For the second straight year, Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken an ax to hundreds of thousands of dollars state lawmakers earmarked for anti-public corruption efforts under the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office.
DeSantis vetoed $250,000 in state funding the Legislature approved for the cause, a line item half of what Sen. Ileana Garcia and Rep. Omar Blanco — both Miami Republicans — originally sought through matching appropriation requests.
The funds would have helped cover salaries for police operations targeting criminal misconduct by public officials, county employees, police, lobbyists and private vendors doing business with the county, the requests said.
The veto, which DeSantis issued Tuesday alongside $1.6 billion in other cross-outs in the coming state budget, lands as Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz is still in the early stages of building out the Public Corruption Section she made central to her 2024 campaign.
The section, per its vision statement, is dedicated to rooting out misconduct by elected officials and county employees while maintaining the “highest level of professionalism, integrity, respect, and fairness” in its investigations.
It handles cases ranging from bid tampering and bribery to official misconduct, unlawful compensation and fraud, in coordination with local, state and federal agencies.
“Corruption has no place in our community,” Cordero-Stutz said. “My Public Corruption Section is dedicated to rooting out misconduct, holding officials accountable, and ensuring that those in power serve with integrity.”
Cordero-Stutz took office in January, when the Miami-Dade Police Department formally became the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office following a 2018 constitutional amendment requiring all counties to have an elected Sheriff. Miami-Dade was the last holdout, having abolished its elected Sheriff position in 1966 in the aftermath of a sprawling corruption scandal.
The push to establish a dedicated anti-corruption unit within the Sheriff’s Office predates her tenure. Several of Cordero-Stutz’s 2024 opponents ran on promises to create a Public Corruption Unit within the Sheriff’s Office, including Democrats James Reyes and John Barrow, and Republican Mario Knapp, who now serves as the Police Chief of Homestead.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Jose Arrojo, then serving as Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, publicly backed the idea, telling Florida Politics such a unit would act as a “multiplier for accountability efforts” alongside similar initiatives in other local and state agencies
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office already operates its own Public Corruption Unit, which investigates bribery, official misconduct, money laundering, racketeering and fraud. Its probes have produced high-profile arrests. Among them: former Sweetwater Commissioner Sophia Lacayo, was arrested in August 2023 on 21 campaign finance violation charges and was sentenced to prison in May after pleading guilty to wire fraud.
DeSantis vetoed a $350,000 appropriation for the same purpose last year, when Garcia and Blanco also requested $500,000 for the effort.
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