Local governments across Florida find themselves in the path of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ latest crusade.
A dozen city and county governments have been visited in recent weeks by state auditors on the lookout for what they say is waste and fraud in local spending.
It’s all a part of DeSantis’ Florida DOGE effort — so named as an homage to billionaire Elon Musk’s government spending crackdown in Washington, D.C.
The governor’s hand-picked chief financial officer, Blaise Ingoglia, who’s running for a full term to the statewide post in 2026, has made the effort a campaign calling card.
“When it comes to waste, fraud and abuse,” Ingoglia said at an August news conference in Orlando, “local governments seem to be far and away the worst when it comes to this spending.”
Spending has grown at all levels of Florida government — including the governor’s office — since 2020. The increases are largely attributable to inflation and rising population, not government graft, local leaders say.
Still, DeSantis says he’s cleaning up local government’s books. With so many different audits happening simultaneously, it can be hard to keep track of what DeSantis’ team says it’s looking for and what it says it’s found.
Here’s a quick primer to get you caught up.
When, and why, did the state’s DOGE effort start?
In February, DeSantis created the state Department of Governmental Efficiency task force to closely examine state boards, universities and local governments and “shine the light on waste and bloat.”
DeSantis said he wanted to make sure local governments and schools are good stewards of taxpayer dollars. (His effort has a splashy name, but state leaders have been saying similar things for the better part of two decades.)
The task force, which will disband in March 2026, requested budget information from dozens of cities, counties and universities throughout the spring and summer. In April, for example, Hillsborough County received a letter requesting line-item budgets for each of its departments, as well as spending reports, employee salaries, contracts and more.
In July, days after DeSantis appointed Ingoglia as chief financial officer, the governor announced the first on-site inspections and accused Gainesville and Broward County officials of being on a “spending spree.” (Ingoglia does not report to DeSantis, but the two are closely aligned.)
More in-person audits followed — in Tampa Bay and across the state.
Which municipalities are involved?
There are two layers to the state’s efforts. Some municipalities have received information requests from DeSantis officials. But according to Ingoglia’s office, a dozen cities and counties have gotten special scrutiny in the form of on-site audits. Inspectors interviewed staff and examined documents and data systems.
The counties that have gotten in-person visits:
— Broward
— Manatee
— Orange
— Hillsborough
— Alachua
— Palm Beach
— Pinellas
The cities:
— Gainesville
— Jacksonville
— Orlando
— St. Petersburg
— Pensacola
Most of these jurisdictions are run by Democrats, but there are exceptions. Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee have a majority of Republicans on their county commissions. Pensacola has a Republican mayor.
State officials have not yet visited Miami-Dade County, but they plan to, Ingoglia’s office said.
Who is involved in the state’s effort?
The task force is led by Eric Soskin, previously the Trump-appointed inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The in-person auditors work for a range of state departments, and many have backgrounds in finance, auditing and consulting.
The task force sent 11 auditors to each of the three Tampa Bay municipalities it inspected in August, with some of the same officials visiting Pinellas and St. Petersburg, according to lists obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.
More than a third of the auditors sent to Hillsborough, Pinellas and St. Petersburg work for the Department of Financial Services. Another third works for the Department of Transportation.
Why does DeSantis say he is suspicious of local government spending?
Property taxes have been on the rise in Florida, in large part because property values have spiked in recent years. According to the real estate tracking site Redfin, the median Florida home sold for less than $300,000 in July 2020. Today, that figure is north of $400,000.
Voters feel the strain. Nearly half of Florida Republicans surveyed by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab in July listed a housing affordability issue as their top concern.
DeSantis argues that local governments, flush with property tax revenue, have begun to spend lavishly on unneeded programs.
“It’s a gusher of revenue that’s going into the coffers. Rather than returning that money to the taxpayers, they’ve basically been spending it,” the governor said at an August news conference in Tampa.
DeSantis is laying the groundwork for a proposed state constitutional amendment to cut property taxes that he wants to see voted on in 2026. He has said his team is working on a specific proposal.
Is DeSantis right about local government budgets?
DeSantis is right that county budgets have grown, but he’s telling an incomplete story about why they’ve done so.
At an August news conference in Orlando, DeSantis presented a hypothetical in which a Florida homeowner bought their property for $300,000. The home is now worth twice that, and the homeowner is on the hook for a much larger tax bill, the governor said.
