Hope Florida and the $10 Million Scandal: How a Welfare Initiative Became Entangled in Florida’s Political Machinery
What began as one of Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis’ signature efforts to reshape the way government assists struggling families has evolved into one of the most consequential controversies of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second term. At the center of the controversy is a $10 million payment connected to a $67 million Medicaid settlement with Centene, one of Florida’s largest Medicaid contractors. The money was directed to the Hope Florida Foundation, a nonprofit associated with the Hope Florida initiative, and within weeks much of it moved through two nonprofit organizations before reaching a political committee controlled by James Uthmeier, then Gov. DeSantis’ chief of staff. The committee, Keep Florida Clean, was fighting Amendment 3, a 2024 ballot initiative that sought to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida. DeSantis was an outspoken opponent of the amendment. It ultimately failed to obtain the 60 percent vote required for passage.
The unusual movement of the money prompted a Republican-led investigation in the Florida House, a state attorney's investigation and eventually a grand-jury proceeding. The grand jury's findings, made public in August 2026 after months under seal, significantly changed the status of the controversy. Jurors concluded that the $10 million had been misappropriated and used for political purposes. But they also concluded that the evidence was insufficient to identify who was criminally responsible, and therefore no criminal charges were brought as a result of the grand jury's findings.
That distinction is important. The grand jury's report is a serious finding about the handling of public money, but it is not a criminal conviction, nor did the grand jury conclude that particular individuals had committed crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. The episode nevertheless raises fundamental questions about the relationship between government agencies, nonprofit organizations, political committees and the governor's office—and about the safeguards that are supposed to prevent public resources from becoming entangled with electoral politics.
The original promise of Hope Florida
Hope Florida was created in 2021 as an initiative championed by Casey DeSantis. Its premise was straightforward: instead of relying exclusively on government benefits, people facing financial or personal difficulties could be connected with churches, charities, businesses, nonprofits and other community organizations. The program employed state-based "Hope Navigators" or "care navigators" whose job was to help people identify resources available to them. The philosophy represented a broader approach to government: use public employees to connect residents with private and faith-based assistance rather than simply directing people toward government-funded programs.
By 2025, the administration was portraying Hope Florida as a statewide network involving thousands of churches and nonprofit organizations. The program's expansion included plans to place points of contact in all 67 sheriff's offices and later to establish connections with the state's college system. Supporters saw the initiative as an example of government acting as a connector rather than the sole provider of social services. That reputation was central to Casey DeSantis' political profile. Ron DeSantis had also pointed to the initiative as evidence that his administration could develop an alternative to traditional welfare programs. But the nonprofit structure created to raise money for Hope Florida would eventually become the focus of an extraordinary controversy.
The foundation behind the program
The Hope Florida Foundation was established as a nonprofit fundraising arm connected to the initiative. Its financial history illustrates just how extraordinary the $10 million payment was.
According to the foundation's IRS filings, it reported approximately $850,053 in revenue in 2023, with about $40,760 in expenses. The organization therefore was not accustomed to handling sums remotely comparable to $10 million. The Centene payment would dwarf the foundation's previous annual revenue. The foundation's subsequent filing reported approximately $11.2 million in revenue for the following fiscal year, reflecting the extraordinary influx of money.
That financial jump became one of the reasons lawmakers and investigators questioned whether the foundation had the organizational structure and controls necessary to handle such a large transfer. Those questions became particularly acute after Joshua Hay, the foundation's president and chairman, testified before a Florida House committee. Hay acknowledged that the organization lacked basic governance mechanisms. He testified that he could not confirm how the $10 million had ultimately been used and acknowledged that the foundation had no monitoring procedures and no staff dedicated to overseeing the money.
The investigation also found problems involving the foundation's records, bylaws and tax filings. Contemporary reporting found that the foundation had failed to maintain meeting minutes, lacked formal bylaws and had not filed required tax returns at various points. For a charity handling millions of dollars, those shortcomings became a central part of the controversy.
The Centene settlement
The money originated with Centene, a major company participating in Florida's Medicaid program. Florida and Centene reached a settlement in September 2024 over allegations involving Medicaid overbilling related to prescription drugs. The settlement was worth approximately $67 million. The critical question was what happened to that $67 million.
