Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed at least $225 million in no-bid contracts in just the last three weeks to construct and staff the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades he’s calling “Alligator Alcatraz.”
But the state is hiding some of the details of that spending spree: State officials removed at least 11 contracts detailing this spending from the state’s public transparency website this week.
The deleted contracts, viewed by NOTUS before they were removed, show private companies charging the state steep hourly wages, thousands of overtime hours and more than $11 million for new asphalt and “permanent fencing” — despite DeSantis’ insistence the detention center would have “zero impact” on the protected wetlands. (The question of environmental damage is also a key point in a lawsuit against state and federal officials over the site.)
Some financial details from the contracts are still posted on the state’s transparency website, such as the pay and overtime rates. But other key details in the public contracts are no longer available, including points of contact, dates and times of state approvals and cost breakdowns.
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For example, the state’s currently public information lists the $2 million it is paying for site shuttle operations to IRG Global Emergency Management — a company that gave the state GOP $10,000 before landing the contract, as reported by the Miami Herald. But the now-deleted contract provides additional information: that this is the cost for just 45 days, at the price tag of $1,500 per day for each of 30 shuttles.
One contract, a $37 million agreement with LTS, Inc. to fund the construction of legally contested new asphalt, roadways and fencing, appeared to be removed from the state’s contract database entirely as of Thursday morning.
Florida’s Department of Financial Services told NOTUS, “The information contained on the site is managed by each respective agency associated with the contract,” in response to questions about their removal. The Department of Emergency Management and the governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
NOTUS obtained 11 of the now-deleted contracts. Read them here:
Some of the contract details started circulating on social media this week. Democratic state lawmaker Anna Eskamani posted, and derided, a couple contracts on Bluesky and X.
The state’s financial services office removed the ones she highlighted from its public transparency website, as well as at least 9 others. “No documents have been added for this contract,” the state’s website reads, despite the contracts being previously publicly available. For all but one of the state’s at least 22 contracts related to the detention facility, the site now directs the public to “contact the agency” for access.
Eskamani first flagged the removal of the contracts on X, writing that their being made public is “required by law.” Florida investigative news outlet The Tributary also reported the state’s removal of the public document detailing a $78 million deal with a Jacksonville company called Critical Response Strategies, charging tens of thousands of staff and overtime hours.
The governor’s office has committed at least $225 million across the nearly two dozen contracts and agreements it has signed in connection to the Everglades detention facility — including contracts for which the original documents were never made public.
The state is funding the contracts using an emergency authority DeSantis granted himself three years ago and has continually extended. He’s used the authority to dodge traditional notice and bidding requirements for contracts. State officials say they’re planning to recoup money for the contracts through reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Many of the companies contracting with the state have existing contracts for disaster response, part of a plan the state outlined earlier this year.
Florida’s Republican Party has been using the detention center in fundraising appeals for weeks now.. Politically, DeSantis has gained new approval from President Donald Trump — and he got the president to commit to giving him more control over separate federal Everglades restoration projects during a tour of the site.
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