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New questions out of Tallahassee over charity championed by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis.

Textbooks in Florida may require the name Gulf of America if lawmakers pass some new bills.

And as school choice for families expands in Florida, public school districts are facing large budget cuts.

These stories and more are next on Florida this week.

Welcome back everybody.

I'm Lissette Campos joining the panel this week.

We have Tara Newsom.

She's an attorney and a political science professor.

Allan Cohn is a journalist and a Democrat.

Mitch Perry is a senior reporter for the Florida Phoenix.

And Mark Proctor is a political consultant and a Republican.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We begin with the big story out of Tallahassee.

The Hope Florida Foundation is a charity created to support First Lady Casey DeSantis, the top initiative for her to help Floridians get off of government assistance.

However, the charity may not have obeyed state laws governing its ethics, oversight or governance.

According to lawmakers.

Take a look.

The board's chairperson, Joshua Hay, told a House committee this week that, quote, mistakes were made.

End quote.

The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that the Florida charity did not keep minutes, had no budget or bylaws, did not file its tax returns, and asked few questions before steering $10 million to two political groups.

Hope Florida recorded minutes for only one meeting last October in which it accepted the $10 million donation by Centene, which is the state's largest Medicaid contractor.

Centene says it was directed by Florida officials to donate the 10 million to Hope Florida as part of a legal settlement involving overbilling the state.

Within days, the Hope Florida Foundation received a request for a $5 million grant from a group affiliated with the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

The group is considered a dark money group because it is a 501 nonprofit, and does not disclose its donors.

Days later, Hope Florida received a request from a second similar group, Save Our Society, from drugs, for a $5 million donation.

Both groups then sent money to a political committee called Keep Florida Clean that's controlled by James Uthmeier, the governor's then chief of staff, who is now the state's attorney general.

Uthmeier's committee then sent millions to the Republican Party of Florida, which campaigned against last year's recreational pot ballot initiative, which failed.

Republican Representative Alex Andrade of Pensacola, has been investigating the charity and says the U.S. Attorney general should get involved.

I don't want to guess whether or not she will or not at this point, though, given what we keep turning over and finding out every time I flip over a rock, I find something new.

This feels way bigger than a subcommittee.

Uthmeier said on Monday that he had done nothing wrong.

Governor DeSantis did not comment on the findings of the committee, but attacked House leadership at a press conference in Pensacola, the home district of Representative Andrade.

It is a farce.

It is manufactured and it's part of their political agenda so they can continue to waste time.

They're not cutting your property taxes.

They haven't done a condo bill.

The executive director of Hope Florida, Eric Dellenbach, said that he will be resigning from his post effective May the 1st.

That announcement came a day after he testified before that House committee.

Tara, what is it from your background as an attorney?

What is it that concerns you the most?

Is it the resignation?

Is it the lack of record keeping?

How do you see all of this?

Well, accountability and the rule of law are very important not only to the top law enforcement agency, but our first lady and would be gubernatorial candidate.

So I think that what we're really looking at is these very serious allegations, like violating open meetings laws, possibly not filing your taxes, you know, pass through organization that smacks of money laundering.

The best thing that both Casey DeSantis and our attorney general should do is welcome the investigation.

If there's nothing to hide, then let the process go.

They're facing a much different state legislature than they did a few years ago.

They're holding to the rule of law and to Florida statutes.

And this is great training ground.

If you're going to run for governor or any other position, you need to know how to be responsive and transparent.

Well, in fairness to the governor, no one has formally accused them of money laundering or anything like.

That, of course.

And we could know that if they go ahead and are transparent in and telling us what really did happen.

Alan, as someone who's run for Congress, you know the optics of how money is used.

Um, how do you see all of this playing out?

I'm also a former investigative reporter who has investigated many charities across Florida that were not doing things right.

So that really does hit home.

But the other side of this, as you mentioned, is the political side.

It says a lot.

It is the Republican leadership and Republican members of the legislature who are demanding answers here.

And, you know, here's a, you know, the governor and, uh, the first lady should be aware that, um, of situational awareness, this is not the situation that they had when they were first elected.

The Republican leadership, uh, is is asking tough questions.

And quite frankly, uh, the governor is not Donald Trump who seems to be able to deflect, uh, all these other, you know, scandals.

This is a different situation.

