A familiar face in Florida's proposed budget
Florida in Five: Five stories to read from the past week in Florida politics.
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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.
Gary Fineout of Politico Florida pulled an interesting story out of Florida’s potential budget last week, examining an earmark for a foundation led by a controversial telecom executive with connections to elected officials across the state.
The proposal would steer $2 million of taxpayer money to the “Figgers Foundation,” an organization chaired by a south Florida entrepreneur named Freddie Figgers.
Figgers, who has a stable of companies selling tech devices and telecom services, has become a major donor to Florida politicians in recent years — including making a $25,000 gift last year to Sen. Tom Leek, an influential Republican from Ormond Beach who is sponsoring the Figgers earmark request in the Senate.
That $2 million, budget records show, would be spent buying Figgers-branded tablets outfitted with health-and-wellness apps and distributing them to approximately 4,500 at-risk youth and seniors.
It’s not the first time Florida has funded something like this. Two years ago, Florida lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis gave $500,000 to the Figgers Foundation for the same purpose. And last year, the DeSanits administration spent at least $250,000 buying products from one of Figgers’ companies.
State and federal records show that DeSantis has raised more than $50,000 from Figgers and his wife over the years. The Florida governor also once appointed Figgers to the state’s Ethics Commission.
But this isn’t purely a partisan dynamic.
As first reported by Politico, embattled U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilius-McCormick — a Democrat from south Florida — requested $5 million in federal funds in 2023 for the Figgers Foundation to buy and distribute Figgers tablets. The request came during an election cycle in which Cherfilius-McCormick raised nearly $20,000 from people and PACs associated with Figgers’ companies, according to Politico.
Congress ultimately approved $2.2 million — which later came under scrutiny from Congressional ethics investigators probing whether Cherfilius-McCormick improperly requested community funding on behalf of a for-profit company. The U.S. House Ethics Subcommittee subsequently found Cherfilius-McCormick guilty of an assortment of ethics violations, although the committee did not specifically cite anything related to the Figgers earmark.
A lawyer for the Figgers Foundation told Fineout, who unspooled the whole story last week, that Freddie Figgers never personally profited from the Congressional funding. Nor, the attorney said, did Figgers ever make political donations in exchange for an earmark.
Leek, meanwhile, told Fineout that he was “completely unaware” that the Figgers Foundation had received federal funding or that that it had come under scrutiny from congressional ethics investigators.
Similarly, state Rep. Jennifer Kincart Jonsson, a Republican from Lakeland sponsoring the latest earmark request in the state House, said she hadn’t known about the congressional inquiry, either. Records show Kincart Jonsson has received at least $2,500 from Figgers.
But this is not the first time Freddie Figgers has figured prominently in a public spending controversy.
For instance, in 2023 — shortly after Ron DeSantis and the Legislature seized control of the government district that oversees Walt Disney World — a DeSantis ally installed as district administrator tried to steer a lucrative no-bid contract to one of Figgers’ companies.
The deal fell apart after it was exposed by WFTV, the Florida Bulldog and the Orlando Sentinel. Figgers and Glen Gilzean — the then-district administrator at the agency formerly known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District — canceled the deal amid the backlash, though the district still paid Figgers nearly $100,000, WFTV later reported.
And just a year later — after DeSantis had moved Gilzean over to become the temporary supervisor of elections in Orange County — the gubernatorial appointee attempted to steer more business to Figgers.
During Gilzean’s truly disastrous tenure, the elections office awarded a $275,000 grant to CareerSource Central Florida, a regional job-training organization. The agreement included an unusual provision forcing the agency to buy electronics and cell service from “a Florida-based telecommunications company that is minority-owned and specializes in manufacturing consumer electronics and business laptops.”
Representatives for CareerSource later told Seeking Rents that Gilzean’s office insisted on including the clause in the contract — and that they specifically recommended Figgers Communications as the vendor that could be used to fulfill it. CareerSource ultimately spent nearly $56,000 to buy 60 tablets from the company.
(As an aside: I have to admit that I sometimes wonder if all the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion by Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature are perhaps not coming from a place of sincerity and are instead just bad-faith bullshit.)
Now, it’s important to remember — as Leek stressed to Fineout — that Florida’s new budget is not yet done.
While the House and Senate both included money for the Figgers Foundation in their initial drafts, lawmakers failed to finalize a spending plan during their regular session, which ended last month. So nothing will be set in stone until they return to Tallahassee sometime later this spring to finish the budget during a special session.
But this is yet another little line item to keep an eye on when they do.
*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.
‘The agency refused to provide more recent data’
‘Warehoused without any protection’: Florida traps seniors in elder care homes (Miami Herald) ($)
See also: As Florida restricted abortion, state’s maternal mortality committee went dark (Florida Trib)
Florida priorities
DeSantis signs bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote — voting rights group sue (Florida Phoenix)
See also: Florida lawmakers thwart local clean energy efforts, while not lowering residents’ electric bills (WUSF)
See also: As Uthmeier argues for felons to have guns, Florida prosecutors step in (Tampa Bay Times) ($)
See also: Uthmeier: Florida Constitution’s ban on state dollars for religion violates First Amendment (Florida Phoenix)
They gave him the land for free
Trump says his Miami presidential library tower will probably have a hotel, too (Miami Herald) ($)
See also: Miami Historian Plans to Sue Again Over Trump Presidential Library (Miami New Times)
How do you do, fellow kids?
James Fishback draws hundreds to late-night campaign rally at Orlando Taco Bell (Orlando Weekly)
After the tragic loss of a fearless leader, mourning from Miami to Tallahassee
‘She was a beacon.’ Nancy Metayer Bowen remembered as a champion for Haitians (Miami Herald)
See also: Nancy Metayer Bowen remembered as ‘a bright light’ by FAMU community (Tallahassee Democrat)
See also: To honor Vice Mayor Metayer’s legacy, let’s recommit ourselves to speaking up (Miami Herald) ($)
Perspectives
Why Florida hates sociology and its students (Tampa Bay Times) ($)
GOP legislators kneecap teacher unions, coddle police unions (Orlando Sentinel) ($)
‘God Squad’ exempts entire Gulf of Mexico oil industry from endangered species rules (Florida Phoenix)
An intelligence failure in Tallahassee (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ($)
Even when I am pressed for time, I make time for Seeking Rents. The lead story, about Mr. Figgers and his "minority-owned" business is exactly what taxpayers have come to expect from the pay-to-play Legislature and chief executive.
Here's my question: Why are all the "pro-life" MAGA gals, like Erin Grall, not up in arms about the ongoing sky-high infant and maternal mortality rates in Florida? This has been an open secret for decades -- began before Grall got in the Legislature -- and yet none of the sanctimonious has taken up the charge. Treating pregnant women in this manner amounts to slow murder, and DeSantis/Ladapo are orchestrating a cover-up. (I missed the Trib piece, so thanks for highlighting it.)
Glad to see my main man Marvin Dunn is still on the case of the Trump library colossus in downtown Miami. (I had to laugh: Trump wants the skyscraper to have a hotel, too -- where visitors to the "archives" can order materials delivered to their rooms like room service? Will Trump mentally declassify the entire executive archives when he leaves office this time to stock his memorial?