Despite investigations and probes, two top officials in the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis won’t have to leave their jobs.
The Senate on Tuesday agreed to confirm Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris and Taylor Hatch, who heads the Department of Children and Families.
Harris and Hatch were involved in the Hope Florida Foundation controversy, a main reason the Senate didn’t confirm the pair during the 2025 session. If they’d failed to win confirmation this year, they would have been forced to step down.
But their confirmations weren’t unanimous and opposition to Harris, a veteran state employee with more than 20 years’ experience, was bipartisan.
Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman asked her peers to vote against Harris, who headed DCF until early 2025 before returning to AHCA.
Berman noted that she was at the helm of the agency during the state’s Medicaid unwinding following the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in tens of thousands of people being erroneously disenrolled from the program, according to a federal judge.
The Boca Raton Democrat brought to attention Harris’ involvement in the incident in which the state steered $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation as part of an overall $67 million settlement agreement that health care giant Centene reached with the state to resolve allegations of Medicaid overbilling.
The DeSantis administration long denied the $10 million directed to the Hope Florida Foundation was Medicaid money; Gov. DeSantis referred to it as the “cherry on top” of the settlement.
But during her Senate Ethics and Elections Committee confirmation hearing last month, Harris confirmed the state reimbursed the federal government its share of the full $67 million Medicaid settlement, not $57 million.
She said the DeSantis administration did so in an “abundance of caution” to “avoid any future liability or litigation.”
READ MORE: DeSantis administration confirms it reimbursed feds for $10M Hope Florida payment
Lastly, Berman rapped Harris for DCF’s role in spending money on advertisements warning about marijuana in the weeks ahead of the vote on a 2024 constitutional amendment to allow adult use of recreational marijuana.
The Legislature last year passed a law barring similar ads in the future.
“Given everything that she did as the DCF secretary, all the problems that I just enumerated, I feel that she is not qualified or suitable for this job, and I ask you to vote her down as the head of the Agency for Healthcare Administration,” Berman said.
Sen. Jason Brodeur, however, praised Harris for her work at AHCA, where she was transferred in early 2025 after former Secretary Jason Weida left the post to take a position in the governor’s office.
Brodeur, a Republican from Lake Mary, praised Harris for her role in securing federal approval for billions in additional federal Medicaid dollars to help reimburse hospitals. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the funding late Monday night.
“It’s going to help our trauma centers, and it’s going to make sure that those hospitals that are providing care to our most vulnerable remain open. And so, I want to thank Secretary Harris for that. I encourage you to vote for her nomination,” Brodeur said.
Republican Sen. Tom Wright was the only Republican to vote against Harris’ confirmation.
AHCA is the agency that regulates women’s domestic violence shelters. Wright said he asked Harris twice to inspect a shelter in his district but she refused. Wright said he reached out a third time and demanded Harris come inspect the clinic.
Wright said Harris told him the agency found no violations. When he pressed her about it, Wright said, he learned that Harris had given the shelter notice of the inspection a week in advance.
AHCA generally doesn’t give the facilities it regulates advance notice of inspections.
“When she came and told me this false report, I actually asked her to leave my Senate office and never be in my face again because she did not do her job,” Wright said.
The Senate voted to confirm Hatch as secretary of DCF. There were four “no” votes for Hatch, all cast by Democrats.
Neither Harris nor Hatch were approved by the Senate last year, and, under Senate rules, would have had to immediately resign from their posts had they not been confirmed this year.
The question really right now is who do you get to replace them? I mean, Gov. DeSantis’s bench is very weak.– Rep. Alex Andrade discussing Senate confirmation of AHCA Secretary Shevaun Harris and DCF Secretary Taylor Hatch
House Health Care Budget Subcommittee Chair Rep. Alex Andrade, who led the House probe into Hope Florida in 2025, said Harris and Hatch haven’t appeared before his spending committee this year.
When asked to comment on their Senate confirmations, Andrade said:
“Well, as far as Secretary Hatch and Secretary Harris, the question is less about, you know — what exactly happens, and who knew and what and when related to the theft of that $10 million from the Medicaid program. The question really right now is, do you get to replace them? I mean, Gov. DeSantis’s bench is very weak.”
Andrade said he is most concerned about the Senate’s 26-10 vote to confirm confirm Jeff Aaron to the Public Employee Relations Commission
“Jeff Aaron wasn’t just complicit. He was an active participant in the movement of this money,” Andrade said.
The Pensacola Republican said Aaron was the lawyer for the Hope Florida Foundation while he was lobbying for the hemp industry, which fought aggressively against the amendment legalizing adult recreational use of marijuana.
“You know, I consider that a conflict. He had a vested financial industry interest in defeating Amendment 3.”
Senate Democrat Carlos Guillermo Smith was one of the 10 “no” votes against Aaron.
“Mr. Aaron helped orchestrate and advise on all of this,” Smith said after laying out the timeline of the Hope Florida saga.
More confirmationsIn all, the Senate on Tuesday approved more than 150 of DeSantis’ appointments to state boards, from medical boards to water management districts to Space Florida.
Among that cohort was Ilya Shapiro to serve on the Florida Polytechnic University Board of Trustees.
He formerly worked for Georgetown Law School, but resigned following turmoil for saying former President Joe Biden’s preference for a Supreme Court nominee would lead to a “lesser black woman” on the bench, referring to the selection of Kentanji Brown Jackson.
“This gentleman has made very derogatory comments about Black women,” said State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat from Boca Raton. “That makes me very uncomfortable that someone of that nature would be in charge of some of our students,” she said.
On Zack Smith, an appointee to the University of West Florida Board of Trustees, Polsky criticized his affiliation with the authors of Project 2025.
“He is a member of the Heritage Foundation; he holds very extremist views in my opinion,” Polsky said.
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