(The Center Square) — A day after testifying before a House subcommittee into the financial dealings of HOPE Florida, the executive director of the charity and the governor’s faith-based initiative has resigned.
Erik Dellenback, the executive director of HOPE Florida and the Governor’s Liaison for Faith & Community, will step down from both roles effective May 1 according to a social media post by Florida Politics’ Peter Schorsch.
In a retweet of that post, Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, said, “The decision by Erik Dellenback shows his character and integrity. Unlike @JamesUthmeierFL, Mr. Dellenback wasn’t implicated in any wrongdoing.”
Dellenback testified before the Health Care Budget Subcommittee on Tuesday, saying that he had no role in the direct service organization role of HOPE Florida.
He also said, when asked about the program’s success, to judge the organization by the number of people that no longer receive state benefits and a reduction in the number of children entering foster care.
According to state records, the number of children age 17 and younger declined only slightly from 2019, when Dellenback joined the DeSantis administration, from 21,066 to 21,031 in 2023. The rate per 100,000 population, thanks to Florida’s explosive growth, declined from 496.8 to 482.8 during the same time period.
State officials say the number of children entering foster care has decrease 31% since DeSantis took office.
The number of households on government assistance increased slightly in real numbers, going from 1.09 million in 2019 to 1.16 million in 2023. As with foster care, the state’s population growth helped drop the percentage from 14.1% of the population on assistance in 2019 to 13.5% in 2023.
The biggest point of contention, according to the House, is the donation by health care giant Centene of $10 million to nonprofit HOPE Florida as part of a $67 million settlement over Medicaid billing.
House members, led by Andrade, are seeking the return of that money, which they say was used by DeSantis to fund two political groups opposed to a pair of unsuccessful ballot initiatives that would’ve codified recreational marijuana and abortion into the state constitution.
DeSantis didn’t back down at a news conference on Tuesday when asked about HOPE Florida and the House’s investigation, calling the hearing a “total flop.”
“It’s a private charity. It is not the government. This is why I think first of all, the whole thing that the House leadership is doing is a manufactured fraud. This is a hoax,” DeSantis said. “So you know, for some of these Republican leaders to be joining with liberal Democrats and liberal media to manufacture smears against HOPE Florida, against me, against the First Lady. It just shows you they are not on your team. They are not doing what they said that they would do.”
DeSantis continued his broadside.
“I think that these are people that are just trying to desperate for any type of attention that they can get, but they’re not doing the people’s business, and I can tell you, there’s nothing coming out of the Florida House of Representatives that is going to rival the success that hope Florida has had in any way shape or form,” DeSantis said.
Andrade has even suggested that federal authorities should investigate. One of those political organizations was run by Uthmeier, who is running for a full term in 2026 after being appointed to replace new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Proponents of the two ballot initiatives raised a combined $261 million.
In 2024, the state Department of Children and Family Services said HOPE Florida had helped 30,000 Floridians and had 5,600 faith-based, community and private sector partners.
