money never came to AHCA and was therefore was not state funds reportable to the Legislature.

The settlement was reached in October; Harris didn’t take the helm at AHCA until February. “The settlement agreement had a lot of attorneys involved, taking great care to make sure everything was done appropriately,” she said.

But Andrade, an attorney, maintains the funds are taxpayer money and the settlement violates state law: “The reference to that $10 million not being taxpayer dollars I find offensive,” Andrade said at one point in the hearing.

He noted the settlement was for repaying overpayments from the state’s Medicaid program. “At what point did it suddenly become not taxpayer money?” asked Andrade, a state representative since 2018.

Andrade also raised concerns about Hope Florida getting preferential treatment in the state’s Medicaid Managed Care contracts. Specifically, health care insurers must cooperate with Hope Florida as part of the contract.

‘We need to have some names’

Another gripe from the committee was the alleged lack of transparency surrounding Hope Florida.

“I still don’t get a clear response over who is responsible for Hope Florida,” said Rep. Marie Woodson, D-Hollywood. “We need to have some names.”

Harris explained that the Hope Florida program uses state employees at many different agencies to help connect those in need with services throughout state government and with nonprofits, including churches, who can provide food, clothing and shelter for those in crisis.

That means there is no executive director of the Hope Florida program, she added.

But the Hope Florida Foundation, which is a nonprofit, is a separate entity. She said that group has a board and later in the hearing said its chairman is Josh Hay, CEO of Indelible Solutions, a Tallahassee-based management consulting firm.

As a nonprofit, the Hope Florida Foundation is required to file tax forms with the IRS that are required to be made available upon request by members of the public, but reporters from the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau have said they were turned away after making such a request at the Department of Children and Families headquarters in the capital.

The heightened scrutiny of Hope Florida comes as Casey DeSantis is said to be considering a run for governor in 2026 to replace her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is term-limited. DeSantis has pushed lawmakers to codify Hope Florida, which was started by Casey DeSantis in 2021, into law.

At one point in the hearing, Harris said the Hope Florida program was simply trying to help those in need and implied lawmakers weren’t sharing that goal.

“I’m not sure why we’re here,” Harris said. “And I understand there are questions being asked and we’re doing our best to be transparent to answer but it does feel like we’re not aligned in this overall goal of helping families.

“It’s kind of sad, genuinely,” she added. “This is the goal of helping individuals get back on their feet. I don’t know what’s wrong with that.”

“I’m going to take umbrage at that claim,” Andrade replied. “We’re a separate government body tasked with oversight and direction of state agencies and we discover that state agencies are redirecting money secretly, at the eleventh hour, in a legal settlement without giving us any notice? And the accusation is that we don’t care about helping Florida families? I take personal issue at that insinuation, Secretary.”

In a social media post later Wednesday, Harris appeared in a 4-minute video with other state agency heads who work with Hope Florida and its “navigators.”

“It was a complete ambush,” she said of Andrade’s questioning. “I’m deeply disappointed at the behavior and the tactics that were used … particularly by the chair,” adding that he engaged in “smear attacks.”

Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Hope Florida under fire for lack of oversight, $10M settlement