Weaponized Bureaucrats Part 5
"You can't just try to please polite society because otherwise, you'll just get captured by the institution itself" - Ron DeSantis
So Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 go into detail about how a routine audit triggered an overreaction within the Florida Department of Education. Accusations flew. Tempers flared. Attorneys got involved. Finally, we came to an agreement that included a settlement for services rendered.
Up until this point I had really internalized it all. I relied on a few close advisors for their guidance but I didn’t speak of it publicly. As the Democratic nominee for Congress in 2012, I had already witnessed then-Republican candidate, Ron DeSantis’ propensity for retribution. And, certainly, as Governor he had already displayed a retaliatory nature. The potential repercussions to the organization and our students were just too real.
“You have a responsibility to be involved in holding those agencies accountable, clearing out people who are not doing the job, making sure they’re doing the people’s business, and they’re not abusing their authority.” - Ron DeSantis
The settlement was executed sometime in December 2021. For a brief moment, we had a reprieve from the relentless stress. In January 2022, Allison Flanagan left her position as the Division Director of Vocational Rehabilitation and by February 2022, the Department of Education announced that Brent McNeal would replace her.
Hope and (maybe) Relief
In his former role as General Counsel to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Brent had stepped into the earlier drama over the audit and the calculation of service hours when it was all boiling over. He showed a calm and reasoned demeanor, which really took the heat out of the room.
The reprieve was short-lived. Just a month after Brent took over as Director, I received an email from him notifying me that he was changing the nature of our relationship. How we were paid would change. How much we would be paid would change. The services we could offer were to change. How we interface with VR would change. Forms, processes, and procedures would all change. It was non-negotiable and we had a little over ninety days to rebuild everything we had built with VR over the previous five years.
“We have a bureaucracy that is totally out of control.” - Ron DeSantis
In June 2022, Governor DeSantis announced the appointment of then-Senator Manny Diaz as Commissioner of the Florida Department of Education. Again, I was mildly hopeful. I had met with Senator Diaz in his capacity as K-12 Committee member when he served in both the Florida House and Senate. I had also specifically met with him when VR returned $18 million to the federal government in 2018. The relinquishment of funds came on the heals of an astonishingly bad monitoring report of VR and a “rare rebuke” of the Florida Department of Education’s failure to administer student loans with fidelity. As a former educator and education administrator, I had reason to hope that Commissioner Diaz experienced his fair share of frustration in navigating the VR process
Preparing for the Change
In the midst of planning for seismic changes here in Florida, I was getting phone calls from colleagues in other states. Nationwide, there had only been a handful of programs like mine that had managed to develop a relationship with the Vocational Rehabilitation agencies in their state. Those of us that had decided to come together and compare notes. Those discussions unveiled wide disparities in how each state was providing work and college readiness services to individuals with disabilities. That’s when the US Department of Education got involved.
And that’s when all hell broke loose…
But this time, I am not internalizing it. I am not going to stay silent. Up next? A look at what happens when what you have to say embarrasses people in power and what happens when you stop being afraid
“Congress also has a role in reigning in the abuses… by passing clearly defined laws that aren’t going to delegate huge swaths of power to unelected bureaucrats.” -Ron DeSantis