This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] Coming up, legislators are fine tuning more than a handful of proposals in their quest to eliminate property taxes in Florida.

The grand jury in Tallahassee continues to subpoena witnesses in the Hope Florida investigation in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

A list of public schools could be turned into charter schools thanks to changes to Florida's School of Hope Law.

Our other counties next.

Those stories and more are coming up on Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back everybody.

I'm Lissette Campos joining our panel this week, we have Christina Diamond, the CEO of Ruth's List and a Democrat.

Derek Gilliam, investigative reporter for Sarasota's Suncoast Searchlight.

Akash Patel, founder and CEO of Elevate Inc.

and a Republican.

And Lawrence Mower, who is the Tallahassee correspondent for the Tampa Bay Times.

Cuts to property taxes took one step closer to reality.

State House Republicans filed a slate of proposals aimed at slashing property taxes and, in some cases, eliminating certain levies for those with homestead.

Supporters say those options provide relief long overdue for families facing rising home costs.

However, critics warn that local governments and essential services could face very deep cuts.

Take a look.

Florida's rapid growth in recent years also brought a sharp increase in property taxes, and now state lawmakers are aiming to increase housing affordability Ability.

A Republican state House lawmakers filed a series of resolutions that would overhaul the property tax system.

The proposals include eliminating all non-school property tax on homesteaded homes, phasing out homestead taxes over ten years, exempting residents over the age of 65 from paying homestead property taxes, creating a new homestead exemption equal to 25% of a home's assessed value, giving a $100,000 exemption tied to property insurance coverage.

Eliminating the cap on transferring the Save Our Homes benefit, limiting assessed value growth even further for certain homesteads, and requiring a two thirds vote for any local governments to increase the millage rates and allow newly wed couples to combine their Save Our Homes benefit.

This proposal is the only bill that would require passage in the legislature and the governor's signature to become a law.

Supporters believe cutting property taxes will help families get financial relief and stay in their homes.

Critics, however, argue large scale cuts could force municipalities to raise other taxes or reduce their services if approved by lawmakers.

Seven of the eight proposals would go before voters during next year's elections.

Akasha and Christina.

I'd like to start with the two of you reaction on this.

Um, so many people have said that the school funding was very important to them, and not having that eliminated.

Um, that's one of the proposals.

Akash, would you say that we're making progress in the right direction in terms of those who want to eliminate the property taxes?

Yeah, this is starting the conversation.

I mean, this is a clear clash between the speaker and the governor.

And January 13th when the session starts, this is all they're going to talk about, but then it's going to go straight to the voters.

And I think the school funding is we want to make sure we're using the schools are not affected by this.

Um, Christina, how do you see this?

I think, you know, I think that this is a plan that sounds really good on paper.

And homeowners are looking for some relief.

But I think we have to be very careful about reducing or eliminating this, because this money goes to infrastructure such as fire and police.

And I think before we do anything drastic, it's something that we really need to study.

I think it's a risky proposal that really only sounds good on paper, but not really in practice.

Lawrence, the Times have has done quite a bit of stories on this following it.

Um, there's been no details put forth from the governor's office.

So this is the first time that we're hearing more things on paper and in detail.

Correct?

Yeah, the governor last night tweeted about how this was a ridiculous idea because he didn't want voters to see a bunch of different proposals on the ballot next November.

He said this was just a political stunt.

On the other hand, the governor's been going around the state for months and months talking about how he thinks that homesteaded properties shouldn't pay any property tax.

And yet he has not proposed anything on that.

And the legislature has already said that is kind of a nonstarter.

There isn't money to do that.

Especially rural counties have said this is going to gut police, fire and schools.

That's what that's what property tax funds.

And in west central Florida, Sarasota, Manatee.

Um, this is quite a conversation starter there as well.

Derek.

Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't want property taxes lowered?

I mean, that's definitely very appealing to voters.

Um, but how to actually solve that?

I mean, it would blow holes in budgets in both Manatee and Sarasota County, for sure.

And that's just moving the homestead exemption, not even eliminating property taxes altogether.