Uh, and the governor, uh, if he does have any kind of future ambition, needs to take this seriously.

You said Republican leaders are asking a lot of questions.

There are Republican leaders who are asking questions like, why are we not talking about some of these hard issues of condo bills and insurance reform?

Mark, what do you see this as, as a greater conversation about what we are talking about versus what we should be talking about in the legislative session?

Absolutely.

And part of the problem is as as mentioned as previously, whatever the governor said the legislature went through.

House Speaker Denny Perez is absolutely on the opposite of almost anything the governor proposes.

It's the opposite.

What's happened is they've taken a good a good cause.

The hope Florida was a good intentions has become a political football.

My concern as a Republican is that there's a pendulum swing in politics.

I remember when the Democrats controlled the whole state.

If the Republicans keep it up.

You know, it could go back.

And that's the big fear.

Let me just make one point about the open meeting earlier this week on Thursday.

They had a zoom call, which I participated in, that was to have to air some of this stuff, and it got stopped because of the pornography and the foul language and the racist comments were made.

They ended it.

So it's unfortunate that even when they tried to get out in the discuss the issue, it got it got upended.

And Mitch, there are so many different layers to this story.

Um, you know, people are wondering, why is this health subcommittee looking at this?

And they forget that this is part of a settlement where Centene admitted to overbilling the state of Florida $67 million.

That seems like a huge story that we're not hearing much about.

That it's the surface, because there was actually a bill in the legislature that would put the office of Hope forward into the executive office of the governor.

So that's what led to this going.

There's a House bill analysis of this bill that came out about a few weeks ago, a month ago, that listed the fact that they had not done this reporting.

That was the first indication.

You know, the governor wants to say this is all political, because potentially my wife might be running for governor and this is her little baby.

But it became exposed, you know, early on here in this process, And then we get this bombshell last Friday regarding the $10 million.

So there's a lot happening here.

And the governor really he's lashed out.

He's gone.

He did an epic 90 minute press conference in Pensacola the other day.

Just, you know, again, it's they're RHINOs.

You know, Perez is a RHINO.

They're working with trial lawyers.

They're working with Democrats or with the media.

They're not looking at themselves.

And, you know, I don't really get it other than this is Ron DeSantis being really challenged for the first time in his six and a half years in Tallahassee.

And this is how he's reacting to it.

And in terms of how far it goes, you know, the session is only going to last for two more weeks.

But House Speaker Perez has said that, you know, he's in charge until the next until 2026, and he's not going to give up on this.

And I think he's been very consistent so far.

Look, yesterday he got a little unhappy because he said there were some lies said at a press conference.

But he wants to get to accountability.

You know, the thing that Republicans say they want with Doge is like, you know, we want to stop this excessive money going around.

Voters want more conversation around Centene overbilling the state of Florida for these Medicaid.

This is taxpayer money.

Now to go back to what Mark was saying.

The like, you know, and you said about you know, DeSantis has a point about the condo bill and some other things that maybe aren't being addressed.

And that's what legitimate.

I mean, I think Democrats would argue those things haven't been addressed as well for a while.

The fact is, though, is that he Perez definitely wants to make an impact, you know, and he's really leading the way on this.

The Senate's kind of just hanging around watching how this all plays out, which is kind of interesting.

All these different types of things are going on in the legislature.

Let's move on to the next one.

Governor DeSantis signed two bills this week aimed at carrying out President Trump's directive to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Take a look.

House Bill 575 will change dozens of state laws to reflect the name change, while House Bill 549 will require state agencies to update geographical materials.

It will also require that school instructional materials adopted or purchased as of July 1st include the Gulf of America name.

The Republican controlled Senate passed the bills last week after approval by the House.

The Gulf of America.

The Gulf of Mexico.

Alan.

Is this about more than a name?

Well, it is ridiculous.

And what's interesting is that just a few moments ago, the governor said or pointed out all the things that the legislature is not taking up.

My opinion is the governor and the legislature have one job at this point in time, and that is affordability in Florida.

Lowering property insurance, those are the things that should be focused on.

Those are the things that should be dominating the debate.

But we're talking about the Gulf of America.

I see Mark smiling next to you.

Well, and there's something to be said for what Alan's saying.

However, um, I don't I mean, the whole idea of a Gulf of America is, is part of the agenda of President Trump that was elected, saying he was going to change it.