The settlement directed approximately $57 million to the state while $10 million went to the Hope Florida Foundation. Documents later obtained by lawmakers and journalists showed that the $10 million payment was incorporated directly into the settlement arrangement rather than being an unrelated charitable gift made independently of the settlement. That distinction became crucial. The DeSantis administration and its defenders characterized the $10 million as a donation or charitable contribution. But subsequent investigations treated the money as part of the Medicaid settlement—and therefore as money that had been recovered from a Medicaid contractor as compensation connected to alleged overbilling. The 2026 grand jury adopted the latter interpretation. According to the report, the entire Centene settlement represented taxpayer reimbursement and the $10 million should not have been treated as a separate charitable bonus. That finding transformed the central question. The issue was no longer simply whether a private company had donated $10 million to a charity associated with the governor's wife. It was whether money recovered in connection with Florida's Medicaid program had been diverted from its governmental purpose into a nonprofit and subsequently into political activity.
Why the timing mattered
The settlement was signed on September 27, 2024, during a period when Florida was dealing with Hurricane Helene. The state subsequently received the $10 million payment, and the money began moving through the Hope Florida Foundation with remarkable speed. The foundation received the money in early October. Within days, it approved two $5 million grants. One went to Secure Florida's Future, a nonprofit associated with the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The other went to Save Our Society from Drugs. On paper, the grants had charitable or public-interest purposes. But the money soon began moving again. The organizations ultimately transferred a combined $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, the political committee controlled by Uthmeier and created to oppose Amendment 3. That chain became the defining feature of the scandal.
The marijuana amendment
Amendment 3 sought to legalize recreational marijuana for adults in Florida. DeSantis opposed it, and Keep Florida Clean was created to fight the measure. The political significance of the money trail was therefore difficult to ignore. The Hope Florida Foundation gave $5 million to each of two nonprofits. Those organizations subsequently gave $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, which spent money opposing Amendment 3. Campaign-finance records also showed that Keep Florida Clean subsequently directed millions of dollars to other political organizations, including the Republican Party of Florida. The result was an unusual intersection of three systems that ordinarily operate under different rules:
- Medicaid, a highly regulated public health program;
- charitable nonprofits, which receive tax advantages in exchange for serving specified public purposes; and
- political committees, which raise and spend money to influence elections and ballot measures.
Critics argued that the structure obscured the ultimate destination of the money.
Defenders argued that the transactions were lawful and that the nonprofits were entitled to make their own political expenditures. James Uthmeier, who was subsequently appointed Florida attorney general, defended the spending and said he had a duty to oppose what he considered harmful policies. He characterized criticism of the transactions as politically motivated.
The House investigation
The controversy became impossible for Florida lawmakers to ignore. The Republican-controlled Florida House launched an investigation through a health-care budget subcommittee chaired by state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Republican from Pensacola. The investigation focused not merely on the destination of the money but on how the $10 million had entered the foundation in the first place. Investigators examined settlement documents, foundation records, grant applications and communications involving state officials and the nonprofit organizations. The inquiry uncovered a foundation that appeared to have remarkably little internal infrastructure for an organization that had suddenly received $10 million. Joshua Hay's testimony was especially damaging to the foundation's image.
He acknowledged that he could not say where the money ultimately went. He also acknowledged that the organization had no monitoring procedures and no staff.
Those admissions raised a basic governance question: How could an organization with such limited internal controls responsibly oversee a $10 million grant?
The accusation of money laundering and wire fraud
Andrade's investigation went further. He concluded that the movement of the funds potentially constituted money laundering and wire fraud and referred the findings to the Leon County State Attorney's Office. At that stage, however, those were allegations and investigative conclusions—not criminal convictions. The State Attorney's Office subsequently opened an investigation. That investigation eventually led to a grand jury proceeding. The grand jury's later findings were more nuanced than the rhetoric surrounding the original controversy.
It agreed that the money had been misappropriated. But it did not conclude that prosecutors had enough evidence to criminally charge specific individuals. The report explained that witnesses repeatedly declined to take responsibility for the original decision to direct $10 million to Hope Florida. According to the grand jury, the inability to identify who actually made that decision created an obstacle to criminal prosecution. That distinction is essential to understanding where the matter stands. A finding of misappropriation is not the same thing as a criminal indictment. The grand jury essentially said that it could see what happened to the money but could not establish beyond the required legal threshold who was criminally responsible.
