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Tag: Orange County DOGE

  • 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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  • Orange County leaders defend spending on homeless services after scolding by Florida DOGE

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    Credit: via Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings/Facebook

    Less than 24 hours after receiving a sharp rebuke by Florida’s chief financial officer, Orange County commissioners Tuesday slammed the state official’s allegations of “wasteful spending” by in part defending the programs the county is funding to address issues such as homelessness.

    “The fact that the state is criticizing how Orange County uses its revenue to help give people like veterans and families hope and dignity, and to call it wasteful, not only lacks morals,” argued county commissioner Dr. Kelly Semrad, “it lacks what is the most fiscally responsible choice that we could give to our taxpayers, which is to get people off of the streets, get them into housing, [and] provide solutions so that they can re-enter the workforce in a stable way.”

    Semrad, a community advocate and professor of hospitality management elected to County Commissioner last year, has been unabashed in her own criticism of the state’s initiatives on homelessness and immigration, vocally opposing efforts by the state to all but criminalize the act of being homeless.

    The six-member Orange County board of commissioners, plus Mayor Jerry Demings, received an update on the county’s efforts to address homelessness Tuesday as part of their regularly scheduled public board meeting. It came just a day after Florida chief financial officer Blaise Ingoglia, a DeSantis-appointed official leading a state “Department of Government Efficiency” initiative, accused Orange County of nearly $200 million in “wasteful spending.” 

    “Your local government here is taking the money and spending it and expanding government, creating new programs that probably shouldn’t be paid with your tax dollars, expanding already existing programs that are paid by your tax dollars, and just wasting it willy-nilly,” Ingoglia, a former Republican state Senator from Hernando County, declared at a news conference Monday.

    Orange County’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year currently sits at $8.2 billion. Although the vast majority of that consists of county reserves (which serve as a rainy-day fund to cover unexpected expenses), that budget is also used to fund the continued operations of various county departments and programs, including (but not limited to) public safety, transportation, infrastructure and housing services. 

    Orange County FY2025-26 budget use of funds Credit: via Orange County

    According to Lisa Klier-Graham, Orange County’s mental health and homeless division manager, the budget includes nearly $60 million earmarked this year specifically to address housing and homelessness issues, up from $45.6 million the previous fiscal year. County leaders committed an extra $10 million to address homelessness issues last June after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a statewide ban on public camping (HB 1365). The law specifically aimed to get homeless people off the streets — without offering any sort of financial assistance to help cities and counties do so in a humane way.

    “Recently, we were criticized because our budget has increased,” said Mayor Jerry Demings, a Democrat who is reportedly considering a run for Florida governor next year himself. “So has the myriad of challenges that we face.”

    Demings added that Orange County has chosen to lead “with compassion” by taking a housing-first approach to homelessness and establishing an enforcement mechanism for the statewide public camping ban that prioritizes the provision of resources, such as information about nearby shelters, over immediately throwing someone in jail for having nowhere else to sleep at night.

    “Orange County implemented a very streamlined and compassion-driven process for addressing complaints, ensuring both effectiveness and empathy in service delivery,” said Klier-Graham. “The empathy in service delivery and the compassionate approach was really, really important to us,” she added.

    An annual count of the county’s homeless population, conducted this past January, identified nearly 2,000 homeless people in Orange County who are either temporarily living in homeless shelters or who have no shelter at all. Regionally, children and older adults made up more than 40 percent of the region’s homeless population.

    Klier-Graham confirmed during the board meeting that the state government has not provided any financial assistance to Orange County to help address issues concerning its homeless population in the wake of the new law, prompting a scoff from Demings. 

    “Some people outside of local government sometimes forget that they ought to be part of the solution,” Demings said. “Anybody can identify the problem, but it takes some courage, some commitment to help identify the solutions.”

    Orange County is one of more than a dozen Democratic and Republican-leaning city and county governments in Florida recently targeted by the state’s ‘DOGE’ team, which is modeled after the federal DOGE initiative initially led by tech billionaire Elon Musk under President Trump. 

