TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The $10 million that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration diverted to a state-created charity last year consisted of Medicaid dollars owed to state and federal taxpayers, contrary to what the governor and other officials have publicly asserted.

Three years ago, lawyers working with the state drew up a settlement agreement that said Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor, Centene, overbilled taxpayers $67,048,611 for medications, according to a copy of a draft agreement obtained by the Herald/Times.

That’s the exact amount DeSantis officials settled on with Centene last year. But instead of returning all $67 million to state and federal coffers, they sent $10 million of it to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity overseen by first lady Casey DeSantis.

The money was then sent to two nonprofit organizations that aren’t required to report how they spend their funds. Those “dark money” groups later gave $8.5 million to a political committee overseen by DeSantis’ chief of staff in a series of transactions that some Republican lawmakers believe was illegal. How Medicaid is allocated, which pays for healthcare services for the poor, is highly regulated.

The document contradicts statements by DeSantis and state officials that the $10 million was a charitable contribution by Centene separate from what it owed to the state.

DeSantis said earlier this month that the $10 million “was in addition to what they [the state] were getting.”

“This is kind of like a cherry on top, where they agreed to make an additional contribution,” he said, in his only detailed remarks since the unusual settlement became the target of a House Republican investigation.

DeSantis has primarily responded to the accusations by lashing out at reporters and lawmakers who have questioned aspects of the Hope Florida initiative, which is intended to move Floridians off of government services.

The February 2022 draft agreement was drawn up the same month that DeSantis’ then-chief of staff began settlement negotiations, calendar entries show.

Florida officials first became aware that Centene owed the state money in 2021. At the time, Ohio, Mississippi and other states were reaching settlements with the Medicaid giant after it overbilled for prescription drugs.

The overbilling was uncovered by politically connected Mississippi law firms, which helped states negotiate settlements with Centene in exchange for millions of dollars in contingency fees, the New York Times reported last year.

The data the law firms used to calculate how much each state was owed is hidden from the public, the Times reported, making it impossible to know whether Centene paid its full share.

Florida signed on with one of the firms, Liston & Deas, in December 2021. Months earlier, other lawyers working with the firm on the Centene settlements donated $100,000 to the Republican Party of Florida and $10,000 to then-Attorney General Ashley Moody’s political committee.

DeSantis spokespeople and state officials have said that Centene was the first to notify the state it owed money. But that doesn’t align with what one of the original attorneys said.

“We approached states, including Florida, that were eligible to participate,” attorney Lawrence Deas said in a statement Monday.

On Feb. 10, 2022, DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, had a “Centene Call” with some of those lawyers, according to calendar entries first unearthed by investigative reporter Jason Garcia from the newsletter Seeking Rents. The records were posted on the governor’s public records portal.

On June 16 that year, Uthmeier had another meeting with a lobbyist representing the lawyers, records show. He was joined by top DeSantis administration officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Strickland.

Strickland oversees the healthcare agencies carrying out DeSantis’ Hope Florida initiative, including the Agency for Health Care Administration. Though Casey DeSantis has no official chief of staff, Strickland functionally serves in that role, according to four people familiar with the administration’s operations.

Uthmeier and Strickland had three more meetings that year about Centene, including one with the CEO of the company’s Florida subsidiary, records show.

Where the negotiations with Centene went after 2022 is unclear. Last month, KFF Health News reported that Florida and Georgia were the final holdouts among more than 20 states that had reached settlements with Centene. Florida officials didn’t respond to the news outlet’s questions. (Nearly all the states announced their settlements in news releases.)

In reality, DeSantis officials had quietly reached a $67 million settlement with the company in September.

It wasn’t publicly disclosed by the state until this month, when reporters and state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, began inquiring about a mysterious $10 million donation the Hope Florida Foundation had received as a result of a “longstanding dispute” with the state.

The law firm Liston & Deas wasn’t part of the final settlement. The state fired them in 2023 and never paid them for their services, records show. Deas told the Herald/Times on Monday that a donation to Hope Florida Foundation was not mentioned in the settlement talks, and the firm didn’t learn of it until its lawyers saw media reports.

DeSantis this month said the settlement was a “good deal” for the state.

“There was a potential you could have filed a lawsuit,” he said. “But I can tell you, you look at it, it was not a clear-cut case that we were guaranteed to win, and certainly not guaranteed to win that much money.”

DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin said the negotiations were handled by the Agency for Health Care Administration.

“Centene proactively made the state aware of a billing issue in 2021 and the state worked for years to ensure it was resolved,” Griffin said in a statement.

“[The agency’s] settlement was a great benefit to the state,” he added.

Uthmeier, whom DeSantis named attorney general this year, was not involved in the 2024 negotiations, spokesperson Jeremy Redfern said in a statement. He said the settlement talks were referred to the Agency for Health Care Administration, “the proper agency to manage the issue.”

“As chief of staff, James met with countless large companies doing business in the state,” Redfern said.

The then-secretary for the Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees Medicaid, attended none of the five Centene-related meetings in 2022, according to the records. The agency’s assistant deputy secretary for Medicaid attended one meeting.

Andrade, who has been investigating the $10 million transfer to the Hope Florida Foundation, told the Herald/Times on Monday that DeSantis “is either misinformed by his shrinking circle, or he’s lying.”

“This was Medicaid money that was squandered, plain and simple,” he said.

He said the meeting records raise new questions about why the state waited so long to finalize the agreement.

“They were in no rush until suddenly they needed cash to fund their campaign” against Amendment 3, he said. The 2024 initiative, which failed, would have allowed recreational marijuana in Florida. DeSantis threw his political weight against it during the past election season.

“Now, we’re just trying to drill down on whose bright idea it was to carve out the $10 million for Hope Florida,” Andrade said.

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