A top aide to Ron DeSantis just admitted that the administration is breaking the law by hiding contracts connected to “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention facility it built in the middle of the Florida Everglades.
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This came up at a press conference Ron DeSantis held this morning at the Everglades detention facility, where Florida is now locking up hundreds of immigrants in cages and tents...
During the press conference, DeSantis was asked why his administration recently removed electronic copies of contracts and purchase orders connected to Alligator Alcatraz from a public transparency website...
The administration has since replaced the original purchasing records – which total more than $200 million in taxpayer spending on Alligator Alcatraz – with one-page summaries that don’t provide nearly as much detail about what exactly taxpayers are paying for...
DeSantis’ emergency management director, Kevin Guthrie, defended the move.
Guthrie said the purchasing records his agency initially posted included “proprietary information” that had to be redacted...
Guthrie said the purchasing records his agency initially posted included “proprietary information” that had to be redacted...
Specifically, Guthrie said the purchasing records his agency originally posted included the rates that Florida is paying certain Alligator Alcatraz vendors.
Guthrie said that was proprietary, because other vendors might be able to exploit that info in future procurement bids...
Guthrie said that was proprietary, because other vendors might be able to exploit that info in future procurement bids...
So Guthrie said his agency replaced the original purchasing records with what he called “summary sheets"... 
There are two clear problems here...
First, Florida is required by law to post certain information to this transparency database.
That mandatory information includes both “electronic copies of the contract and procurement documents"
*and*
the “applicable contract unit prices and deliverables"...
That mandatory information includes both “electronic copies of the contract and procurement documents"
*and*
the “applicable contract unit prices and deliverables"...
But that's not all.
Let's say you buy Kevin Guthrie’s claim the rates the DeSantis administration is paying vendors at Alligator Alcatraz are somehow proprietary information and not covered by the requirement to disclose unit prices...
Let's say you buy Kevin Guthrie’s claim the rates the DeSantis administration is paying vendors at Alligator Alcatraz are somehow proprietary information and not covered by the requirement to disclose unit prices...
The administration is STILL breaking the law.
That’s because you can’t just remove the original records completely and replace them with “summary sheets.”
The same statute is explicit about this...
That’s because you can’t just remove the original records completely and replace them with “summary sheets.”
The same statute is explicit about this...
If state officials want to redact information from these records, they must then post “a property redacted copy of the contract or procurement document."
Not a "summary sheet"...
Not a "summary sheet"...
Here are both sections of that statute in context with each other:
Note: I deleted and reposted this thread, because I accidentally used the wrong screenshot in one of the threads.
To give you an example of what the DeSantis administration is doing, here's the original purchase order they posted with Critical Response Strategies, which got a nearly $80 million contract to manage Florida's immigrant jail in the Everglades:
And here's what they've replaced it with:
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