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Tag: Florida DOGE

  • Nikki Fried slams CFO’s proposal to allow removal of locally elected officials

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    Credit: Blaise Ingoglia @GovGoneWild/X

    Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried is blasting proposed legislation introduced this week by Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Blaise Ingoglia aimed at increasing local government spending transparency — specifically, a provision that would allow removal of local officials found to have committed “financial abuse.”

    The legislation, scheduled to be filed ahead of the coming legislative session in the Florida House by Rep. Monique Miller, R-Palm Bay, and in the Senate by Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, would increase local government transparency and formally establish Ingoglia’s Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO) effort into statute.

    The proposal includes a provision that would codify the state’s CFO’s ability to recommend removal of any elected official who is found to have committed “financial abuse, malfeasance or misfeasance.”

    “I have heard zero from our new CFO about what he plans on doing to hold our property insurance companies accountable,” Fried said on a Zoom conference call on Thursday. “Instead, he’s bullying our local governments, creating fictitious formulas, and now he wants to overreach even more by putting a clause in there about removing elected local officials.”

    More than any recent governor, Ron DeSantis has aggressively exercised the power within his office to remove elected officials from office, including school board members, sheriffs, and most controversially, two Democratic state prosecutors, Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County and Monique Worrell in Orange and Osceola counties.

    Worrell rebounded from her 2023 suspension, winning re-election by a large margin in 2024.

    “We see how Ron DeSantis has abused that power throughout his eight years in this administration, and so that is just them bullying our local governments that are the ones who are closest to the people,” Fried added.

    In addition to those above listed suspensions, Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened other local governments officials in Florida earlier this year in Orange County and Key West when they raised objections to signing 287(g) agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    In the case of Orange County, Mayor Jerry Demings said in August that he signed an updated agreement with ICE under “protest and extreme duress” after Uthmeier threatened the mayor and all six county commissioners that their failure to do so would result in their removal from office by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Other provisions in the legislation introduced by Ingoglia at a press conference in Tampa on Wednesday include allowing the Department of Financial Services to pursue financial penalties from local governments if they don’t respond to inquiries “promptly,” including by withholding any state funds until they do so.

    “If we ask for the information on a Monday, and we’re giving you five days to compile the information — get it in five days; if you don’t, then you face a $1,000 a day penalty,” he said at the press conference.

    The legislation comes as Ingoglia continues to make the case that local governments have been engaged in “excessive and wasteful spending” by comparing their fiscal year 2024-2025 budgets with what they were spending in 2019-2020. So far, after reviewing the budgets of 11 local governments this year, he says they have engaged collectively in $1.86 billion in alleged wasteful and excessive spending.

    Local government officials who have received those FAFO audits have questioned the accuracy of the methodology used by the CFO’s auditors. Ingoglia has called such criticisms “bogus” and “not well thought out.”

    Fried argued that if Ingoglia were serious about cutting excessive government spending, he should look inside the DeSantis administration’s own spending excesses. She referred to a Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald story published last week reporting that the DeSantis administration spent $36.2 million in taxpayer funds last year to purchase ads against the proposed marijuana and abortion ballot measures, both of which were contested by the governor.

    “If [Ingoglia] wants to talk about saving dollars and making sure that the people are getting a return to the taxes they have put into this state, he should be focused on what’s happening in Tallahassee,” she said. “Ron DeSantis stole $38 million from the people of this state, and so that’s really where the attacks should be. That’s where his energy should be.”

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    Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
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  • CFO Ingoglia unveils legislation to make local officials more accountable

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    Credit: Ron DeSantis/X

    Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Blaise Ingoglia previewed legislation Wednesday meant to increase spending accountability and transparency for local government officials, with penalties for noncompliance including fines and removal from office.

    Ingoglia has been crisscrossing the state for months with his FAFO (Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight) team, auditing spending by some of the state’s largest counties and municipalities. To date they have reviewed spending by 11 local governments and say that they have found more than $1.86 billion in alleged wasteful and excessive spending.

