Jesse Scheckner
Two audit teams touched down Thursday in Broward County and Gainesville, marking the official launch of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new state initiative aimed at rooting out what the administration calls wasteful local spending.
The Governor’s Office says the Florida DOGE initiative, announced in an executive order DeSantis signed Feb. 24, was created to enforce fiscal accountability across local and state governments.
Newly sworn-in CFO Blaise Ingoglia is leading the charge. He joined DeSantis in Fort Lauderdale last week to preview the effort.
“There is a new era of accountability in Florida when it comes to wasteful spending,” Ingoglia said.
DeSantis said Broward and Gainesville were chosen due to sharp increases in property tax collections and local spending. State officials allege Broward raised ad valorem taxes by more than $450 million over five years without matching population growth. They said Gainesville’s property tax burden jumped 85% since 2020.
“Florida is the model for fiscal responsibility at the state level, and we will utilize our authority to ensure local governments to follow suit,” DeSantis said in a statement Thursday. “Florida’s DOGE efforts are owed to the taxpayer and yet another way their state is pursuing fiscal responsibility.”
Both jurisdictions deny the numbers. Officials in each argue they’re being punished for spending on public services and infrastructure.
In Broward, nine DOGE auditors set up shop Thursday at the Government Center in Fort Lauderdale. Their mandate includes a deep review of spending on transportation, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programming, climate initiatives and procurement, including controversial expenses like a nearly $800,000 float in the Rose Parade and a now-pulled $115 million school laptop contract.
Broward Mayor Beam Furr told reporters the audit is disruptive, burdensome on staff and that by his understanding of statutes governing home rule, the state can’t force counties to reallocate their dollars.
“It’s a huge imposition,” he told WLRN. “Our staff has a lot of other things to be doing. We already run a fairly lean and mean machine here, and now you’re asking everybody to spend a couple of weeks or whatever it’s gonna be to be uploading thousands and thousands of pages of documents and getting and finding all this information for all these questions.”
Broward Commissioner Steve Geller said the county would cooperate, but suggested the audit is politically motivated.
“I find it interesting that the two counties he chose to audit first are two bright-blue counties, but I’m sure that’s merely coincidence,” he said, according to CBS News Miami. He added that if the audit is fair, “they’re not going to find much.”
In Gainesville, DOGE officials are demanding access to wide-ranging records — from personnel pay to DEI training materials and carbon reduction plans.
The city’s Mayor, Harvey Ward, told the Gainesville Sun last week that the state’s claim that the city has expanded its budget by $90 million annually isn’t accurate. Nevertheless, he said Gainesville is “an open book” to queries from the state.
“We are proud of the work that we do here,” he said, according to WCJB. “The truth is the tax burden is right there in the middle of the pack for cities our size.”
City Commissioner Casey Willits shared similar sentiments, telling the Sun that Gainesville welcomes the scrutiny, pointing to award-winning budgets. But he also expressed concern that state auditors will justify DOGE’s actions by focusing on the city’s LGBTQ-friendly features, such as rainbow crosswalks.
“I think they literally want to erase what little bit of visibility local governments have given to the LGBTQ community,” he told the Sun.
The audits come with teeth: governments that fail to comply face daily fines of $1,000 per unmet request. DeSantis has signaled similar DOGE visits could come to between 10 and 15 other local governments — including Hillsborough, Manatee, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties — according to Florida Phoenix.
On Monday, state officials also sent a letter signed by DeSantis, Ingoglia and DOGE Team Lead Eric Soskin, a senior adviser to the Governor, informing Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan that her city has also fallen under the agency’s scrutiny, Jax Today reported. The letter requested access to city facilities, data systems and “responsible personnel” on Aug. 7 and 8 and said that while Jacksonville has tried in recent years to cut property taxes, the city’s ad valorem revenues have still risen by 57% ($400 million) since 2020.