Yeah, when you all look at the proposals, the seven that are listed there, um, is there one in particular that we think maybe voters will lean more towards?

Akash.

Uh, honestly, it's very confusing and I think that's the problem that they're going to have.

And that's why the governor is upset.

And that tweet that Lawrence mentioned is that voters have very short, you know, span of there's so many things to vote for.

And and honestly, there's just I don't know if they're going to narrow it down the session.

Hopefully they do.

So it's a lot easier.

But seven is a lot.

Christine and I would agree I mean I think looking at those seven it can be very confusing.

And I think on its surface voters are going to say, yes, of course I want to reduce my property taxes without really understanding, um, kind of the consequences to that.

So I think having something that lengthy on the ballot and, and so many ways to misinterpret, interpret the law and the amendments.

Um, again, I think that it's it's really just a talking point for the governor that sounds really good, but in practice it doesn't work.

I think the speaker will let the dialog happen, and then he'll move on to the next topic in the session.

It will not be 60 days of this topic.

You don't think so?>> I don't.

Think so.

Would you agree?

You cover Tallahassee quite extensively.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be the dominant issue I think for sure.

I mean, there's going to be other things coming up.

But, you know, the Senate hasn't released any of their ideas either, you know.

And so this is like it's highly likely, I think, that, you know, maybe 1 or 2 of the house's ideas might pass, but maybe none, you know, and again, is the governor going to come up with something?

Is he at some point going to announce some kind of what his idea is and put it on paper and, you know, have data to back up why it's feasible?

Right up until this point, there's been no proposal from the governor detailing things.

No, and he's kind of played both sides on this where he said, oh, we shouldn't have property taxes on homesteaded homes while also saying, and I guarantee you we're going to have relief for homeowners on the ballot next year, which is, well, that's different.

Relief is not the same as getting rid of it for homestead.

Homesteaded property.

We're going to move on to our next topic, which is, I'm sure all of you are going to have quite a bit to say.

Now, in week two, a grand jury is actively investigating the Hope Florida Foundation Nation, and the subpoenas are sending ripples from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C.. The focus of roughly $10 million portion of a settlement involving the state of Florida and Centene Corporation, that's the state's largest Medicaid managed care contractor.

Officials say the 10 million went directly to the Florida Foundation instead of the state's general fund, as the law requires.

That money was then redirected by the foundation to two nonprofits, which steered the funds to a political action committee chaired by James Othmer, who was then chief of staff to the governor, Ron DeSantis.

Among those subpoenaed is former deputy Attorney General John Gard.

He was nominated to the bench of the U.S.

District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

But now the white House is postponing his judicial confirmation indefinitely, citing the Hope Florida investigation as the reason for this guard's name is on the signed settlement between Centene and the state of Florida from three years ago, when the money was directed to hold.

Florida Guard reportedly raised concerns before signing off on the final agreement.

Lawrence, the Tampa Bay Times has been one of the lead media outlets reporting on this, making public records requests.

How does it look so far?

Well, if you're part of the DeSantis camp, it doesn't look good.

The fact that a grand jury was convened here.

I mean, this is I think the Sun Sentinel reported this is the first time in 50 years that a grand jury could implicate a member of the cabinet, and that member of the cabinet would be James Uthmeier, the attorney general, who at the time of this was the governor's chief of staff.

And his he was the most he was the person most involved in all of this.

And if you look at it, I mean, the grand jury is probably looking at whether this was money laundering.

That's what House Republican has said, that this is money laundering, potential wire fraud.

Um, you know, is it It would be pretty gutsy for a state attorney to indict or have a grand jury indict, you know, a member of the governor's administration.

But, you know, they're in a position to potentially do that right now.

And the other side of the coin, in fairness to defenders of the administration, for Governor Ron DeSantis, there is nothing that has come out that has linked the governor or First Lady Casey DeSantis to this scandal in terms of the legality of what to do with Medicaid funds.

This is a federal state program with very strict rules on where the money of any settlement would go.

Can you explain it to our viewers so that they realize the potential for legal consequences in this.

Federal law is pretty clear.

