‘Planes, trains and automobiles’: House committee questions Lottery Secretary travel costs

Ron DeSantis tapped John Davis of Orlando to lead the Florida Lottery.

The House State Administration Budget Subcommittee is scrutinizing money spent on the comings and goings of Lottery Secretary John Davis.

The panel reviewed itemized travel costs of more than $50,000 between January 2021 and November 2024. Many of the trips were personal appearances, site visits and speaking gigs, though conference travel took him to Paris last October.

Chair Vicki Lopez, who wondered last week how “the Department in the state of Florida benefit by having the secretary in Paris away from day-to-day operations for so long,” contextualized the data in terms of the previous committee meeting, in which they wondered where Davis lived.

“Reimbursements are provided for planes, trains and automobiles. The Secretary’s total travel from January of 2021 through November of 2024 was over $50,000,” Lopez said.

“We’ve also provided a document for the travel that includes Orlando as part of the destination. These trips alone cost $27,840. Many of the destinations are simply Orlando and the transportation used is his personal vehicle, for which he is getting reimbursed. While we don’t know the originating city, it appears to indicate that the secretary is being reimbursed to commute home from Tallahassee to Orlando.”

The data leaves further open questions.

“The Secretary told us last week he would get his travel information back to us. We look forward to that response and hope it includes information regarding all the travel in this document,” Lopez added.

“I also want to note that we are not able to find any reimbursements made after November of 2024. We don’t know if he stopped getting reimbursed for travel, stopped traveling, or if this is a delay in information being posted. So I think the subcommittee would like to know any additional travel information for the last four months as well.”

As 12 News reported last week, lawmakers in the same committee scrutinized members of a Department of Management Services “enterprise cybersecurity data” group getting more than $56,000 in travel expenses. It was revealed then that Chief Data Officer Edward Rhyne lives out of state, and more than $40,000 was spent on his travel.