“You didn’t sell it for $600,000, but yet you have to pay tax on that instead of pay tax on the $300,000?” DeSantis said.
Skyrocketing property values have led to an influx of cash for counties. For example, in Hillsborough’s 2020 budget, the county collected about $594 million in property taxes, excluding revenue from special taxing districts. Five years later, that number had grown to about $941 million, despite a slight decrease in the property tax rate.
The property value increase did not come with as steep a property tax hike for many individuals. Homesteaded properties, or primary residences, are somewhat sheltered from such spikes in value. Even if a homesteaded property’s price increases by 10% in one year, the taxable value is capped at a 3% yearly increase. (DeSantis conceded the point about homesteaded properties at the Orlando news conference, but noted the homeowner would still see a year-over-year tax increase.)
If a homeowner moves, they can transfer the homestead benefit to their new home — a concept called “portability.” All of this means Florida municipalities are already subsidizing homeowners while renters see few of the same benefits.
Cragin Mosteller, the Florida Association of Counties’ director of external affairs, noted that the post-COVID-19 inflation seen nationwide affected county budgets. Costs for things like construction and replacing fire trucks have gotten more expensive.
But DeSantis said in Orlando that he doesn’t buy that inflation is the full reason for more spending.
“Not at that level,” DeSantis said. “The inclination for most people in office is to take that revenue and spend it. That’s what politicians do.”
Does DeSantis say he is concerned about particular kinds of spending?
The governor has said property tax revenue should be set aside for police, fire, education and certain water infrastructure projects. At the Tampa news conference in August, he called these areas of government “everything everyone agrees on.”
Anything that falls outside those buckets is under a microscope. In August, auditors went to St. Petersburg to examine nine topics they said required scrutiny: diversity, equity and inclusion; homeless services; sustainability and environmental resiliency; utilities; personnel compensation; procurement and contracting; management practices; grants and financial management; and transportation.
Ingoglia has also spotlighted salary increases for local government officials.
In many counties and cities, public safety offices have seen huge budget increases in recent years. St. Petersburg, where the general fund expenditure grew by about $115 million between 2020 and 2025, saw its public safety spending climb $58 million in that time.
How have municipalities responded?
Tampa Bay governments say they have complied with the state’s requests.
In a written statement in August, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said the city would “fully cooperate, providing any additional information or clarification as requested.”
After the on-site inspection that month, Assistant City Administrator Tom Greene said the city turned over “thousands” of documents, contracts and agreements.
“I can’t even quantify it,” Greene said.
Officials in Pinellas and Hillsborough also said they cooperated with the state requests. State officials asked for documents related to diversity, equity and inclusion; the “Green New Deal” and electric vehicles; “so-called anti-racism” and more.
The state requested “a Mount Everest of information,” Pinellas County Commission chairperson Brian Scott told the Tampa Bay Times in July, adding that the county planned to “make everything available for them to come and look.”
In an August letter to the state, Pinellas officials noted accounting errors made by the DOGE team. For example, the state team alleged Pinellas had seen its annual property tax collections grow by $220 million. The correct figure was $144 million, county officials wrote. It also noted that much of the county’s increased spending went to public safety.
County commissioners in Hillsborough and Pinellas passed resolutions inviting the state to scrutinize their finances earlier this year, drawing praise from the governor.
Other local governments also say they cooperated with the state’s auditors. Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties each said they cooperated when teams visited.
Orange County, home to Orlando, gave 183,174 files to the state, a spokesperson said.
What does DOGE say it’s found?
The state hasn’t released its full findings, and Ingoglia said in August that reports would come within 60 days of an in-person audit.
DeSantis and Ingoglia have said auditors have already found evidence of likely wrongdoing.
At the Orlando news conference last month, Ingoglia accused Orange County officials of failing to cooperate with requests. He said some employees provided incomplete, scripted answers in interviews and may have withheld or edited documents. Ingoglia said he planned to issue subpoenas to Orange County employees and may bring in digital forensic investigators.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said the county “fully cooperated” with the state, and said the calls for subpoenas are politically motivated and “mean-spirited.”
Mosteller, of the Florida Association of Counties, said local governments might have spent money differently than state officials would have. But that doesn’t constitute waste, fraud or abuse, she argued. She noted that budget processes are done in public with ample notice and that budget documents are posted online.
Times staff writers Colbi Edmonds and Colleen Wright contributed to this report.
©2025 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.