AHCA, DCF Leaders Won’t Be Confirmed by Senate

By Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — In a snub to Gov. Ron DeSantis amid a widening House probe into First Lady Casey DeSantis’ signature welfare-assistance program, the Florida Senate will not take up confirmations of two state agency heads before the end of the legislative session.

Senate Ethics and Elections Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, confirmed Monday that his committee will not consider the confirmations of Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris and Department of Children and Families Secretary Taylor Hatch at the panel’s final meeting Tuesday.

DeSantis tapped Harris, who previously led the Department of Children and Families, to head the health-care agency in February and selected Hatch, a former head of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, to replace her at DCF.

Harris and Hatch are among nominees requiring Senate confirmation who won’t get hearings before the legislative session is slated to end May 2.

“We’re sort of, you know, we’ve run out of rope. We’re out of time,” Gaetz, a former Senate president, said Monday.

The lack of Senate confirmation, first reported Monday by the Florida Phoenix, means Harris and Hatch could continue to serve for at least another year.

Under Florida law, appointees who are not confirmed can serve for 30 days after the end of the legislative session. The governor can reappoint them for another year. Appointees who fail to receive Senate confirmation a second time cannot remain in their posts.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking whether the governor intends to reappoint Harris and Hatch.

The Agency for Health Care Administration and the Department of Children and Families are at the forefront of a state House inquiry into Hope Florida — a program spearheaded by Casey DeSantis that operates across numerous state agencies — and the Hope Florida Foundation, Inc., a direct-support organization affiliated with the Department of Children and Families.

The House Health Care Budget Subcommittee is scrutinizing the foundation’s receipt of $10 million as part of a $67 million legal settlement that Centene, Florida’s largest Medicaid managed-care company, reached last fall with the Agency for Health Care Administration.

After receiving the money from the settlement, the foundation gave $5 million grants to Secure Florida’s Future, a nonprofit tied to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Save our Society from Drugs.

Those groups within days made contributions to Keep Florida Clean, a political committee headed by James Uthmeier, who was then Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff and is now state attorney general. Keep Florida Clean fought a proposed constitutional amendment in November that would have allowed recreational use of marijuana.

The House’s probe has fueled an unusually public feud between House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and the governor that intensified in the runup to the last two weeks of the 60-day legislative session.

Gaetz said Monday that questions surrounding Hope Florida and the foundation contributed to his decision to hold off on considering the secretaries at his committee’s final meeting Tuesday.

“That’s the whole point. In order to give the committee time to ask questions, to debate the issues, you’ve got to have some time. We have a very full agenda tomorrow, as you can see, packed and stacked, and there are controversial appointments on that agenda that will take a lot of time,” Gaetz said.

Gaetz’s committee is slated to consider more than 100 appointees serving on dozens of boards.

“So in good conscience, even if I could have, I wouldn’t have tried to wedge in more appointments, because it would be unfair to all of the other decisions we have to make tomorrow,” Gaetz said.

Harris and Hatch were among the leaders who appeared before the House subcommittee in recent weeks amid the probe of the foundation, which did not file required federal tax documents and other records, and the settlement and the grants.

Subcommittee Chairman Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, grilled Harris on April 11 about the $10 million settlement, repeatedly asking her what the money was spent on.

In a video posted hours later on social media, Harris called the meeting “an ambush,” as the governor and his allies continued to clash about the issue with House leaders on social media and conservative media outlets.

DeSantis has called the settlement “100 percent appropriate” and accused House leaders of politically targeting Casey DeSantis, who is a possible candidate for governor in 2026.

The foundation’s board members held a meeting last week — its third since its inception in 2022 — to strengthen the nonprofit’s structure as the House inquiry continues.