Florida Senate won't confirm two DeSantis officials linked to Hope Florida

Ana Ceballos and Lawrence Mower, Tampa Bay Times on Apr 22, 2025

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Senate will not take up confirmations of two DeSantis administration officials who were questioned earlier this month by legislators about Hope Florida, a key lawmaker told the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald on Monday.

Shevaun Harris, the secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, and Taylor Hatch, the head of the Department of Children and Families, can still be reappointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Sen. Don Gaetz, the chairperson of the committee responsible for vetting appointees, said his committee has run out of time to screen the two officials this legislative session, which is scheduled to end May 2. The Senate process allows two years to complete the confirmation process.

Gaetz said the decision not to confirm them this year wasn’t directly related to questions around the Hope Florida program and its charity, but because there were other issues surrounding agency actions that state senators want to vet.

“I personally have a number of questions for both secretaries that don’t relate in any way to Hope Florida, but relate to other issues associated with their departments, and I believe that other senators on our committee do, too,” Gaetz said.

The confirmation delays are a sign that the agency heads are not just facing scrutiny from the Florida House as it investigates Hope Florida – a key initiative of first lady Casey DeSantis – but from the Florida Senate, as well. The news that Harris and Hatch won’t get confirmed this session was first reported by the Florida Phoenix.

Gaetz, R-Niceville, said he wants to know more about $160 million that the Legislature gave the Agency for Health Care Administration in 2023. The money was intended to repay money owed to the federal government, but the agency spent the money on other things, Florida Politics reported.

The issue has been a point of contention during budget negotiations. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott has also said he wants to know more about how the money was spent by the state.

“I want to probe very deeply into that,” said Gaetz, the chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee.

Gaetz said he is “interested” to see where the Florida House investigation into Hope Florida ends up. His son, former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, has been a fierce critic of the first lady’s initiative and has used his platform as a conservative TV host to talk about the issue.

The House has been investigating the operations and finances of the program and the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity created to support the initiative, in recent weeks. At the center of the controversy: a $10 million donation the foundation received from a $67 million Medicaid state settlement that was previously undisclosed to the state Legislature.

Both Harris and Hatch were grilled about Hope Florida during tense committee hearings in the House this month. The Hope Florida program intends to move Floridians off of government services. The Hope Florida Foundation, a charity, is supposed to support that mission by awarding grants to churches and nonprofits that help those people.

As the previous secretary for the Department of Children and Families, Harris oversaw both the foundation and much of the program. But she struggled to answer questions from House lawmakers about the program’s performance earlier this month, and she would not say what the charity did with the $10 million.

The Times/Herald later revealed that the charity gave $5 million apiece to two separate organizations — Save Our Society from Drugs and Secure Florida’s Future Inc. The groups, which don’t have to disclose their donors, later gave millions to a political committee waging an anti-marijuana campaign backed by the governor.

Harris told lawmakers that the $10 million was a “separate contribution” by Centene and not money owed to the state. But a 2022 settlement agreement draft obtained by the Times/Herald stated that Centene owed $67 million in restitution to state and federal taxpayers. When Hatch faced the House committee, she would not say what the two organizations did with their $5 million grants.

The director of the Hope Florida program is resigning after this month. A board member of the charity also resigned this month.

Gaetz said his committee has not been asked to look into the matter by Senate President Ben Albritton and said that his committee would not generally have jurisdiction over money inquiries. He denied that the delay in confirmations was the Senate’s way of having a hand in the Hope Florida investigation.

“Anybody that imagines some sort of hand of the Senate president in moving confirmations this way or the other way is imagining something that’s not true,” Gaetz said. “I’m chairman of the committee. I think I would know.”

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