By Alexandra Glorioso and Lawrence Mower Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
The mysterious $10 million donation steered by Florida officials to a charity created to fund Hope Florida — Casey DeSantis’ top political initiative — was part of a larger settlement with the healthcare giant Centene, and “illegal” under state law, a top Republican lawmaker said Wednesday.
During a tense more-than-two-hour House committee hearing, top DeSantis administration officials said that the company owed tens of millions of dollars last year for overbilling the state for services. The Agency for Health Care Administration wrote a $67 million settlement in which $10 million of that would be made by Centene as “a one-time donation” to the Hope Florida Foundation, according to a copy of the settlement obtained by the Herald/Times.
Under state law, money from those types of settlements has to be deposited into a trust fund or the general fund, where lawmakers can oversee it. But the $10 million donation, made shortly after the Sept. 27, 2024, settlement was signed, was never disclosed to lawmakers — raising the prospect that the DeSantis administration unilaterally steered millions of taxpayer dollars to the first lady’s initiative.
“That was a policy decision … that I believe was illegal,” Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, told Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris. “We discover that state agencies are redirecting money secretly at the 11th hour in the legal settlement without giving us any notice,” he added.
Wednesday’s hearing provided more clues into a widening inquiry involving Casey DeSantis’ embattled top initiative, Hope Florida.
Hope Florida was launched in 2021 as an effort by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the first lady to steer Floridians off of government services and toward churches and local nonprofits. In 2023, the administration created a nonprofit, the Hope Florida Foundation, to collect donations and pay those churches and nonprofits. Casey DeSantis’ name does not appear on corporate records for the charity.
DeSantis is asking lawmakers this session to enshrine Hope Florida in state law as an office reporting to the governor. It would give his wife a major legislative win heading into campaign season this summer should she run to replace DeSantis as governor in 2026. It would also help assuage concerns by voters over her qualifications. Casey DeSantis has never served in office.
But the foundation has released no records about its donors or recipients and has not submitted any of the records about its structure, ethics and oversight required under state law.
The Times/Herald reported Tuesday that a $10 million donation was mentioned in the foundation’s October meeting minutes. Both the settlement agreement and the meeting minutes were obtained by the Times/Herald. The agency has not answered the newspapers’ requests for the records.
House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, said Wednesday that the transaction “looks as though it could be illegal.”
He pushed back on criticism from DeSantis officials that the hearing was an “ambush.” He said they were asking simple questions.
“How was the money received? Where did it go? How was it used? And why?”
‘A SEPARATE CONTRIBUTION’
Andrade asked Harris multiple times Wednesday for details of the settlement before she answered.
She said Centene notified the Agency for Health Care Administration that its pharmacy benefit manager had over-billed the state. The agency negotiated that $10 million of the $67 million would be a donation to the Hope Florida Foundation. Centene is the largest Medicaid contractor in Florida and serves more than a million Floridians.
Harris said state law requiring the settlement money be given to the Legislature didn’t apply to the donation because it was a “separate contribution” under the settlement and wasn’t taxpayer money “owed to the state.”
“Any monies owed to the state were paid back to the state,” she said. “This entity, Centene, made a separate contribution to the foundation.” Andrade said the notion it wasn’t taxpayer dollars was “offensive.”
Centene was “overpaid taxpayer dollars,” he said. It settled with the state agency because of that “overpayment of taxpayer dollars.” So how did that money “suddenly” become “not taxpayer dollars?” he asked.
“I’ve answered these questions to the best of my ability,” Harris responded.
The settlement was signed by several top DeSantis administration officials:
Chief Deputy Attorney General John Guard,
then-Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Jason Weida,
Office of Insurance Regulation Commissioner Mike Yaworsky,
and Department of Health Chief of Staff Cassandra Pasley.
Weida is currently DeSantis’ chief of staff. Spokespeople for Weida, Yaworsky and Pasley did not respond to questions.
Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Jeremy Redfern said “donations to Hope Florida are not state funds” under the statute. He did not answer when asked to provide other examples of the attorney general diverting settlement money to charities instead of delivering it to lawmakers.
What the $10 million is being used for is not clear. Harris and Agency Deputy Chief of Staff Mallory McManus, who was the foundation’s registered agent until Wednesday, refused to answer questions about the money during the hearing.
HOPE FLORIDA FOUNDATION A ‘BLACK HOLE’
Andrade called the foundation a “black hole.”
“What I’m hearing from the secretary of AHCA is we have no idea what that money is to be used for,” Andrade added. “We have no idea why we did it. That’s not acceptable, secretary.”
Harris and McManus struggled to explain what Hope Florida does or its accomplishments. The initiative has produced no detailed data or metrics to show how it’s steering people off of government aid, where those people are located or what aid they are no longer receiving.
Lawmakers asked who was in charge of the state’s Hope Florida program. The answer was no one. When lawmakers asked why the foundation had not filed any records, they directed the questions to the foundation.
Amid the questioning, Harris implied the House lawmakers didn’t support the agency’s “overall goal of helping families.”
“It’s kind of sad, right? Genuinely,” Harris said. “This is the goal of helping individuals get back on their feet. I don’t know what’s wrong with that.”
Some lawmakers seemed offended by the remark.
“I want to take umbrage at the insinuation that we don’t care about families,” said Rep. Karen Gonzalez Pittman, a Tampa Republican. “We care about families, and we care about families receiving good healthcare.”
McManus said in a statement afterward that it was “concerning how little Representative Andrade understands about Medicaid, as demonstrated in his performative committee hearing today.”
Andrade said afterward that the state’s responses were “very frustrating.” He said he wanted answers on “how this $10 million was spent, or why on Earth” the agency “felt justified” in sending it to the foundation.
“If we can’t get information… I think at some point a subpoena would be valid,” Andrade said.
This story was originally published April 9, 2025 at 3:59 PM.
Alexandra Glorioso
Miami Herald
Alexandra is a state government reporter for the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau and is based in Tallahassee. She’s covered Florida politics and policy since 2016 and has previously worked for POLITICO Florida and the Naples Daily News. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