So it wasn't a big surprise.

And obviously there's going to be textbooks and maps and things like that.

But we change things all the time.

If you all are, you know, we weren't around then, but Hillsborough and Pinellas were one county at one point.

So things do change geographically.

Tara.

Tara, how do you think that this will impact in terms of long term college students, young professionals?

It's going to become really important when there's a hurricane and no one knows how to prepare, because they won't know where the Gulf of America is.

And certainly taxpayers are wondering, why are we spending money in that way instead of shoring up our education?

But the truth is, is there's academic implications.

We already have a number of years where we're challenging history curriculum.

We're challenging our understanding of the equal protection clause, especially how we apply it to LGBTQ.

Plus, now we're actually going into this avenue of whether or not geography, geography.

And the real answer is, can we export our students and be competitive?

Will they be able to be competitive with this kind of changes to our curriculum?

Adding this to be one more on the list, and what will that mean in terms of Florida's educational standings and whether we can attract businesses?

Mitch, in the newsroom, when you all are talking about different stories, is this Gulf of America story that readers care about?

Uh, no, I don't think so.

But, you know, to Mark's point about the President Trump back in January did this executive order.

And it is, in fact, you know, all Ford is doing, whether you feel it's right or not.

Is this complying with federal law and the respect that I was on the NOAA website yesterday, because this Sunday is the 15th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

So it's trying to get some information.

And I just noticed on there it talks about the Gulf of America.

This is on the NOAA, our federal government website.

So just complying with that, I will tell you this, that polls have consistently shown, because I had done a few articles about this, that the public really isn't into this.

Even a Fox News poll from March, over nearly 1000 people who were surveyed, 67% of people said they weren't for it, and other polls have indicated the same thing.

So to the extent that people care about it, they're not really happy about it.

I think the bottom line is people just call it the Gulf.

Well, we'll see about that.

We're staying in the topic of education.

Budget cuts may be on the way for school districts in our state as they face flat state revenue, shrinking enrollment and rising costs.

Pinellas County Superintendent Kevin Hendrick says a 1% increase from Tallahassee means an overall decrease in funding for Pinellas schools.

Likely, he says, in the tens of millions of dollars due to declining enrollment and increased costs.

Pasco County is also anticipating an enrollment decrease.

The state is projecting a dip of 660 students next year.

The Hillsborough County School District aims to protect schools from the budget cuts.

Spokesperson Tanya Arja says the administration is working through the numbers and will have details soon.

Florida Empowerment scholarships, which fund vouchers for families, have pulled money from public school funds in Tampa.

This week, U.S.

Senator Ashley Moody pushed her co-sponsorship of a bill for a national tax credit scholarship.

The proposed bill would offer federal tax credits to those who donate toward options outside of traditional public schools.

Mark it's important to note that this is part of Florida's pre-K through 12th grade budget.

The highest proposal in recent years.

And in that it includes the $800 million to support school choice.

And many parents are looking at this and saying that they want this, that they are happy about this.

So the state budget is almost $30 billion.

That's going to public education.

About 11% of that is now going to, uh, the the voucher program, uh, based on HB one, the bill passed a couple of years ago that allow allows parents in school to transfer from a public school to a charter or private school.

And, um, the thing that's important to remember is the funding is, is also at the state level and the local level.

So county by county is going to be a little bit different than Hillsborough.

And, you know, some of the things that have passed with regard to education help to supplement that.

I have this I don't know, I've talked to a lot of people, and in some of the lower economic communities, they feel very strong about the fact that they're allowed to now take their, uh, their children out of failing public school and giving them an opportunity.

The one thing I haven't been able to, uh, to determine is, is it outcome based?

I think there is no evidence that I've been able to discover that shows that one way of going is another, but it certainly gives the the parents.

The parents.

Absolutely.

It does make a difference.

So there's there's passion on both sides of the issue.

Alan, on the other side, people are saying this will really hurt our schools in the public school system.

Well, I mean, I've been concerned for many years about taking money out of the public school system in favor of charter schools.

And, you know, the public schools are our crown jewel.

We're already concerned about what is not being taught in the public schools, whether it is, uh, civics, which is, you know, there are too many young people and adults who don't understand how a bill is passed by the United States Congress.

So, uh, now instead of figuring out how to produce well-rounded, uh, adults, we are, um, we are continuing to starve a public education system that actually needs more investment, not less.

