Florida Department of Education ensnared in federal investigation

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Federal authorities are probing state and local officials over the Florida Department of Education’s handling of a multimillion dollar bid to oversee a rural school district, an issue the DeSantis administration pledged to investigate last year.

Federal prosecutors in Gainesville have requested scores of documents — including correspondence between school officials, charter school lobbyists and former top leaders in DeSantis’ education department — surrounding a long-running Jefferson County School District saga that sparked the resignation of a high-ranking Florida Department of Education staffer and former state Board of Education chair, according to a subpoena first reported by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times.

In the subpoena, federal authorities are also looking into how the Florida Department of Education may have steered a contract to help run the school district toward a former GOP state representative and colleague of former Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, a top education ally of the governor.

The federal grand jury, which issued the subpoena in late June, could ultimately shed more light on a scandal that produced outrage and a state “investigation” in 2022, yet no findings that have seen the light of day.

The investigation centers around a contract sought by Florida in 2021 to help transition Jefferson County schools back to becoming a traditional local school district. A charter company had operated Jefferson County schools since 2017-18 after years of poor academic performance and financial turmoil.

In two different instances, it was previously revealed that vendors with ties to the DeSantis administration and Corcoran attempted to land the state’s $4 million bid to work alongside schools in Jefferson County. Now, both of these cases appear to be on the radar of U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General based in Pembroke Pines in Broward County.

The Florida Department of Education, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, previously investigated Andy Tuck, a citrus grower first appointed to the state board in 2014, and Melissa Ramsey, the vice chancellor for strategic improvement at the agency, to determine if they broke conflict-of-interest rules by attempting to leverage their positions to score the contract with the state.

That investigation, led by FLDOE’s inspector general, revealed that a company run by Tuck and Ramsey submitted an application through a third individual for a state contract. However, that contract was only open to certain approved vendors, and their proposal was partially “copied and pasted” from a competitor’s work.

But both Tuck and Ramsey resigned from their posts amid the probe, essentially closing the door on the agency’s investigation.

The federal subpoena requests mounds of records in an attempt to gain more details about meetings and inner workings between state, local officials and other players, naming Ramsey, former K-12 chancellor Jacob Oliva and Suzanne Pridgeon, FLDOE deputy commissioner for finance and operations.

Oliva, now the secretary of education in Arkansas, was never subpoenaed and has not been asked to testify, state officials there said when asked about the news from Florida.

“The articles reference a bid that was reviewed by the Inspector General about two years ago,” Kimberly Mundell, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Education, said in a statement to Arkansas Times. “At the time of the state investigation, no evidence was found of any wrongdoing involving the secretary. The secretary is completely unaware of any new investigation.”

The only other bid received by the state to run Jefferson came from MGT Consulting — an outfit operated by Trey Traviesa, a former state representative and colleague of Corcoran. Reports from the Miami Herald suggested the Jefferson County bid was tailored specifically to MGT, and that the company was given prior knowledge surrounding the project criteria. MGT, however, did not win the bid, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

To that end, federal authorities also sought communications between Traviesa, MGT Consulting, Jefferson County schools superintendent Eydie Tricquet, representatives from Somerset Academy Inc., which was operating Jefferson schools, and Ralph Arza, a well-known charter school lobbyist and Corcoran ally.

Officials with the DeSantis administration said in January 2022 that Florida Chief Inspector General Melinda Miguel would investigate the Jefferson County contract fracas. Nothing from this probe, if it exists, has been made public.