What the grand jury found
The grand jury's report, completed in January 2026, remained sealed for months before a copy was obtained by CBS Miami and subsequently reported on by other news organizations.
Its findings were unusually blunt. The jurors concluded that the DeSantis administration had misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer money and that the money ultimately was used for political purposes. They described the arrangement as a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities. At the same time, they said there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally. The report also questioned the basic rationale for sending the money to Hope Florida. Some witnesses had described Hope Florida as a successful, high-profile initiative.
But the grand jury said it could not find evidence substantiating those claims and encountered witnesses who could not clearly explain how the program operated or where it was based. The jurors were also troubled by the speed of the transactions. According to the report, the settlement money moved through the system only days after the settlement was completed. The grand jury suggested that the proximity to the 2024 election may have contributed to the urgency surrounding the transfers.
The role of James Uthmeier
Few figures are more central to the controversy than James Uthmeier. At the time of the settlement, Uthmeier was DeSantis' chief of staff. He also chaired Keep Florida Clean, the political committee that ultimately received the largest portion of the money that emerged from the Hope Florida transactions. The grand jury concluded that Uthmeier was "in a position of authority" over people involved in the settlement process. That finding does not mean the grand jury found him criminally liable. It explicitly declined to bring criminal charges. Uthmeier has denied wrongdoing and dismissed renewed criticism as politically motivated. The controversy has followed him into his subsequent position as Florida attorney general.
That makes the Hope Florida affair more than a dispute over a nonprofit's bookkeeping. It has become a question about the conduct of senior officials at the highest levels of state government.
Ashley Moody and the settlement
Another prominent figure mentioned in the grand jury findings is Ashley Moody, who was Florida's attorney general when the Centene settlement was completed. The grand jury concluded that Moody's office knew about the arrangement and that her chief deputy, John Guard, signed the settlement despite reservations. Moody has disputed the suggestion that she personally knew how the money would ultimately be spent. Her office has argued that multiple state agencies were involved in approving the settlement and that the attorney general's office did not control what Hope Florida subsequently did with the funds. Moody subsequently left the state attorney general's office after being appointed to the U.S. Senate.
The controversy therefore reaches across several levels of Florida government, involving officials who held or later assumed some of the state's most powerful positions.
The governance problem inside Hope Florida
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the affair is that the controversy did not begin with a sophisticated political organization. It began with a charity that investigators found had surprisingly weak administrative controls. The foundation's own president, Joshua Hay, testified that he could not confirm how the money had been used. The House investigation also uncovered missing records, inadequate governance procedures and other compliance problems. That matters because nonprofit organizations generally depend on public confidence. Donors assume that money given to a charitable organization will be governed by a board, tracked through financial records and spent consistently with the organization's stated mission. The larger the financial transaction, the more consequential those safeguards become. A charity that had historically operated on less than $1 million annually suddenly received $10 million tied to a government settlement. Yet the organization did not have the staffing and oversight mechanisms that lawmakers expected to see. That mismatch became one of the most persistent questions in the investigation.
Erik Dellenback's departure
The controversy also coincided with the departure of Erik Dellenback, Hope Florida's executive director. Dellenback had served for years as DeSantis' liaison for faith and community before taking on leadership responsibilities at Hope Florida. He announced that he would leave the position effective May 1, 2025.He subsequently became president and CEO of Florida Family Voice, a conservative Christian organization focused on issues including marriage, family, abortion and religious liberty. Florida Family Voice had announced his appointment in April 2025, saying he would officially begin the role in May. The organization praised his government and nonprofit experience and highlighted his previous work with the Tim Tebow Foundation and other faith-oriented organizations. Dellenback has continued to be publicly associated with conservative faith-based advocacy. In a 2025 speech to Florida Family Voice supporters, he appeared alongside an event featuring Charlie Kirk and emphasized the organization's religious and cultural objectives. His move illustrates another feature of the Hope Florida story: the close connections among state government, faith-based organizations and conservative advocacy groups. Those connections were central to the original philosophy of Hope Florida. They also became part of the controversy over whether government resources had become too closely intertwined with political activity.