Here in Hillsborough County last year, voters overwhelmingly more than 60% voted in favor of the ad valorem tax that will help Hillsborough County Public schools and that starts July the 1st.

And so the question is, will this help Hillsborough County Public Schools, um, inoculate itself from some of the antics going on in Tallahassee?

What do you think, Tara?

I don't think so, listen, public schools are the democracy or the nurseries of our democracy.

So anytime you tinker with it, you're tinkering with the health of our democratic process, whether it's in Hillsborough, Pinellas or any of the 67 counties in the state of Florida.

And I think the real problem that we're facing is the declining population has already put the school districts at risk.

We're already talking about cutting property taxes that will also help education resources.

And we're starting to the debate late.

We should have been having this discussion back when we put the $800 million or the original voucher program in place.

Putting state funds towards faith based institutions and private institutions might feel good and feel good to parents.

And I'm a parent and I have four kids and of course want them to have the best education.

But that in itself, when faith based institutions get involved, violates that basic civic principle that if you're taught civics, you remember the letter to the Danbury Baptist by Thomas Jefferson, our great architect, that said, A wall of separation.

So we're late to the party on this.

And I think this kind of defunding of public schools is actually amplifying what we've already had a problem with, with diverting the resources to public schools.

And the real question is, what will that mean to the difference between those that are in lower income and can't necessarily find a place for those vouchers and those that have the have and have not, it continues to grow, and this is going to amplify it.

Mitch, do you think that that voters will in the different districts, the counties will be looking to do more at the local level to increase funds for schools?

They have shown that throughout the state.

I remember writing stories going back to 2018 where almost every not every but that that year, I think there was 15 to 20 referendums on this that most of them passed.

Hillsborough almost won a couple of years ago.

You remember they did pass this last year.

I think Pasco had one recently to the local school districts may have to continue to go every few years back to the voters to ask as this gets drained.

Ford is the progenitor of the private school voucher movement.

You go back to Jeb Bush over 20 years ago.

You know, it has been, you know, as Mark would call it, the school of opportunity.

The school choice movement has really, you know, began here.

And the bill they passed a couple of years ago in 2023, is this on steroids, where they didn't limit the amount of income that you had?

Basically opens up for anybody and everybody.

So it's a dream among some to keep this up and perhaps to drain the public education system.

And so local districts are going to continue to have to do what they have done with less potentially.

And um, it is concerning.

Well, a lot of parents and grandparents do support school choice because it gives them a way to direct the dollars to schools that are teaching what they believe in, especially in districts.

That are like that, you know, aren't that well funded, you know, in poor areas.

You know, it's just happened.

One of government's main functions is to cultivate an economy and part of an economy, and attracting businesses is having an educated workforce, and so we can find a sweet spot to have vouchers without draining the public school districts.

We just haven't done the work.

So we have a lot of topics on the table.

Before we go, I want to get into the what are the other big stories that you all think we should be following this week?

And Tara, I'd love to start with you.

I think it's protest, protest, protest.

From Tampa to Saint Pete to Sarasota, we have seen voters more engaged, more excited, and it's really going to, I think, make a difference in the upcoming elections.

And it's creating fertile ground for people who are eyeing the governor's mansion like David Jolly.

And I think these protests are kind of getting people excited and ready.

And this might be the prime time for him to announce his his run.

When do you think if it happens, when do you think it might?

Oh, I don't have a crystal ball.

But I would say I would say in the upcoming weeks.

I can I just say about jolly.

I did interview him a couple weeks ago.

He said by Memorial Day he would basically decide whether he's going to do it or not.

Now, he's flirted with this a couple times before, four years ago as an independent.

That didn't happen.

Now is a potential Democrat.

Um, what I'm looking at.

So of course I'm in Tallahassee back here for the Easter weekend.

Uh, lots going on.

I would say the most interesting battle.

There's so many, like, bills that are Senate and House bills that are disparate right now and how they come together be interesting.

But on the budget, the number one priority, of course, is to pass a budget by May 2nd.

Um, and also you have these big sales tax packages.

So the house Danny Perez, we mentioned earlier, uh, he's got over $5 billion tax cut, which would reduce the sales tax from 6% to 5.25%.

Pretty intense, pretty radical.

And it would be ecumenical.

