ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida officials are accusing two publishers of systematically overcharging some school districts for textbooks, including more than $279,000 billed to Osceola County schools.

The state is taking legal action against McGraw Hill and Savvas Learning Co. to recoup the funds, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday at news conference at the Voyager K-8 School in St. Cloud.

“Florida will not be a playground for deceitful profiteers who think they can cheat our students and teachers,” Uthmeier said. “We will make sure they pay back every dime and face the full consequences under the law.”

Civil penalties could total as much as $60.5 million for the two publishers, DeSantis said. Court records show Florida is joining a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2022 in Leon County circuit court. That lawsuit brought by an anonymous whistleblower accused the two publishers — big players in the school textbook business — of failing to reduce textbook prices as required by state law.

In emailed statements, the textbook companies denied wrongdoing.

“We have always been, and continue to be, committed to complying with all laws and regulations pertaining to the sale of our instructional materials,” said Savvas company spokesman Richard Weir. “We never charged Florida school districts more than the state contract price.”

The state’s claims “lack factual and legal merit on multiple grounds,” said Tyler Reed, a spokesman for McGraw Hill.

The DeSantis administration has been battling publishing companies — mostly on issues of content rather than price — since 2022, when it rejected dozens of math textbooks it claimed contained “critical race theory” and other “prohibited” topics. In 2023, it rejected social studies books publishers wanted to sell to public schools, claiming they wrongly described “social justice” issues, and last year the administration forced publishers to delete references to climate change from science texts.

The two publishing firms sued Tuesday were among those whose books were rejected in the past, and they then had to make changes if they wanted to sell their texts to Florida’s public schools.

Florida law requires that publishers provide each Florida school district with the lowest price offered to any other district in the United States.

In the lawsuit, state officials accuse the publishers of offering free or reduced-priced instructional materials to some Florida districts while simultaneously charging others the full list price. By not providing the same deal to all districts, the companies overbilled some school systems more than 5,900 times from 2016 to 2022, the suit alleges.

For instance, Savvas Learning Co. provided a third-grade science textbook to Volusia County schools at no cost, but the School District of Osceola County purchased 4,331 copies of the same book at the published price of $64.47, resulting in an “overcharge” of about $279,200, the suit alleges.

The suit also alleges a similar “overcharge” for Seminole County Public Schools, which was charged more than $269,000 for a first-grade science book provided at no cost to schools in Martin and Charlotte counties.

The state is pursuing civil penalties and triple damages under Florida’s False Claims Act.

Mark Shanoff, Osceola’s superintendent, praised state officials for going after the textbook companies.

“They forgot who they are doing business with: In Florida, you don’t get to squeeze out your corporate Christmas bonuses on the backs of our taxpayers or at the mercy of our students,” he said. “If you play ball in Florida schools be prepared to play ball with the rule of law.”

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