Money from Medicaid settlements belongs to taxpayers.

It literally...States have to repay a portion of that back to of every settlement, back to the federal government.

Okay.

In this case, it looks like the state is repaying their portion based on the full $67 million.

Now, the DeSantis administration has said, oh, this extra 10 million wasn't Medicaid money.

It was a charitable contribution.

Byzantine, even though the records show that's not the case.

Centene very clearly said, you are telling us to do this.

And they were concerned.

They seemed to be concerned legally about this.

But money for Medicaid settlements is owed to state and federal taxpayers.

And we interviewed four former federal prosecutors, including two who were involved in writing the nation's the federal money laundering statutes, who said there's more than enough here for the feds to investigate this as money laundering.

When you look at the list, there is no list for us to look at.

But if there were, um, who would be subpoenaed for something like this?

Do you do we suspect that the attorneys engaged in, in these negotiations representing Centene would also be included because they were part of negotiations with other states during this very large Medicaid settlement where they had to come to certain agreements after admitting that they had overbilled taxpayers for prescription drugs.

Um, and those attorneys said that this settlement with the state of Florida was very different from the ones that they were making with the other states involved in the settlement.

Yeah.

We don't know if Santini's lawyers have, you know, testified, you know, given witness testimony to the grand jury.

Um, we've asked them they haven't said, you know, their general counsel.

This is one of the largest corporations in the world.

Um, and their general counsel was personally involved in this settlement.

I mean, the records show that we got show this.

Um, so we don't know if he's testified.

We do know some of the other people who have testified, which is the head of the Hope Florida Foundation.

Uh, Joshua.

Hey, he was appointed by the DeSantis administration to this to that job.

Um, he had previously said that the governor's office was fully aware of this, and actually came up with the idea to divert this money from the foundation to these other, you know, basically nonprofits that later gave the money to a political committee.

We know that he we saw him in the Capitol.

Joshua.

Hey, we don't know if he testified necessarily.

Um, we know that a House Republican lawmaker, um, Alex Andrade, who's been investigating this, he did say.

A subcommittee that started the investigation.

Yeah, he he has testified.

He said he said he spent about two hours talking to the grand jury about this, which is, you know, not insignificant.

And we also saw, uh, the head of one of the organizations that got some of the money, some of one of the two nonprofits.

She was also seen at the courthouse with a lawyer.

How high do you think that these subpoenas could go?

Well, I mean, the highest it could probably go would be the governor, but that's probably unlikely.

Like like you said, we don't have any evidence that he knew about this or was directly involved in this decision.

However, the person who was involved was the governor's chief of staff, James Uthmeier, who's now the attorney general, the top cop.

I mean, that's pretty high.

We don't know if he's gotten a subpoena.

He wouldn't necessarily get a subpoena.

You know, I mean, these are these are two witnesses.

And typically when you get one of these subpoenas, the witnesses are usually not a target of the investigation.

Right, this is an investigation that has so many layers.

It's been going on for for three years.

This is a settlement that was agreed upon three years ago.

That's not new.

But every week it seems like there are new layers.

And on both sides, Republicans and Democrats have expressed on this show a concern.

Akash and Christine, I'd like to get your your take on this.

You know, the first lady, as Laura mentioned, is in every article that you read about.

And because they think she was because she was on the board or was or overseeing the board.

But there were a lot of other board members there.

And there was meetings are public.

They're all sunshine law.

And so I don't I sometimes wonder when you're on these boards, which I've been on, some of them, like you have a duty to be fiduciary responsible.

So I don't know who was calling the shots.

And I think that's what voters and what the grand jury will find.

Who called the shots?

Well, none of the meetings were actually public.

They were all held in secret in violation of state law.

Which that's.

That's all of this stuff, you know, until very recently was all secret.

They kept the settlement secret.

Every other state seemed to announce it.

They kept all of this secret until basically, they couldn't anymore.

But I do find it hard to believe.

I mean, I know the governor and the first lady in every article, but 17 also knew what they were doing, too.

I mean, they're the world's one of the world's largest Medicaid companies.

