{"id":57714,"date":"2025-11-23T15:33:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T15:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/57714\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T15:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T15:33:15","slug":"state-cant-find-hope-florida-vehicles-in-motor-pool-database","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/57714\/","title":{"rendered":"State can’t find Hope Florida vehicles in motor pool database"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE \u2014 Buses, vans and trucks emblazoned with the Hope Florida logo serve as backdrops to press conferences touting the welfare alternative program<\/a> championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis.<\/p>\n

They also show up in communities hit by natural disasters wherever news cameras are rolling, with food, water and other supplies.<\/p>\n

And they are visible in the parking lot of the Florida Department of Children and Families\u2019 state headquarters in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

But they cannot be found in the database, called FleetWave, that is supposed to track all of the estimated 27,000 state-owned vehicles. And state officials either can\u2019t or won\u2019t explain why.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile no vehicles are assigned to Hope Florida in FleetWave, Hope Florida vehicles play a critical role in assisting Floridians and connecting them with resources, particularly during disaster response and recovery,\u201d said Dan Barrow, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Management Services, which is responsible for the state\u2019s vehicle fleet.<\/p>\n

Barrow conceded that the department couldn\u2019t find Hope Florida vehicles in its database even when provided with photos of two of them, each with a yellow Florida Department of Transportation license plate. He would not say whether they might be registered with a different state agency.<\/p>\n

DCF, which oversees Hope Florida, also gave no explanation for why the Hope Florida vehicles could not be found in the database.<\/p>\n

The phantom vehicles highlight two problems: The ongoing management issues at Hope Florida, which faced a legislative probe in the spring and now is the subject of a grand jury investigation, and Florida\u2019s continuing difficulties tracking its immense motor fleet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is deeply troubling and appears to be yet another example of the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding the Hope Florida initiative,\u201d said Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee, in a text message. \u201cFloridians deserve clear answers about how taxpayer-funded resources are being managed, monitored and deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inability to find the vehicles in FleetWave means management services still cannot track all the state\u2019s vehicles or Hope Florida may not be doing the work it claims, Bracy Davis said, since there is s no public record of how those vehicles are being used.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither scenario is embarrassing and completely unacceptable,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The Hope Florida grand jury,<\/a> appointed by Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell in April, is likely focusing on a range of financial crimes related to the transfer of $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, which then sent it to two nonprofits fighting the effort to legalize marijuana. Those nonprofits, in turn, sent it to a political action committee set up to defeat Amendment 3, which would have legalized the drug.<\/p>\n

Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, who led the legislative probe, accused Attorney General James Uthmeier of orchestrating the diversion of those funds to the political committee while he was chief of staff for Gov. Ron DeSantis. Andrade said those funds should have gone\u00a0 back into the state\u2019s Medicaid program.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier has denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The legislative probe also raised numerous questions about Hope Florida\u2019s finances. The charitable foundation formed to support Hope Florida failed to disclose its budget and expenditures, file its tax return on time, or subject itself to a mandatory state audit, which are all required by law.<\/p>\n

The financial information the foundation finally released, after threat of legal action, does not show any records of vehicles being donated to or purchased by Hope Florida.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo Hope Florida vehicles parked outside the Department of Children and Families headquarters in Tallahassee. State officials said they cannot find records for any Hope Florida vehicles. (Jeffrey Schweers\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

The management department has had problems keeping track of the state\u2019s immense number of vehicles, as lawmakers learned in the spring. An audit report presented to a legislative oversight committee in March noted that the state\u2019s new vehicle tracking system couldn\u2019t account for about 2,300 vehicles, valued at $57 million, that were listed in the state\u2019s overall database.<\/p>\n

The vehicles were not lost or stolen, but auditors could not find them listed in the new system, they said.<\/p>\n

The audit also found \u201cnumerous unmatched, inconsistent, missing, or incomplete records,\u201d including 1,535 inaccurate delivery dates and 1,695 missing delivery dates.<\/p>\n

The findings upset lawmakers who noted the department had gone through three different IT systems to try to track the cars and trucks but was still failing. One lawmaker complained he couldn\u2019t even get a straight answer on how many total vehicles Florida owned.<\/p>\n

In October, Tom Berger, deputy secretary for DMS, told members of the Senate Committee on Governmental Oversight and Accountability that those vehicles now are all accounted for and that his agency had completed almost all of the recommendations made by the Auditor General to improve oversight.<\/p>\n

Bracy Davis, a member of the government oversight committee, said Berger\u2019s statement that all vehicles are accounted for doesn\u2019t align with the current status of the Hope Florida vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cFloridians deserve an honest explanation for these inconsistencies and immediate corrective action to ensure proper oversight of taxpayer-funded property,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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