TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Department of Law Enforcement waited nearly two years to tell the Orlando Sentinel that financial details of Gov. Ron DeSantis' flights to Fort Pierce and Live Oak were not subject to a public records request.
The Journal wanted to find out whether DeSantis, who was seeking reelection, held a campaign event in addition to his official event on Aug. 30, 2022, without his campaign reimbursing the state for flight costs.
They also wanted to know whether other candidates reimbursed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for use of the jet, which was purchased with taxpayer money after DeSantis took office as governor in 2019. The aircraft can be used by the governor and other top state leaders for official business.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement denied the requests in late April and early May, delaying action until a year after DeSantis signed a law barring the release of travel records for himself and other leaders, which lawmakers argued was necessary to protect their safety.
“I fear and suspect that they are using public safety as an excuse to hide spending they don't want the public to know about,” said Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation. “We have a new model that can be summed up in two words: 'Trust me.'”
The bill's sponsors, all Republicans, repeatedly assured archives advocates and Democratic lawmakers that travel financial records would remain public. They said the bill was intended to protect only the logistics of travel.
The bill passed along party lines in both the House and the Senate.
The House bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Jeff Holcomb of Spring Hill, also assured his colleagues at a committee hearing in March that the bill would not affect public records requests related to campaign travel.
“This doesn't impact any of the financial disclosures that are being made,” Holcomb said. “This is about ways and means of security protections.”
But that was not the case. News organizations other than the Orlando Sentinel waited months to learn that their requests for travel records had been denied.
The lengthy delay has been attributed to an understaffed archives department at the agency dealing with a high volume of requests.
Holcomb did not respond to an email seeking clarification.
Complaints are currently pending with the Federal Election Commission and the state Ethics Commission about the governor's frequent use of state and private aircraft and his failure to disclose that he was using them for personal reasons.
A lawsuit challenging the law's constitutionality was recently filed in Leon Circuit Court by American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog.
“This is an accountability issue that affects every citizen of our state,” Bullock said. “Are they spending money on things that affect the public, or are they spending money on personal travel for professional gain that has nothing to do with the public interest?”
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The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Part of the problem, he said, is that the law contains a lengthy list of exemptions from disclosure but says nothing about travel expenses or trips related to political activities or other personal use, and the language is vague, making the legislative intent difficult to understand.
“The only way we're going to get to the bottom of this is through a trial,” Block said.
Even before the governor signed the bill into law, tracking his travel history was difficult: Though the bill took effect immediately, hundreds of claims dating back months to more than a year were still pending processing, and the law is retroactive.
“Because of the retroactive application, no information about Mr. DeSantis' travels will be available,” said at the time Michael Barfield, director of public information for the Florida Government Accountability Center, which has filed numerous public records lawsuits against the DeSantis administration.
Other recent trips that have raised concerns about who paid for them include trips to Japan, South Korea and Israel that officials said were paid for with private donations, according to Politico.
The book tour marking the release of DeSantis' memoir and the launch of his presidential campaign was run by a nonprofit organization that is not required to disclose records.
And a law enforcement report on a rear-end crash that struck the governor's presidential campaign motorcade last July outside Chattanooga revealed that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement rented vehicles used in the motorcade for an as-yet unknown rental fee.
The Sentinel asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in August 2022 how much it cost to fly the governor to and from Fort Pierce to Live Oak, including the costs of the flight crew, ground transportation and security team. Questions were also asked about the September 2022 flight to Fort Myers.
Unlike previous election reports showing the DeSantis campaign reimbursed the police department $14,459 for travel expenses, election records show no reimbursement to the police department for the Aug. 30 trip.
The dates of the three refunds coincided with DeSantis' press conferences in Vero Beach, Daytona Beach, DeFuniak Springs and Sanford, but nearly two years later, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has still not released any details about those refunds.
Asked to explain the lengthy delay, ministry spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said the department was overwhelmed with thousands of requests from the public.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement annually publishes a security activity report that shows the total annual costs of transporting and protecting the governor, but does not break out each individual trip.
The governor's security budget for 2023, including transportation and staff salaries, is $9.4 million, more than double the amount spent the previous year.
“This information is in no way useful to anyone trying to determine who paid for the trip,” Block said.
In an affidavit filed in a Washington Post lawsuit against the department, Shane Desgin, a former chief of staff for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said the governor's senior aides blocked the release of records detailing the governor's taxpayer-funded travel.
“There is no doubt that this additional review delayed FDLE's timely response to public records requests,” said Dehgan, who resigned to argue that the records should be made public. “These delays are in violation of the governor's new security law.”
Bullock said when he started working at the Florida Foundation for Corrections two years ago, he was hesitant to say the public records system wasn't working.
But there is no independent body to intervene when records requests are denied, delayed or never responded to, Block said. The only option is to sue the agency, which he said is not available to most Floridians.
“If that's the only option, then the system is broken,” Block said. “There's no better illustration of that broken system than this travel financial information fiasco that's happening right now.”
©2024 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
