Secretive, million-dollar Florida agency served itself, not domestic violence victims | Opinion
Kudos to Rep. Juan Fernandez-Barquin, D-Miami, and Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, for standing up to the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV), a small and secretive operation with an exceptional skill at making friends in high places.
The lawmakers propose to strip FCADV of its cushy contract with the Department of Children & Families (DCF). The legislation was crafted with help from DCF and deserves to be passed swiftly and signed in to law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Like many businesses blessed with not-for-profit tax status and a motherhood-and-apple pie kind of name, FCADV flew under the radar for decades.
That changed, Bean said, when the Miami Herald’s Elizabeth Koh reported on FCADV’s failure to cooperate with state auditors and the more than $750,000 annual salary being paid to its long-time president & CEO, Tiffany Carr.
Secrecy and a princely salary for the boss might make sense for a Domestic Violence Underground Railroad run by a 21st century Harriet Tubman who risks her life running ’round-the-clock rescue operations. It does not make sense for FCADV, which is in the business of “addressing the administration of domestic violence in the state,” according to its current CEO, former state senator Denise Grimsley.
Specifically, FCADV is what the state calls a “lead agency.” It receives roughly $35 million in taxpayer dollars and passes the money through to 42 community-based domestic-violence centers, which it also “oversees.”
Florida enacted a law in 2003 granting FCADV exclusive rights to serve as the lead agency for domestic violence. It was a major coup and a sweet deal for Carr, and one not enjoyed by DCF’s lead agencies providing management and oversight services for other, equally vulnerable populations, including abused and neglected children, elders and the disabled.
Monopoly begets mischief, and Carr’s deal would get a whole lot sweeter in the years that followed.
By 2017, her compensation had climbed to $761,000 annually, according to Internal Revenue Service documents. Koh’s reporting revealed possible discrepancies between Carr’s compensation as reported to the IRS and her salary as reported to the state in 2018, provoking DCF to take a closer look.
Since most of FCADV’s finances come from the state, DCF had every right to expect cooperation.
Instead, FCADV stonewalled, refusing to produce documents necessary for DCF to conduct a proper audit.
As bad publicity piled up, Carr stepped down from her leadership posts, claiming a long-running “significant health diagnosis.” Grimsley, Carr’s replacement, admits to being a “dear friend” of Carr, and is keeping her on as a consultant.
Grimsley claims that the reforms offered by Bean and Fernandez-Barquin in SB 1482 and HB 1087 “will have a significant, negative impact on the victims of domestic violence if adopted.”
That’s an insult to every lead agency that doesn’t have the luxury of being carved in statutory stone and the arrogance to sandbag a state investigation. It’s also ludicrous. Florida is full of people who know how to administer contracts and live on less than $761,000.
To be sure, the bills will have a significant and negative impact on Carr & Co., which explains why Grimsley has urged her former legislative colleagues not to take “such a draconian approach.” She’ll be aided in her effort to fend off the badly needed housecleaning by Brian Ballard, a lobbyist known for his ability to make lawmakers perform like trained seals.
If FCADV is interested in saving lives, as opposed to protecting lucrative fiefdoms, its time would be better spent rescuing the federal Violence Against Women Act, which is currently on life support in Washington.
