Lawmaker says $10 million donation to DeSantis charity was illegal

[Zorro]

One lawmaker questioned why money from a state settlement with a Medicaid contractor went to the Hope Florida Foundation.

The mysterious $10 million donation steered by Florida officials to a charity created to fund Hope Florida — first lady Casey DeSantis’ top political initiative — was part of a larger settlement with the health care giant Centene, and “illegal” under state law, a top Republican lawmaker said Wednesday.

During a tense more-than-two-hour House committee hearing, top Florida 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 Times/Herald.

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.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2025/04/09/hope-florida-desantis-casey-centene-settlement-donation/

Republican knives are out for DeSantis and his preferred heir-apparent...Now watch DeSantis blow his stack and claim a vendetta against his wife by nefarious (Democratic influenced) Republican Party members...