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| Florida Governor Ron DeSantis |
(Miami Herald, 8/04/2023)A federal grand jury is investigating allegations of bid-rigging involving Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Department of Education, charter school operators and the control of a small North Florida school district.
Federal authorities issued a subpoena to the Jefferson County School District in June seeking communications between district officials, charter school lobbyists and former top officials in DeSantis’ education department.
It also seeks records relating to the department’s attempt to steer a multimillion-dollar contract to a politically connected company with ties to DeSantis’ former education commissioner, Richard Corcoran. The contract would have been funded by federal coronavirus relief dollars.
The subpoena, obtained by the Herald/Times in a public records request, was issued by a federal prosecutor in Gainesville.
The subpoena requests the records be sent to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General in Pembroke Pines.
A spokesperson for the federal education department’s Office of Inspector General said the office does not confirm or deny investigative activity.
The federal inquiry comes a year and a half after the Herald/Times reported on the bid-rigging allegations involving Jefferson County’s school district, which became the first, and only, district to be privatized by the state.
Control of the small three-school district near Tallahassee was turned over to private charter school operator Somerset Academy Inc., in 2017.
The five-year contract was scheduled to end in 2022, when the school board would resume control. But under Corcoran’s leadership, the Department of Education decided in 2021 it would hire consultants for up to three years to help the district’s transition, and it would use $4 million in federal coronavirus relief dollars assigned to the district to pay for it.
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