TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Just one day after testifying before a state House subcommittee, Hope Florida’s executive director has resigned.
The charity, established by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, has been under scrutiny as lawmakers ask how and why $10 million in taxpayer money was diverted to the private foundation.
Erik Dellenback apparently announced his resignation in March after just three months on the job, but the public is only learning about it on Wednesday.
Dellenback leads the Hope Florida program ― not the foundation, the fundraising arm which is under scrutiny.
He did testify in that House committee and appeared to be clueless about the issue.
The resignation likely had nothing to do with the House committee hearing about the $10 million granted to two dark money groups connected to the governor’s and allies’ political-type campaigns.
The committee chair representative posted the resignation news.
“Did anyone ever give you a heads up, ‘Hey, you guys feature heavily, that the entity that you’re the executive director of, features heavily in the state’s largest contracts’?” State Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola asked during the hearing.
“They did not and that was not an area that I have (a) great understanding (of),” Dellenback said.
Dellenback became Hope Florida director in January, after the movement of money. He and the program itself are not accused of wrongdoing.
It’s the Hope Florida foundation that raises its private budget that’s in the crosshairs, and so is the Department of Children and Families from which the program is run.
“Hope Florida as a program didn’t need any money,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday. “It didn’t need anything. It’s just repurposing the way we do welfare programs.”
On Wednesday, the governor gave what has become a daily defense of the Hope Florida program and did not acknowledge the foundation’s financial questions, instead blaming lawmakers of his own party.
“The whole thing that the House leadership is doing is a manufactured fraud,” DeSantis said. “This is a hoax.”
And yet the chair of that House committee has ordered up all kinds of documents and has ordered the attorneys involved in that foundation transfer to appear next week.
Dellenback’s resignation is effective May 1.