And they they knew, they knew, I mean, whether they're going to say it or not, but obviously so I think there's going to be a lot that's going to come out of it when it comes out.

Governor might might not be in office.

Mhm.

And I'm so lucky that we have papers like the Tampa Bay times investigating this, because there is very little oversight in Tallahassee.

There's the governor, the legislature's fully Republican and our cabinets Republican, and there's little oversight to what's going on with our taxpayer money.

And it's so important that we have investigations like this happening so that these questions are being answered.

Well, even within the Republican Party, there are very strong voices saying we need transparency.

We need the investigation.

Definitely.

We're going to move on to our next story.

A new public school plan playing out in Sarasota County is resonating statewide.

District leaders want to merge several schools in order to keep charter schools from taking over public campuses.

Critics call it a rushed plan that pins students in the middle of a very political fight.

The Sarasota County School District is considering merging Suncoast Polytechnical High School with Brookside Middle School.

The move could block Miami based charter school Matter Academy from moving in on underused campuses.

Brookside is operating at less than half capacity under Florida's expanded Schools of Hope law.

That makes it available to a charter school takeover.

Schools of Hope was pitched as a way to improve struggling schools, but in practice our parasitical to public education.

As mayor explained it at a state Board of Education meeting, it's like asking Lowe's to take up space and conduct business at Home Depot at no cost.

Matter Academy intends to take up available space in Brookside buildings in August of 2027, if students don't fill the seats.

Brookside does not have the infrastructure to support three grades, let alone seven.

I understand the terrible threat the schools of Hope program brings to our county, but this is a terrible solution.

Emma Booker Elementary and Oak Park School are other Sarasota County facilities.

I'd buy this charter school statewide.

At least eight school districts received notices last week from Matter Academy, seeking to set up shop inside at nearly 100 public schools.

That includes at least a dozen facilities in Hillsborough and Polk counties.

Derek, these meetings have been quite passionate.

Parents and and teachers coming out against it.

What what have you witnessed when you've been covering this?

Yeah, I mean, definitely seems there's a lot of concern.

They don't know the logistics.

Like, how will you know a charter school operate in a public school setting?

Well, what's cafeteria going to what's, you know, lunchtime going to look like?

Um, and, um, in many instances, they're still trying to figure out a way to fight back.

Although the way to do that, it doesn't really seem like there's much time to do that.

I mean, um, it does seem, um, so when these notices came, went out, they went out not just to Sarasota and Manatee County, but they went out throughout the entire state.

Um, all coming from one organization that we know of, Matter Academy based in Miami Dade County, notifying them that unless they they meet a certain threshold, whole.

They are interested in coming in and taking over certain aspects of their curriculum.

Yeah, they were basically saying, hey, you have vacant classrooms, we'd love to come in and take those.

And the school district has to give them plans for how that would happen.

And they have 20 days to respond to the notices.

Now, Matter Academy actually jumped out ahead of when the rule goes into effect.

And the school district are saying that these notices aren't valid until November 11th.

And there's actually matter.

Academy is just one of six operators in the state that can send out notices.

So it's expected that other charter school operators will also win the time when November 11th comes around.

I believe like Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota, like dozens of schools received the early notice, and that would allow charter schools to come into their public school facilities, and the school district would still be responsible for covering security costs, the electricity bills, the, you know, the lunch, lunch services and even transportation of the students.

And that's something that we've heard from the leaders in the public schools that are that have received these letters, that it seems to be incredibly unfair that the operations cost would still be paid by the school, and yet a charter school would come in and benefit from the services without having to pay for them.

Yeah, I mean, that is what a lot of the district leaders are upset about.

Um, they are actually trying to come up with plans to more fully utilize their schools to try to boost them so they're less attractive.

You know, suppose we've heard that 400 seats is like a sweet spot for charter schools that are looking to potentially come in and Sarasota, they have seen enrollment decline at numerous schools, partially because of vouchers and other also the schools, the shifts in population as people move to more suburbs and just some neighborhoods, the schools have fewer children.

Yeah, and the voucher system and the charter schools, they have their their supporters and then they have their detractors.