    Ingoglia has been clear that part of the effort is to show taxpayers that extensive wasteful spending is taking place. His assertion of such excesses, he believes, should quell arguments by local government officials that a proposed reduction in property taxes for homestead properties will harm essential local services.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he wants to put a measure on the statewide ballot next November that would eliminate of substantially reduce property taxes on homestead properties but has yet to release his own proposal(s). He has, however, ridiculed the proposals on the issue already moving their way through the Florida House as “milquetoast.”

    Ingoglia introduced his proposal during a press conference in Tampa that featured state Rep. Monique Miller, R-Palm Bay, who said she will sponsor them in the Florida House during the 2026 session.

    “Over the last five years, we have seen property taxes increase by nearly 50%, and this at a time when Florida’s families are being asked to tighten their belts,” she said. “To be direct, tax dollars have become a drug for local governments. And, like any addiction, as long as the supply is unlimited, the behavior will not change.”

    The provisions in the legislation

    The proposals discussed on Wednesday that will be sponsored by Miller in the House and Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, would include:

    • Codifying FAFO into statute to increase accountability and transparency in local government and make this effort a long-term permanent initiative. “Protecting taxpayers should not have an expiration date, and neither should FAFO,” Ingoglia declared.
    • Grant government employees, contractors, subcontractors, and taxpayers whistleblower protections when reporting waste, fraud, and abuse of local tax dollars.
    • Allow the Department of Financial Services to pursue financial penalties from local governments if they do not respond to inquiries in a “timely manner,” including the withholding of state funds until they comply. That office would have the power to issue subpoenas (as Ingoglia’s office did this summer with officials in Orange County).
    • Require local governments to upload all of their contracts into a centralized state financial system.
    • Require local governments to submit annual financial efficiency reports to include information such as cash on hand and how much goes to investment accounts and nonprofit organizations, and to list salaries of every local government employee.
    • Codify that the Florida CFO can recommend to the governor and state Cabinet removal of any elected official found to have committed financial abuse, malfeasance, or misfeasance.

    Miller said that whenever the conversation about cutting back on excessive government spending takes place, she has been “immediately bombarded by naysayers and their supporters with arguments as to why it is impossible. It’s just astounding.”

    Ingoglia spent considerable time during the news conference ridiculing local government officials “and their leftist big-budget apologists” who have questioned the methodology of his team’s audits.

    ‘Fictitious’ claims?

    Last week in Palm Beach County, Ingoglia claimed his team of auditors identified $344 million in “excessive, wasteful spending” in the most recent fiscal year — the highest amount across the 11 local governments his agency has reviewed this year.

    That received strong pushback from Palm Beach County Administrator Joe Abruzzo, who called the claims “fictitious,” and sent Ingoglia a public records request asking for detailed information about how the calculations were made, according to Stet News.

    Local government officials have repeatedly questioned what the CFO is identifying as being “wasteful” and “excessive” in their spending practices. Ingoglia has promised those governments that detailed audits identifying that spending are coming, but they have yet to be released.

    “Will there be specific instances outlining line items in the budget that they are spending? Yes, but that is why this information and this piece of legislation is vital, because it allows us to get more information quicker than we would have before,” he said.

    Among the local governments Ingolia’s team has audited to date, Tampa, the state’s third largest municipality, hasn’t been one of them. But Ingoglia said if he is elected next year and then re-elected in 2030, he’ll eventually get to every local government that draws taxpayer funds.

    “Whether it is a city, a county, a taxing jurisdiction, a school board, a board that has its own millage rate, its own taxing authority, that will not escape my grasp over the next nine years,” he said. “I’m going to be looking at everything.”

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    “I believe that the appropriate venue for those types of complaints is either with the federal government, with the state or the courts,” Mayor Demings said when pressed

    Dave Decker faced charges of trespassing and resisting arrest despite showing press credentials.

    The money was requested for AI language translators, pepper spray, GPS trackers, handcuffs, bonuses, and more



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    Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
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  • Orlando appoints its third poet laureate – Orlando Weekly

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    Credit: via City of Orlando

    Months after opening the search for the city’s third poet laureate in April, the city of Orlando on Monday confirmed its next literary voice.

