At its Sept. 29 meeting, the Hope Florida Foundation Board of Directors set up new grant policies to create more transparency and accountability. The move came nearly a year after the nonprofit funneled $10 million received from a Medicaid settlement to two groups that channeled the majority of the funds to a political committee opposing a marijuana legalization amendment.
- The Department of Children and Families didn’t reappoint former chair Joshua Hay, who pushed for the fund transfers. Pensacola attorney Stephanie White and CDR Maguire Executive Vice President Tina Vidal-Duart were also not reappointed. Both had asked for more information on the legality of the $10 million transfer during an April board meeting.
Dig Deeper – Where did Board Member Stephanie White Go?
At the April meeting, White advocated for more transparent grant approval processes, insisting on greater board involvement in funding decisions. “Maybe we can discuss that and make it a board decision as to who gets grants and how we select those,” she recommended, highlighting the limitations of Sunshine Law that prevent board members from discussing grants outside official meetings.
She requested a workshop to establish proper policies: “My recommendation would be to have a workshop where we can really work through these issues, maybe come to Tallahassee together in person and talk about some of these policies.”
White challenged the foundation’s attorney, Jeff Aarons, about the $10 million settlement.
- “I guess everyone, the elephant in the room is a $10 million settlement,” White stated directly. “I would like counsel’s advice to was it public money that was used? And we can be assured that everything that happened is correct and that we did everything legal.”
“Well, what your stance going forward should be, I’ll leave that to the chair as to how the board’s going to run,” said Foundation attorney Jeff Aaron. “With regard to those transactions. I know that there are some accusations that I was involved in more than I was involved in. I had nothing to do with the Centene (settlement), and I had nothing to do with the downstream flow.”
- He recommended that the board bring in another attorney to advise them to “avoid any appearance of impropriety.”
Aaron added, “I don’t have anything to hide. No one’s actually, surprisingly, with all the buzz, no one’s actually asked me for my information or documents or anything. There’s been chatter and committee meetings, but nothing’s yet been directed to me. Everything that I have is public record. I’ll produce it to anyone; it doesn’t require a subpoena.”
Note: The attorney later refused to testify before the House Health Care Budget Committee that was investigating the Hope Florida Foundation.
Then-board chair Joshua Hay stated he would work with the CPA firm to see “what monitoring procedures we can put in place going forward. He added, “And also from a retrospective standpoint, if there’s any illicit use of funds, the potential for a callback, I’ll consult with the CPA firm in that regard.”
Now both Hay and White are gone.
- White told Inweekly this morning that she didn’t know that she was off the Hope Foundation Board until she received a phone call from a reporter.
New Board
At the Sept. 29 meeting, Aaron explained that Hay, White and Vidal-Duart had “completed their term and we’re obviously grateful for their service, but they’re no longer here.”
DCF replaced them with:
- Bradford Smithy, a partner at Minneapolis-based wealth management firm Elevation Point
- Elizabeth Butler, who told the board her background was in “engineering and management consulting”
- Yaffa Popack, a DeSantis fundraiser and Miami Beach real estate investor whom he appointed to the Florida International University board of trustees in 2023.
More Accountability
The new one-page policy establishes an approval threshold: any grant exceeding $50,000 must be presented to the full board for approval. The new policy also mandates signatures from two Board members and bars approvals involving conflicts of interest. According to Board Chair Bob Schafer, the threshold aligns with standard practices among similar nonprofit organizations.
The board also approved a budget that included funding for professional accounting and compliance services and added annual audit requirements when expenditures exceed $100,000.
Background: The Hope Florida Foundation Board is the governing body of the Hope Florida Foundation, a direct support charity tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida welfare initiative. The Hope Florida program—originally launched by Casey DeSantis—to provide help for Floridians through public, private, and faith-based partnerships and navigator services.
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