    CFO Ingoglia however — a Trump ally and former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida — has made a spectacle of calling out Orange County in recent weeks as his team of auditors have dug into local governments’ finances. In late August, he announced his office had issued subpoenas to 16 county staffers, alleging the county staff was purposely trying to withhold  or hide information about county spending related to diversity, equity and inclusion. 

    He has claimed that, instead of allegedly spending county funds on “wasteful” programming, Orange County could lower its tax rate to offer property tax relief for local property owners. According to county budget documents, the current county budget maintains the 11th lowest tax rate of all 67 of Florida’s counties at $4.43 per $1,000.

    Ingoglia did not outline specific areas of wasteful spending during his press event Monday, but reportedly teased (as he did last month) that examples will be revealed in a new audit report. The publication of that audit report is yet TBA.

    What is Orange County doing to address homelessness?

    Tuesday’s presentation from the county mental health and homeless division outlined a number of ongoing and future projects the county is working on to address longstanding issues of homelessness that were exacerbated by skyrocketing rents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Renter households make up 37 percent of all households in the Orlando metro area, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which extends from Kissimmee up to Sanford. Orlando has consistently ranked as one of the most cost-burdened metros in the U.S., with 61 percent of renters spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs alone.

    Klier-Graham, tasked with overseeing the county’s efforts to address homelessness, said the county is taking a “holistic approach” to the problem. The county has both expanded and created programs, for instance, offering temporary or permanent housing for the unsheltered population that is coupled with career development services, social and mental health services, and case management to get people on the path towards stable housing. 

    Eviction prevention for pregnant mothers

    One of their new programs, launched in February, focuses on eviction prevention for pregnant and new mothers, according to Klier-Graham. It offers direct financial assistance for recipients that can be used to help cover housing, utility and mortgage costs. It’s helped 43 families so far on a budget of $140,000, including 26 pregnant women and 17 new mothers with children under 3 years old.

    Klier-Graham said the program “reduces the risk of displacement at a time when secure housing is really essential for both the physical and emotional well-being of the mother and the little ones.”

    Job training and career development

    Another county program that launched in August, developed in partnership with First Step Staffing, connects people experiencing homelessness with job coaching, transportation to work, and job placement in county government divisions. The program, as part of the county’s “broader efforts to tackle homelessness through economic opportunity,” has so far gotten 14 people jobs in public works and utilities, according to Klier-Graham.

    An accelerated skills training initiative in partnership with Valencia College, offering months-long vocational programs, similarly emphasizes a pathway towards gainful employment for people experiencing homelessness. “Our division houses them in the meanwhile and gives them supportive services [and] also provides them with food,” Klier-Graham explained. “But when they graduate, they actually have a certification where they can make high, livable wages.”

    The county has also invested funding into a temporary housing program for older adults, a transitional housing program for adults with co-occurring mental health disorders, a program that offers temporary housing in hotels specifically for families experiencing homelessness, and county-wide case management training for staffers in agencies that interact with homeless people.

    What’s on the horizon

    Projects in the works include finding a location for a new homeless shelter (as the county is currently facing a shortfall of roughly 800 shelter beds), a housing program specifically for young adults aging out of foster care, and overnight shelter in trailers and a retrofitted bus, similar to a program recently launched by the city of Orlando.

    Despite the grim picture painted through this year’s homeless count in Central Florida, Orange County overall saw a slight decline in its homeless population. Klier-Graham said it’s too soon to determine what caused the roughly 2 percent decline they saw from 2024 to 2025. But she remains hopeful that the county’s on the right path.

    “We know that challenges remain, without a doubt,” she admitted. “But these improvements and many of the success stories that we hear every single day show that our strategies are working and reinforces our commitment to carry out this important work.”

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    Orlando has consistently ranked as one of the most cost-burdened metros for renters in recent years.

    More than 8,000 OCPS students identified as homeless this month — the highest number of any school district in the state, according to preliminary data.

    The day center will offer access to computers, showers and laundry, in addition to case management and mental health counseling



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    McKenna Schueler
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