It would help everybody.

Ron DeSantis criticizes it because it would be Canadian.

Tourists would benefit.

Everybody benefits.

The Senate is not going that far.

Ben Albritton has proposed a basically $2.1 billion sales tax for clothing and shoes.

If you purchase those with less than $75.

So you got a $2 billion plan here, a $5 billion plan over there.

Are they going to be able to get this together in two weeks before the session ends?

I don't know, they Perez says.

They can't do it.

They're going to have to do a lot of work in the next couple of weeks to see if this happens.

Perez is focusing on the sales tax.

Well, the sales tax, but but.

But as opposed to the property tax rebate.

The property tax is going nowhere.

But it might happen.

And it's part of the Senate plan is to have a look, a study about putting this on the ballot in 2026, which is really what DeSantis was originally wanted to said he was going to do when when Perez put his plan out there, all of a sudden they Ron jumped on that and said, let's do that right now.

But so that still could happen.

But it's not going to happen until next year at best.

And it will go before the voters probably.

Alan, what do you see as the big story?

Affordability prices keep on going up the prices of coffee.

I thought you were going to say eggs.

Well, that would be the first thing you know.

I heard the administration claim today that the prices of eggs are going down.

Not at Publix, not at the stores that I go to.

And and other items like coffee, which used to be $7, $8 are now $15.

I think that this should be, you know, one overwhelming issue that the state legislature, the governor, the president, and the administration and Congress, if it ever gets to vote on anything again, should be in terms of affordability, because that is what is dominating the conversations at home with families who are having increasingly difficult times, being able to afford the staples.

And if you're not talking about that, if you're not doing something about that, you're not doing your job.

Basic items affordability.

But we don't talk enough about workforce housing and the need for that.

How does how do you see that impacting the local economy?

You remember there was that big local Act bill in the legislature a couple of years ago that had a lot of problems, actually, and that was to be designed towards workforce, not so much affordable housing, but for workforce housing.

And a lot of communities are having issues with that.

So that hasn't played out exactly.

That was a big state plan to try to address this a couple of years ago.

There's just not the local communities are not coming up with the plan that will really define what affordability is.

That's the big problem.

We don't know what that means.

And if you don't have rising wages, it doesn't matter how you address affordable housing, you can't keep up with it.

And what we're seeing is that the average house costs $450,000, but the average income is $42,000.

Just debt income ratio people can't afford to buy.

The number one thing that goes to generational wealth, which is the home, the home.

And there is a difference between workforce housing and affordable housing.

If you qualify for affordable housing programs, that's very different from a person who is making just enough that they do not qualify for workforce for affordable housing, but still cannot afford to buy a home.

And many people have to make that tough decision.

Affordable home or health care?

A lot of interesting topics to to continue to talk about.

And we want to wait with Mark.

Mark, what is your big story?

So, uh, in the the today the topics have been hope and change.

So I'm going to talk about a change that's being proposed, um, about Florida going to the birds for 98 years.

The state of Florida's official.

Bird has been the mocking bird, which is a northern bird that came down here and.

You know, kind of like what's going on now.

The legislature is looking at.

Making the flamingo.

That's why the flamingo, the state bird and the scrub.

Jay as the official songbird.

So look forward to that.

I know it's it's it's.

You know, we got all these heavy things that need to be done, but at.

Least that's something that we can look as we go into the Easter weekend.

Can kind of lighten things up a little bit.

You know, when I've been out and about in the community, so many folks who watch Florida this week say, we wish that there was more conversation in the legislative session about help to victims of last year's hurricane season.

Um, are you all disappointed or how do you all feel about that real quickly before we run out of time?

I run to the beach sometimes and they're still rebuilding.

I think that there's still a lot of sorrow and tragedy, a lot of beauty in our community serving each other, but still a lot of work to be done.

You know, I was at a town hall meeting this week in Tampa, where there were people who were still suffering because of the flooding.

A woman whose home was destroyed got barely anything to rebuild.

Thank you all for joining.

Thanks for having us.

So great to have you.

Our panel again, Tara Newsom, Alan Cohn, Mitch Perry and Mark Proctor.

Send your comments about this program to ftw@wedu.org.

The show is on every Friday night at 8:30, on Sundays at 12:30 and online, and you can watch past shows on YouTube from our entire team here at WEDU.

Have a great weekend!