Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis celebrate expanded partnership of Hope Florida through the Florida Department of Education
Press release from the Office of Governor Ron DeSantis
FRUITLAND PARK, Fla.— Today, Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis announced that the Florida Department of Education is piloting a program that identifies and trains a Hope Florida Liaison at each school in select school districts. These liaisons will serve in dedicated roles to act as points of contact to provide Hope Florida resources for students, parents, and staff, help students or families get connected with a Hope Navigator when needed, and will connect local community providers, non-profits, and faith-based organizations that are already active within their school community with the Hope Line to provide support to those who reach out to Hope Florida.
“Today, First Lady Casey DeSantis and I were proud to announce that the Florida Department of Education is piloting a program that identifies and trains a Hope Florida liaison in select schools,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We hope school districts throughout Florida will take advantage of Hope Florida to help students and their families overcome obstacles by connecting those in need with those in the nonprofit, private, and faith sectors who are willing to help.”
“The Governor and I were proud to be in Lake County today to continue the good work of Hope Florida and announce Hope Florida’s pilot program to train liaisons in select Florida school districts,” said First Lady Casey DeSantis. “Having Hope Florida resources in our schools will help every parent or child to have a direct line to hope.”
“Hope Florida is an incredible resource for Florida families,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. “Through this expansion of Hope Florida, we are better supporting the short-term and long-term needs of our students and their families, which leads to better educational outcomes. I thank the Governor and First Lady for their leadership and dedication to Florida’s students.”
Hope Florida’s Hope Navigators have been helping Florida families at the Department of Education since October of last year. Among their services, they have focused on helping families with children ages 3-5 who have special learning needs to connect with screening and evaluating services, navigate school choice programs, and receive early learning resources to help their child succeed.
Spearheaded by First Lady Casey DeSantis, Hope Florida brings together the private sector, faith-based community, and nonprofits and utilizes Hope Navigators to guide individuals through existing resources and onto a pathway to economic prosperity and self-sufficiency.
To date, more than 120,000 Floridians have been referred to Hope Florida, and 30,000 Floridians have reduced or completely eliminated their reliance on public assistance. Thanks to its success, Hope Florida has saved taxpayers $108 million in a year and is estimated to save taxpayers over $1 billion over the next decade.
Anyone needing assistance can call Hope Florida at 833-GET-HOPE.
SCANDAL. SCANDAL. SCANDAL. They stole money belonging to the taxpayers.
No they did not
But, actually, they did. Read the stories about it and, note, it’s members of the Florida GOP who are investigating and speaking out about this particular DeS grift
Divert $ from state treasury ($10M) to Hope & then divert $5M each to organizations vs. pot amendment which Gov D against and they act like no big deal and cronies in Tally won’t do anything. DC in a smaller scale, but still wrong.
I have not followed the details of this, but has anyone explained how a penalty owed to the state by a medicaid provider (insurer?) ended up being used to fund a political campaign on a ballot initiative? Do I have that wrong?
Seriously, help me out here.
The money went to the Hope Florida Foundation as part of a legal settlement and was never “taxpayer money.” What happened to it after that was the responsibility of the Foundation board (no DeSantises are listed anywhere), and that part has not been fully explained except to say that the donations were legal and possibly don’t match the timing of the allegations (i.e., they may have happened before the settlement). https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000196-5f26-da58-a7f7-ff27fd3d0000
Thanks for the link and explanation, but neither explain why that $10 million wasn’t state money. and how it became the Governor’s money to use on his chosen political campaigns. Because it was not – allegedly – part of the agreed to penalty but instead a catch-all “whatever else we might owe you” amount would not mean it wasn’t the state’s, and therefore belonged to the taxpayers and citizens.
Jazz – There was a law firm that Florida contracted with to negotiate the terms of the settlement with Centene. Centene owed $67 million to Florida.
Towards the end of negotiations, Florida booted the law firm from the case (and never paid them for their work) and Centene ended up sending $57 million to the state and $10 million to Hope Florida.
Then Hope Florida made two $5 million donations to two dark-money PACs. Each PAC then gave money to a DeS-controlled PAC (Keep Florida Clean) created to fight pot legalization on the ballot. Keep Florida Clean received $8.5 in total from the two dark-money PACs.
So, it looks like the DeS admin got wind of the money coming from Centene and decided they needed to get their pudding fingers on some of it.
Centene owed money to multiple states and the other states, when they received the funds, did press releases about it. For some reason, Florida kept the whole deal veeeerrwy quiet.
Thanks. New information not contradicted by anything believable I’ve seen yet.
Fraud Florida. Lock them up.
Florida elected a governor, not a grifter duo. Somehow Sanctimonious Ron and Casey DeSantis turned taxpayer money into a family business plan, Trumps America.
With this scheme, they don’t seem to have covered their tracks very well. Makes you wonder what else has yet to be uncovered.
The $10M was not considered to be taxpayer funds, but rather a donation from an arbitration settlement. Hope Florida had egg on its face from the way the funds were dispersed against the pro-pot amendments, but it appears legal, if sketchy. The person behind the accusations, per Politico, was also heavily funded by the pro-pot lobby, so draw your own conclusions.
Unfortunately for everyone, the media has such a “cry wolf” reputation these days that few believe they tell the whole truth, whatever it might be in this case.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/29/inside-the-hope-florida-controversy-and-what-it-means-for-the-desantises-future-00314289
It was $10 million that was supposed to be part of the $67 million owed to the state. And DeS got $10 million diverted to Hope Florida so he could funnel it to his anti-pot campaign, leaving the state with $57 million.
So could be legal on the surface but the bottom line is that he took $10 million that should have gone to the state legislators to allocate along with the rest of Centene’s settlement.
Also, it’s important to note that the bulldogs on this story are GOP state legislators, not the media. The media is reporting what GOP members are telling them.
Here is a link to the explanation of why the $10M was not state funds. Note that DeSantis had been asking the Legislature for weeks to make Hope Florida an official state agency.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000196-5f26-da58-a7f7-ff27fd3d0000
Also, it’s important to note that the media is reporting only what SOME of the GOP members are telling them– as DeSantis is a GOP member– and the lack of overall coverage suggests that even the media regards it as a straw-grasping nothingburger spun up by party infighting.
While it is true that the money never came to the state so it technically didn’t belong to the state, it was SUPPOSED to come to the state. But DeS cooked up a deal to have the $10 million diverted to Hope Florida and subsequently had the money sent to his own PAC.
Maybe the diversion to Hope instead of the state was legal? But we all know that it wasn’t ethical.
DeS’s asking the Florida legislature to make Hope Florida a state entity is another nail in his coffin because he knew this story was coming out and wanted a veneer of legitimacy on top before it did. However the money went to Hope in 2023 (which was just recently discovered) and it was not a state entity then and he wasn’t asking for the legislature to make it a state entity.
Also, there’s been a ton of Florida media coverage of it and the story has gotten dirtier, not better, over time.