How did A3 Foundation spend its county tax dollars? Miami-Dade mayor orders audit

As scrutiny grows over how a little-known charity secured about $2 million from Florida and Miami-Dade County, there’s a question that should be fairly easy to answer: How did the A3 Foundation spend its taxpayer money?

After more than a week of silence from the politically connected nonprofit, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has ordered her staff to try and find an answer to that question.

In a memo released Saturday, Levine Cava instructed county staff to audit the charity, which has a listed headquarters in a West Miami townhouse and a top official in the city of Miami’s government as its director.

“The concerns raised regarding the A3 Foundation’s use of County funds and overall compliance with contract terms are warranted and require thorough answers,” Levine Cava said in a memo to Carladenise Edwards, a top deputy to the mayor who serves as chief administrative officer for Miami-Dade.

A series of recent Miami Herald articles raised questions about how a foundation founded in late 2023 with no public track record of charity work could have such success securing government funding. County records show the County Commission’s chairman, Anthony Rodriguez, used A3 as the clearinghouse for Miami-Dade funding for CountryFest, the annual rodeo that Rodriguez hosts each year in Tropical Park.

While Rodriguez’s staff arranged for event company Loud and Live to put on CountryFest, nearly $1 million in county funds for the Tropical Park festival appeared to go first to A3. Multiple people familiar with the arrangement said A3 was the entity that paid Loud and Live for its CountryFest expenses.

The foundation’s director, Francisco Petrirena, told the Miami Herald in a brief interview on July 18 that he started earning an $80,000 salary this year for his foundation work. He works full time as chief of staff to Miami City Manager Art Noriega. Petrirena has not responded to Herald inquiries after that interview, including requests to release the charity’s tax returns, which federal law requires be available to the public.

Earlier this month, Levine Cava recommended commissioners approve a 20-year deal with Loud and Live that gives the Doral company rights to put on ticketed events at Tropical Park’s equestrian center in exchange for paying at least $40 million in rent to the Parks Department.

The bidding documents for the contract included a requirement that the winner pay out $250,000 a year to a charity chosen by the County Commission, and the contract approved by commissioners on July 16 named A3 as the chosen nonprofit. Rodriguez sponsored the legislation.

This week, Levine Cava’s longtime campaign manager, Christian Ulvert, confirmed he’s paid by Loud and Live as a consultant.

Though he’s not a registered lobbyist, Ulvert gets hired by developers and others seeking favorable decisions by Levine Cava and commissioners. On Saturday, Ulvert told the Herald he provides Loud and Live work related to “community outreach and public relations” and that he did not speak to Levine Cava or members of her administration about the company’s contract.

The A3 Foundation faces scrutiny. Miami-Dade’s mayor wants an audit

On Wednesday, Levine Cava sent Loud and Live a letter saying she would not sign a contract that listed A3 as the beneficiary of the $250,000 yearly payment.

The July 23 letter did not say if she planned to still require Loud and Live to make the payment to another charity. The Rodriguez legislation and contract said the charity payment comes out of Loud and Live’s profits, so eliminating it entirely would boost the company’s bottom line at Tropical Park.

Commission approval of the Loud and Live contract with the A3 payment requirement came a day after Levine Cava released a 2026 budget proposal with millions of dollars in cuts to charity grants and parks services. It also came about a month after the A3 Foundation secured $950,000 in funding in the Florida budget for charitable work related to education and agriculture. Almost half of the funding came from House Speaker Danny Perez, a Miami Republican who is friends with both Petrirena and Rodriguez.

Levine Cava’s July 25 memo demanding an A3 audit followed a Miami Herald report showing her budget office vouching for $500,000 in county checks to A3 when accountants under the independent Clerk of the Court and Comptrollers Office flagged one $200,000 invoice for having no details beyond the phrase “Payment for CountryFest2025.”

“Please help with the payment of this,” David Clodfelter, the county’s budget director under Edwards, wrote to the Clerk’s accounting division on the morning of July 4 to provide clearance for the $200,000 check. “If additional information is really needed, I will reach out to the Chairman’s Office.”

Clodfelter this week said backup material wasn’t needed because county commissioners passed legislation sponsored by Rodriguez that waived purchasing oversight rules for CountryFest.

In addition to the A3 audit, Levine Cava’s memo calls for stricter oversight of county charity grants. That includes mandated quarterly financial reports and annual audits.

“I am calling for the development of new countywide safeguards and protocols to strengthen accountability, even if procurement, research, and bidding processes are waived by the Board of County Commissioners,” Levine Cava wrote.

The mayor had included $125,000 for the A3 Foundation in the 2025 budget that commissioners approved last fall — money the charity requested for CountryFest field trips for 2,000 students and scholarships for students pursuing careers in agriculture, according to a funding application released through a records request.

Clodfelter told the Herald the budget request came from Rodriguez but that a grant agreement was never signed with A3. That meant the money wasn’t released, he said.

Rodriguez has not responded to recent Herald inquiries about the A3 Foundation. In an interview with the Political Cortadito blog, Rodriguez said the Loud and Live contract was good for Miami-Dade because it steers private money to a charity instead of having the county fund another charity payment.

“It’s 100% private money,” he said. “This is what the county should be looking at — how do we have private businesses that partner with the county support community benefits rather than it being paid by taxpayer dollars.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2025 at 5:56 PM.