Florida state parks whistleblower personnel files released by DeSantis admin

Days after a state employee was fired for disclosing information about plans by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to build golf courses, hotels and more on state parks, the administration released portions of the employee’s personnel file that detailed issues from a previous state job.

The documents were provided to a Gainesville TV news station, WCJB, which reported that they came from the DeSantis administration — specifically an unnamed source inside the Agency for Health Care Administration.

That agency provided those records without being asked, an unusual step for an administration that typically takes months, even years, to provide public records when journalists request them, if the state turns them over at all. For instance, the Tampa Bay Times requested an unrelated personnel file from the Agency for Health Care Administration in May 2023. The agency has not yet produced it. The Times asked for a copy of any public records request made by WCJB that prompted the release of these documents, and an Agency for Health Care Administration spokesperson, who did not provide their name, said in an email that no such record exists.

Jeremy Redfern, a DeSantis spokesperson, texted a Tampa Bay Times reporter a link to the WCJB story about an hour after it was published Wednesday night.

The personnel documents detail how a woman submitted human resources complaints and filed a police report about James Gaddis when they both worked at the Agency for Health Care Administration, after their romantic relationship ended. The woman reported that Gaddis would not stop trying to contact her, making her “scared every day when I go to work,” according to a police report. He was not criminally charged in the case. Gaddis resigned instead of being fired in early 2022.

He was then hired by the Department of Environmental Protection two months later. Both agencies are part of the DeSantis administration.

When asked whether the environmental agency had concerns about this issue when it hired him, spokesperson Alexandra Kuchta said the department “does not comment on personnel matters.” Gaddis told the Times the department never asked him about it before hiring him.

“It looks like the WCJB article is a needless but somewhat expected hit piece, irrelevant to anything involving state parks, about an unfortunate situation from three years ago that involved a messy end to a brief workplace fling that resulted from a communication breakdown and hurt feelings on both sides,” Gaddis said. “Both parties involved moved on to greener pastures and have not interacted or communicated since my January 2022 resignation.”

The name of the woman who submitted the complaints about Gaddis was redacted from the files.

This isn’t the first time the DeSantis administration has released damaging information from an employee’s personnel file after they criticized the governor or his administration.

Two former top employees at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, for example, were investigated by that agency after they filed complaints with concerns about the agency’s refusal to turn over DeSantis’ travel records to the The Washington Post. The agency compiled a 129-page report, according to Politico, that dug into allegations including conflicts-of-interest and workplace harassment. Investigators also wrote there was evidence to suggest the two employees were in a romantic relationship, Politico reported. The law enforcement agency took the findings to a Tallahassee prosecutor, but he declined to pursue charges.

The two employees, former chief of staff Shane Desguin and deputy chief of staff Patricia Carpenter, have since filed lawsuits alleging they were illegally forced out of the agency. Desguin’s suit alleges that the 129-page investigation amounted to a “thinly veiled attempt at character assassination.” In response, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told the Orlando Sentinel that the two employees “created workplace chaos, endangered the safety of other employees, and acted dishonestly and unprofessionally.”

Jeffrey English was also formerly employed by the Agency for Health Care Administration, like Gaddis, when he resigned last year after internally objecting to how the agency deviated from its procedures to revoke Medicaid coverage for transgender medical care. That directive was also carried out on orders from DeSantis’ office, court testimony revealed.

English said he sees similarities between Gaddis’ case and his own. Both men have said they received quiet support from colleagues in state government who were uncomfortable making their opposition public.

“The fact that I know there are so many employees there who understand right and wrong but are afraid to openly say so for fear of losing their jobs — it’s staggering,” English said this week.

Gaddis reiterated Thursday that his actions to speak out against the state parks plans were not political, and that he only did it because he was taken aback by the apparent secrecy behind those plans. He said he was worried that endangered habitats — like the scrubland of Jonathan Dickson State Park and the maritime hammocks of Anastasia State Park — would be bulldozed to make way for development.

As of Friday afternoon, Gaddis’ GoFundMe campaign, which he started after he was fired, had raised more than $230,000 — well over his goal and more than four times his annual government salary — from nearly 6,000 unique donors. Gaddis said he wanted to use that money for his daughter and perhaps his own cartography company. In a message sent to donors Wednesday, Gaddis said the supportive response to his firing “has completely changed the trajectory” of his life, and that he was “grateful beyond measure.”

Gaddis said he has been hearing from former colleagues within the Florida Department of Environmental Protection who say they are proud of him.

When the proposals to develop nine state parks were first revealed two weeks ago by the Tampa Bay Times, it prompted extraordinary pushback both Republican and Democratic officials alike. The day after Gaddis leaked the memo about the plans that got him fired, the Department of Environmental Protection posted the proposals on its website, confirming many aspects of what he had written.