    Mayor Buddy Dyer and Orlando City Council named Camara Gaither to serve as a pillar in Orlando’s cultural and literary arts communities, tasked with promoting poetry and literature in the city.  

    The announcement comes amid a heightened focus on the position (as well as other arts and LGBTQ+ program funding) from Florida’s DOGE team and state CFO Blaise Ingoglia. 

    The state’s DOGE-focused have spoken out against the position and its $6,000-per-year salary.

    Gaither’s annual salary representes a $2,000 increase from that of the city’s second poet laureate, her predecessor Shawn Welcome. She’ll also be reimbursed for approved expenses. 

    Gaither is a commissioned spoken word poet, a mental health therapist and a UCF alum with extensive poetry experience. She’s led several poetry groups and won competitions across the state, having also represented Orlando in a national team competition, the city says. 

    She’s also received multiple United Arts grants for her work “expanding access to poetry in underserved communities.”

    Her new role will require she present original poems at city events and activities, as well as continue working to expand the “Words and Wonders” poetry contents, which was started by Orlando’s very first poet laureate, Susan Lilley.

    “We are excited for Camara to use poetry and the literary arts to tell our community’s stories,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “There is no doubt that Orlando is a better place to live and work because of our vibrant arts and cultural scene. Our Poet Laureate will help continue to add to our City’s unique sense of place.”  

    Gaither replaces Orlando’s second Poet Laureate, Shawn Welcome, a professor at Valencia College who was appointed in 2021. Welcome is the voice of the widely applauded Reason Why spoken-word ode to the City Beautiful.

    Gaither will serve a four-year term. 

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    Equality Florida called the list of expenditures ‘a pathetic effort to distract from his corruption, inside dealing, and scandals’

    State officials cited the county’s modest investment in LGBTQ youth services as an example of ‘wasteful spending’

    Ingoglia said the county has OK’d more than $190M in ‘excessive and wasteful spending’



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    Chloe Greenberg
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  • Orange County mayor says he stands by county spending amid criticism from Florida DOGE – Orlando Weekly

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    Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, a Democrat reportedly considering a run for Florida governor next year, pushed back against allegations of wasteful spending made by Florida’s Department of Government Efficiency task force Wednesday as tensions over government finances edge closer to the boiling point. 

    “Orange County takes its responsibility to taxpayers seriously, and we stand by the investments we make in our community,” Demings, a former Orlando police chief and Orange County sheriff, told Orlando Weekly in a statement. State DOGE auditors last month claimed (without showing receipts) that they’d identified nearly $200 million in the county budget they consider “excessive, wasteful spending.”

    Tensions further escalated at a Jacksonville news conference Wednesday, where Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Gov. Ron DeSantis called out multiple local governments throughout Florida — including but not limited to Alachua County, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Orange County, St. Petersburg and Orlando — that the state’s DOGE task force has been investigating for more evidence of “wasteful” spending. 

    The city of Jacksonville, for instance, was blasted by Ingoglia for covering the cost of a $75,000 hologram projection of Mayor Donna Deegan at Jacksonville International Airport, created to greet travelers. The city has a multibillion-dollar budget, all in all, and has similarly been accused by DOGE auditors of $199 million in wasteful spending.

    “I’m tired of hearing about the hologram,” Jacksonville city councilman Matt Carlucci told NewsJax in a statement. “Frankly, I think it’s a nice idea where our mayor can welcome people to the great City of Jacksonville. When they come up with real solutions, then come see us.”

    Florida DOGE, modeled after the federal initiative kickstarted under the Trump administration by tech billionaire Elon Musk, was first created in February through an executive order. The state DOGE effort, currently scheduled to disband in March 2026, has worked in lockstep with Ingoglia, who has made the effort a key part of his campaign to retain his CFO position next year. 

    Ingoglia has already filed a request for more than $600,000 next fiscal year to establish a “Florida Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Office” (FAFO).

