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.
Meanwhile, the congressman and aspiring governor had failed to disclose his wife’s stake in Optima Management Services to the House Ethics Committee.
But two weeks after the piece ran, Donalds amended his 2023 report to the congressional oversight body and finally submitted a disclosure for 2024.
The two filings for the first time acknowledge her ownership of the firm, long demonstrated in Florida corporate records. What’s more, it values the company at between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000, vastly exceeding any previous assessment of any company in which she holds a stake.
Additionally, the new disclosures reveal that Erika Donalds controls both Optima Management Services and OptimaEd via a company called “Onesto, LLC.” While previous disclosures acknowledged the existence of this company, they did not reveal its relationship to the Optima entities.
The only Onesto, LLC registered in the United States that would appear to match the description in the House member’s filing is an anonymous Delaware entity formed in late 2018. Optima Management Services was also originally incorporated in Delaware, at the same address and via the same incorporation service that created Onesto.
But Onesto substantially predates both Optima Management Services, formed in 2022, and OptimaEd, created in 2020 —and in fact formed just a few months after Erika Donalds launched her first charter school.
THE DONALDS WON’T COMMENT
Neither the congressman nor his wife responded to repeated requests for comment and clarification regarding the new filings.
But just as with the original 2023 report, the amended filing lists Erika Donalds’ salary and business income from the two Optima firms and Educator Solutions as “N/A.” But the disclosure shows Onesto paid her, its sole owner, $6,000 “honorarium” —a form of payment organizations typically offer as a gesture of appreciation for giving a speech, or a similar act outside a person’s usual profession.
The 2024 disclosure also shows that Erika Donalds has ceased receiving a salary from Snyder’s Educator Solutions. Florida Bulldog previously reported on a memo from an Optima network school which revealed the institution had dropped the state representative’s company as its human resources and payroll vendor in favor of Optima Management Services.
The congressman’s amended 2023 filing also placed OptimaEd’s value in the $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 range, after the original report gave its value as only “over $1,000,000.” Yet in the new 2024 disclosure, he estimates its worth to be just $500,000 to $1,000,0001.
This dramatic drop in the company’s value roughly coincides with the two Jacksonville Classical Academies and the Treasure Coast Classical Academy terminating their contracts with the Optima Foundation, which had previously operated the schools — a termination which Florida Bulldog first reported in its July investigation. In filings with the state auditor general, the Jacksonville Classical Academies specifically cited “deficiencies” in the Optima Foundation’s accounting practices.
Treasure Coast Academy’s reports to the auditor general were more reticent, but Florida Bulldog has since obtained a lawsuit the school filed against the Optima Foundation in late 2023, alleging the nonprofit violated the terms of its arrangement with the school by handing over operations to OptimaEd.
“In 2022, Optima offered a proposal to the Governing Board of TCCA, in which Optima’s duties pursuant to the Agreement would be assigned to OptimaEd, LLC,” the civil complaint reads. “The Board rejected Optima’s proposal. Optima then unilaterally assigned and subcontracted all of its employees working at and on behalf of TCCA to OptimaEd.”
As of July 29, TCCA had not served Optima in this case. Attorneys for the school did not respond to a request for comment. But Tthe details of the suit accord with Florida Bulldog’s findings that the Optima network has shifted funds and responsibilities at the various charter schools it runs from the nonprofit foundation to Erika Donalds’ for-profit companies.
At the time of the original story, a new Optima Academy in Lee County — to be run by Optima Management Services — was scheduled to open for the current school year. The school’s launch has since been pushed back to August 2026, marking the second time its inauguration has gotten punted a full academic year.
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