A program caught between charity and politics
The underlying philosophical debate is larger than one $10 million transaction. Hope Florida was deliberately designed around partnerships with private organizations, including churches and nonprofits. That approach can reduce the distance between government and civil society.
But it also creates a difficult oversight problem. If government employees connect vulnerable residents with private organizations, who is responsible for monitoring those organizations?
If state money is transferred to a nonprofit, what controls prevent the money from being redirected? And if a nonprofit is connected to prominent political figures, what safeguards prevent charitable resources from becoming entangled with campaign activity?
Those questions became especially important because the organizations involved occupied different legal and institutional categories. A government agency operates under public-records and appropriations requirements. A charitable nonprofit operates under nonprofit and tax law. A political committee exists specifically to engage in political activity. Moving money between those categories does not automatically make a transaction unlawful. But each transfer creates a new set of legal and accounting obligations.The Hope Florida controversy arose in part because critics believed those boundaries were insufficiently protected.
The tax-exemption question
The scandal also raised questions about Hope Florida's federal tax status. The Hope Florida Foundation is classified as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Such organizations are generally required to operate for charitable, religious, educational or other qualifying purposes and are subject to restrictions on political campaign intervention. That does not mean a nonprofit automatically loses tax-exempt status whenever money ultimately reaches a political organization. The legal question would depend on what the foundation itself did, what its purpose was, how it exercised control over its funds and whether transactions violated the rules applicable to its particular tax-exempt status. The foundation's $10 million grants were made to other nonprofits rather than directly to a political committee. Those nonprofits subsequently transferred money to Keep Florida Clean. That structure became one of the reasons the controversy attracted so much scrutiny. The ultimate political destination of the money was clear from campaign-finance records, but determining the legal responsibility of each organization requires examining the intent and conduct at every step of the transaction.
As of September 2026, the public record does not establish that the IRS has revoked Hope Florida Foundation's tax-exempt status.
The Legislature's attempt to institutionalize Hope Florida
The controversy emerged just as Florida lawmakers were considering legislation that would formally establish Hope Florida within state government. A 2025 Senate proposal, SB 1144, would have created a Hope Florida Office within the Executive Office of the Governor and established statutory responsibilities for the program. The timing was politically significant. The administration was seeking to turn a program identified strongly with Casey DeSantis into a formal part of state government at precisely the moment lawmakers were questioning the governance of the foundation associated with it.
The scandal complicated that effort. Rather than simply debating whether Hope Florida's model worked, lawmakers were forced to confront questions about financial controls, transparency and the separation of government functions from political operations.
Later legislative proposals continued to address oversight and reporting surrounding the program. A 2026 Senate proposal, for example, called for reporting on Hope Florida initiatives, employees working on Hope Florida functions, contracts and related state spending. The controversy therefore produced an institutional question that extends beyond the original $10 million:
If Hope Florida is going to become a permanent part of state government, what rules should govern it?
DeSantis' defense
Ron DeSantis has rejected the characterization of the episode as a scandal.
He has argued that the controversy is politically motivated and has defended Hope Florida as an effective model for connecting people with private and faith-based assistance.
After the grand jury report became public in August 2026, DeSantis did not dispute that the leaked document was authentic but continued to deny that the administration had broken the law. He also criticized the release of sealed grand-jury material. That position is important because the grand jury's conclusion was not that a crime had been proved. The grand jury found that money had been misappropriated but specifically said there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally. Thus, two propositions can simultaneously be true:
- A grand jury found that the $10 million was misappropriated and used for political purposes.
- No individual was criminally charged on the basis of that finding.
The distinction between those propositions has become central to the political debate over Hope Florida.
The political future of Casey DeSantis
The controversy also intersects with the political future of Casey DeSantis. Ron DeSantis is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term as governor and is scheduled to leave office in January 2027. For years, he has publicly discussed Casey DeSantis as someone who could potentially continue aspects of his political legacy. Hope Florida was an important part of that argument. The initiative offered a highly visible program associated with the first lady, emphasizing private charity, faith communities and alternatives to conventional government assistance. But the $10 million controversy has changed the context in which that record is evaluated. Instead of serving solely as an example of Casey DeSantis' administrative accomplishments, Hope Florida is now associated with questions about financial controls, government oversight and the use of money connected to a Medicaid settlement. That does not itself determine whether Casey DeSantis will seek public office or what voters would think of her record. It does mean that Hope Florida, once promoted as a signature achievement, is likely to remain part of the public record surrounding her political career.
