TALLAHASSEE - A textbook company is pushing back against a subpoena issued by Attorney General Ashley Moody's office in an investigation into pricing of school instructional materials, saying the state's request for documents involves scrutinizing millions of emails and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Moody's office last month issued a subpoena to Savvas Learning Company, LLC, seeking information about discounts on instructional materials offered to Florida school districts.
But the New Jersey-based company on Thursday filed a motion in Leon County circuit court asking Judge J. Lee Marsh to "modify or set aside" the subpoena and issue a protective order blocking some of the documents from public scrutiny.
The attorney general's probe comes after a whistleblower alleged that publishers might be violating state law by providing free or discounted instructional materials to some districts but not offering the same deals to all 67 counties.
Under Florida law, publishers are required to charge all districts the lowest price they charge for materials anywhere else in the state or country.
The whistleblower's allegations prompted the Small School District Council Consortium, made up of districts in 39 rural and fiscally constrained counties, to ask Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state leaders to investigate. After learning they could have paid thousands of dollars more for materials than their larger counterparts, school officials in some of the state's poorest counties...
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