    A former state senator from the Republican-leaning Hernando County, Ingoglia has already filed a request with the state for more than $600,000 next fiscal year to permanently establish a new “Florida Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Office” (FAFO) to carry out DOGE’s work.

    “Floridians across the state have made it clear that they will no longer tolerate waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Ingoglia said in a statement Wednesday, claiming he’s exposed “nearly $1 billion in wasted taxpayer dollars across just FIVE local governments.”

    Alleged examples of “wasteful spending” in Orange County, for instance, include $223,000 for LGBT youth services that “promote gender ideology to youth populations,” according to a news release from the governor’s office. Orange County, which currently has a $8.2 billion budget, also allegedly paid $240,000 to “a left-wing urban planning firm that carries out its activities from a ‘race, social, and healthy equity perspective.’”

    The news release from the governor’s office, outlining these examples of “wasteful spending,” do not name the organizations referenced, nor does it explain how or what the DeSantis administration defines as the promotion of “gender ideology” — a term commonly thrown around by right-wing activists to disparage the very concept of gender identity and LGBTQ rights.

    A spokesperson for Orange County told Orlando Weekly they are working with their Community and Family Services Division to get more information about the “spending on LGBT youth services” referenced, since the governor’s news release didn’t specify. 

    “Our budget priorities are guided by the needs of residents and the recommendations of our citizen-led task forces. Supporting youth services and addressing issues of equity are about strengthening families and ensuring all residents have the opportunity to thrive,” Demings defended in his statement, without referencing specific examples of their spending.

    The Orlando city government was also called out by Florida DOGE on Wednesday, specifically for allegedly spending $460,000 since 2020 “to count trees as part of the city’s ‘tree inventory’” and $150,000 over three years “to help illegals evade deportation.” (That’s right … “illegals.”) Like Orange County’s case, the allegation did not specify any particular organizations, nor did officials provide receipts for this alleged “wasteful spending.” 

    “Local governments are crying poor but continue to spend wastefully on things like counting trees,” Ingoglia quipped. “The taxpayers are tired of it, which is why property tax relief is their top concern.”

    A city of Orlando spokesperson told Orlando Weekly that the city’s tree inventory program is intended to “properly evaluate, maintain and treat trees for damage and disease.” It’s not funded by property taxes, but rather a combination of state grants, tree removal permits and mitigation fees paid by developers when new construction occurs.

    Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement that he was “proud” of the city’s “fiscal prudence.” The city’s millage rate — a tax rate used to calculate property taxes — hasn’t changed for more than a decade, he added, pointing out that the city invested $406 million into fire and police services last year, compared to the $360 million generated in property tax revenue. “We are committed to listening to our residents and making investments that are responsive to their needs and priorities,” Dyer said.

    One of the primary discussion points throughout these DOGE talks and press conferences in recent weeks is property tax rates that have increased in tandem with property values since COVID, and a lot of pointing of fingers between local and state government leaders on who exactly has the authority to address the issue.

    Gov. DeSantis, who is term-limited from running for re-election next year, has pitched the idea of abolishing property taxes in Florida — a novel proposal that would need to first be approved by Florida voters through a constitutional amendment. 

    Property taxes, collected by local governments, are used to fund public services such as public education or schools, police and fire departments, as well as parks and roadways. The Florida Policy Institute, a progressive-leaning research and policy organization, notes that eliminating property taxes could be costly for local communities, significantly reducing funds available for vital public services.

    The state of Florida, for its part, agreed to pay $750,000 last fall in a legal settlement over Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, a 2022 law championed (and named) by DeSantis that sought in part to limit workplace training and instruction on diversity, equity and inclusiveness. The state has also potentially wasted more than $200 million on an immigrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades — dubbed Alligator Alcatraz — that is facing an uncertain future due to legal challenges that seek to shut it down.

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    Ingoglia said the county has OK’d more than $190M in ‘excessive and wasteful spending’

    ‘I think you need to be prepared for what is coming,’ warned Orlando state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith

    He’s issuing subpoenas to all county employees — the first time his office is investigating further after an audit



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    McKenna Schueler
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