What the grand jury recommended
The grand jury did not simply criticize what had happened. It also proposed changes designed to prevent a recurrence. Among its recommendations were tighter rules requiring money received by the state to be deposited into the state's General Fund and clearer requirements for tracking, monitoring and controlling the use of public money by organizations connected to state programs. Those recommendations address the central weakness exposed by the affair. The most striking feature of the Hope Florida transaction was not merely that $10 million moved from one organization to another. It was that responsibility became increasingly difficult to trace as the money moved through multiple entities. The grand jury found that witnesses could not—or would not—identify who made the original decision to send $10 million to the foundation. That is precisely the kind of accountability gap that financial controls are supposed to prevent.
What remains unresolved
Even after the grand jury's report, significant questions remain. The first is institutional: Who actually decided that $10 million from the Centene settlement should go to Hope Florida?
The grand jury could not establish that conclusively. The second is legal: Did any individual or organization violate criminal law? The grand jury did not find enough evidence to bring criminal charges. The third is administrative: Why was a relatively small nonprofit entrusted with $10 million without stronger controls? The foundation's own testimony suggests that it lacked the staff and procedures necessary for that level of financial responsibility. The fourth is political: How did money connected to a Medicaid settlement ultimately become available to a political operation opposing a ballot measure supported by the governor's opponents?
The financial trail itself is well documented: $10 million went to the Hope Florida Foundation, $10 million was subsequently granted in two $5 million installments to other nonprofits, and $8.5 million from those organizations eventually reached Keep Florida Clean. The harder question is responsibility. That is where the criminal investigation ultimately stalled.
A scandal about more than $10 million
The Hope Florida affair is often described simply as a $10 million scandal. But the deeper issue is not the size of the check. It is the collision of three competing ideas about government.
The first is the DeSantis administration's belief that government can accomplish more by partnering with churches, charities and private organizations. The second is the principle that public money—particularly money associated with Medicaid—requires strict accountability and transparent oversight. The third is the reality of modern political fundraising, in which nonprofit organizations, social-welfare groups and political committees can exist alongside one another and, under certain circumstances, transfer money through complicated networks.
Hope Florida was created at the intersection of those first two ideas. The controversy arose when its financial operations became entangled with the third. The grand jury's findings suggest that Florida's existing safeguards did not adequately answer a basic question: who was accountable for the $10 million once it began moving? The jury's conclusion—that the money was misappropriated but that no one could be charged—captures the paradox at the heart of the affair. There was enough evidence for investigators to reconstruct the money trail. There was not enough evidence to establish criminal responsibility for an individual. That gap between knowing where the money went and proving who was legally responsible is the central unresolved lesson of Hope Florida.
The broader lesson for Florida government
Whatever one's view of Hope Florida's underlying philosophy, the controversy has exposed the risks that arise when government programs depend on loosely defined partnerships with private organizations. If public agencies transfer money, they need clear legal authority and documentation. If charities receive money, they need functioning boards, financial controls and accurate records. If political organizations receive money, the source and purpose of those funds need to comply with campaign-finance law. And when all three systems intersect, the rules need to be especially clear. The grand jury's recommendations point in that direction.
The question now is whether Florida's political leadership will turn those recommendations into durable safeguards—or whether Hope Florida will remain an unusual episode in the final years of the DeSantis administration. For Casey DeSantis, the stakes are particularly personal.
Hope Florida was intended to demonstrate a different model of government: one in which the state helps families find assistance in their own communities. Instead, the initiative became the vehicle through which investigators traced $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into a network of nonprofit and political organizations. The grand jury's conclusion did not establish criminal guilt. But it did establish something politically and institutionally significant: jurors concluded that taxpayer money had been misappropriated and used for political purposes, while the state's existing oversight system failed to establish who was responsible. That is why the Hope Florida controversy has outgrown the original transaction. It is now a case study in the boundaries between public money, private charity and political power—and in what happens when those boundaries become difficult to see.
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