I'd like to ask the two of you to kind of weigh in on, on this whole situation with the charter school trying to come in.

I think that this really speaks to the fact that Florida just doesn't fund public schools in the way that they need to be funded.

They're constantly trying to move money around.

You know, vouchers for these charter schools, which are essentially for profit institutions.

We have taxpayer monies going to these vouchers who are then going to the charter schools, and now the charter schools want to come in and use the space from public schools that are really funded by taxpayers.

When what you can do is just fund really good public schools, but the legislature just continues to not just want to fully fund.

We need good schools.

We need smaller class sizes.

Teachers need to be paid a living wage.

And instead of focusing on that, we're focusing on giving money to these for profit institutions.

And now we're letting them infiltrate the public schools.

Akash, I'd really love your opinion on this because you've been so involved with the Early Learning Coalition, you've done numerous years of looking at education and the links between starting as early as possible, coming in a charter school, coming in.

Is that a good thing or in your opinion, something that's worrisome?

I think it's a great thing because parents deserve a choice.

And the practice in Sarasota, at least it sounds like and I don't know, I don't live there, but the school board is not trusted.

And so what happens is His parents don't like the school, the public schools.

And they want they want charter schools to come in.

Charter schools wouldn't come in there if they didn't talk to parents.

And this is about using being fiscally responsible.

Right, that's what the legislators are saying.

And those in your clip, you showed that these schools are not even being used.

These are half empty buildings that the government's paid for.

So the charter schools, yes, they are benefiting, but they're also providing a service that the parents want.

And everyone deserves a quality education.

In the time that we have left.

We'd love to do the big stories of the week.

What are some of the other stories you're following?

Lawrence, I'd like to start with you.

I think the economy is still by far the biggest issue, and maybe the only issue that really matters to Americans right now.

And there's been some troubling signs.

We're seeing, um, student debt, default rates go up.

We're seeing home loan delinquencies go up.

In fact, there was just a report on Realtor.com that five of the ten worst metro areas for mortgage defaults is in Florida.

A Lakeland was number one on the list.

We covered that last week.

Yeah, and you're also seeing, you know.

a credit card, bankruptcies and stuff, all kinds of stuff go up right now.

And it's this will have political ramifications for the next many years.

Akash, what would you say is the big story you're following in Tampa?

We have a special election for a city councilwoman who passed away.

The two top runoff is veteran in politics Tom Scott, who's a former commissioner and council member and a newcomer named Naya Young.

And voter turnout will be low, but it is early voting has started, so the election is Tuesday.

Christina and speaking on elections January, the legislative session starts and there has not been special elections called for a Senate seat in Hillsborough County or a House seat in Palm Beach County.

And legislative session is about to start.

And both of those communities are going to be not representative.

And that's a real shame that the governor didn't call a special election for those.

Derek.

Yeah, so, um, by the way, this is my first time on the show, so I appreciate you having me.

We love having you.

I'm a reporter with the nonprofit newsroom called Suncoast Searchlight.

We cover Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties, and we provide our content to newsrooms throughout the region.

And I think you guys have actually picked up some of our stories, so we appreciate that.

And if you guys would like to check us out, we're at suncoastsearchlight.org, so thank you.

It's important to have as many voices telling the truth as possible.

So thank you and congratulations.

Thank you all for coming in.

We really appreciate having you.

That's all the time we have for now.

Again, our thanks to panelist Aakash Patel, Christina Diamond, Derrick Gilliam and Lawrence Mower.

A final programing note the runoff election for the city of Tampa's District Five seat.

We want to remind you, is Tuesday, October the 28th on the ballot?

Thomas Scott and Naya Young.

They beat out more than a dozen candidates in the September 9th special election.

Both of them are vying for the council seat that fell vacant this summer after the sudden death of Councilwoman Gwen Henderson.

District Five includes Ybor City, Downtown Tampa, and a portion of West Tampa.

These are strategic areas where local government decisions can have regional impact, and that is why we will continue to follow it closely on behalf of the entire team here at WEDU.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next week.