Gabrielle Russon
It’s official. Former Sen. Blaise Ingoglia has been sworn in as the state’s new Chief Financial Officer.
Florida Supreme Court Justice John Couriel gave the oath. Ingoglia’s wife, Julie, held the Bible during the ceremony in the Florida Capital’s Cabinet Room.
“It is an honor that this has been bestowed upon me, but I will not take this for granted. You are not going to see anyone fight harder for the taxpayer, for the consumer, than I will, and I’m planning on hitting the ground running,” Ingoglia said afterward. “Governor and First Lady, thank you. It has been an honor of my lifetime to work alongside you.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis turned to a trusted longtime ally to fill the Cabinet position left vacant after Jimmy Patronis resigned to run for Congress.
For MAGA supporters, it was a controversial choice. President Donald Trump had endorsed former Republican Party of Florida Chair Joe Gruters for the position.
DeSantis pushed back with strong words, saying Gruters had a “linguini spine.”
“If George Washington rose from the dead and came back and tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Will you appoint Joe Gruters CFO?’ my response would be, ‘No, I can’t do that without betraying the voters that elected me,’” DeSantis said at a press conference last week.
On Monday, DeSantis continued to defend his CFO pick, praising Ingoglia for his willingness to fight and his strong conservative track record on parental rights, the Second Amendment, and other issues.
Calling Ingoglia one of Florida’s most fiscally conservative lawmakers, DeSantis said his new CFO will be utilizing his enhanced powers to audit local government spending.
“The CFO has had long standing authority to audit any entity that receives any state funding, which is pretty much every municipal and county government. And so you are going to see these audits commence very quickly,” DeSantis said. “And all I can say is any of the big spenders in these local governments that are not watching tax dollars wisely, you better buckle up because there’s a new Sheriff in town.”
