TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Hope Florida Foundation Board of Directors approved a policy Monday requiring full board approval for any grants over $50,000 — a move that would prevent a repeat of last year’s controversial and unilateral decision by the chair to give $5 million to a nonprofit that campaigned against a ballot amendment to legalize marijuana.

The foundation, the charitable arm of Hope Florida, once seen as a political vehicle for Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, has been embroiled in controversy largely due to that contribution, part of a $10 million gift it received from a $67 million Medicaid fraud settlement.

The affair also entangled James Uthmeier, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s then-chief of staff and now state attorney general, who controlled the anti-marijuana committee.

Hope Florida was established in 2021 as the state’s attempt to get people off of traditional welfare by setting up a network of religious organizations and nonprofits meant to help them achieve self-sufficiency. The foundation was established two years ago.

Its new policy “is based on public comments from a couple meetings ago” to provide more transparency, board member Wendy Nissan said. “We are a public board, and it is most important that (grant applicants) come to the board for approval for grants of over $50,000.”

It also requires that any grant over $50,000 be approved and signed by at least two board members and prohibits a board member from signing off “on a grant disbursement to themselves or an entity with which they have a conflict of interest.”

Newly appointed board chair Bob Schafer said that the $50,000 threshold “is pretty typical for organizations like us.”

Any grants up to $50,000, however, may be reviewed, approved and issued by the chair without a full board vote.

The board also approved a $1.5 million budget for the new year that includes $175,000 for an executive director as well as $88,000 to hire auditing and compliance firms to to conduct audits, prepare tax returns and meet state and federal compliance requirements.

The board has budgeted $120,000 for legal services.

The $10 million received by the board last year as part of a $67 million settlement with Centene Corp. was quickly turned around to two nonprofit organizations that in turn gave $8.5 million to Uthmeier’s committee, which was set up to defeat the proposed Amendment 3 to legalize recreational marijuana. That ballot initiative failed to get enough votes to meet the 60% threshold for approval in November.

Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, who steered a three-week legislative inquiry into the foundation, accused Uthmeier and Jeff Aaron, the lawyer hired to represent the foundation, of conspiring to direct that money into Uthmeier’s political committee.

The finalized agreement, with the Hope Florida Foundation a recipient, became public earlier this year, igniting a bipartisan probe and sparking questions about whether highly regulated Medicaid dollars were illegally used for political purposes. Tallahassee prosecutors opened an investigation in May. Uthmeier and Aaron have denied any wrongdoing.

Andrade said he has provided information to both the FBI and the Department of Justice.

One of the $5 million grants — to a committee set up by the Florida Chamber of Commerce called Secure Florida’s Future — was approved by the entire board at its October 2024 meeting, but the second grant — to an anti-drug nonprofit called Save Our Society from Drugs — was approved only by former chair Joshua Hay at the advice of the board’s attorney. Hay stepped down from the board after his term expired.

During a legislative hearing in April, Hay conceded “mistakes were made” handling the grants, as well as in the late filing of its tax returns and other financial information. He also said that the foundation had no one person designated to run the day-to-day operations or oversee the foundation’s administrative functions.

The same day of that first hearing, the foundation’s executive director Erik Dellenback announced his resignation and board member Jake Farmer soon followed, along with one of the lawyers hired to help the foundation sort out its financial and legal issues.

With Hay and two others stepping down as their terms expired, only one original board member remains.

Since Andrade shut down his investigation, key questions have lingered about who pushed Hope Florida into the middle of the Medicaid settlement and when that happened. Newly released records in August offered some clues, casting a planned Sept. 10, 2024 meeting as a potential “turning point” that reshaped the controversial Medicaid settlement agreement just as a hard-fought campaign was shaping up, Andrade said.

The key record: An email from a staffer with the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration featuring an “EOG agenda” for Sept. 10 in which the settlement was one of the items to be discussed. EOG is an abbreviation for “executive office of the governor.”

None of the records provided to the Orlando Sentinel and other news organizations document whether the meeting was held as planned, who attended or what ultimately was decided. AHCA and the governor’s office did not return messages seeking additional details about the scheduled meeting. The records don’t include a list of attendees, a summary of what was discussed or a definitive accounting of who directed the Hope Florida Foundation be added to the settlement agreement.

“The fact that it was added at the very last minute is telling,” Andrade said of the Hope Florida donation. “If it had been added far earlier, then obviously it would be kind of exculpatory. But in this case, it makes it seem as if it was added solely because of the campaign environment.”

As officials worked to resolve the Medicaid payment issue, DeSantis was pushing hard to defeat the marijuana initiative.

DeSantis has subsequently defended the settlement, arguing that the state got a good deal and the $10 million donation was an additional “cherry-on-top” payment that served Floridians well.

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