New disclosures only deepen mystery of Rep. Donalds's wife's charter school companies

U.S. Rep. Byrons Donalds, R-Naples and his wife, Erika Donalds

BY Will Bredderman, FloridaBulldog.org Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Naples), a leading candidate for governor, updated his personal financial disclosures in August following a Florida Bulldog story finding he had failed to fully report his wife’s stakes in companies that provide services to a charter school chain she co-founded. The new filings reveal that Erika Donalds grew far wealthier from her businesses, which have drawn down millions of dollars in taxpayer-financed contracts through the “Classical Academies,” than her husband initially disclosed — but they also raise new questions about the structure of her companies and her compensation. The Bulldog’s original story exposed how the nonprofit Optima Foundation, which Erika Donalds launched in 2017 and renamed the Education Freedom Foundation this past March, and its affiliated charter schools paid more than $10 million to two for-profit companies belonging to the congressman’s wife: Optima Management Services and OptimaEd. The story also uncovered more than half a million dollars in payments Erika Donalds received from Educator Solutions, a fictitious business name of a company belonging to state Rep. John Snyder, which had received multimillion-dollar contracts from Optima Education Foundation and its affiliated charters.

New disclosures only deepen mystery of Rep. Donalds's wife's charter school companies

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