Florida dispatches DOGE agents to Fort Lauderdale, Gainesville to analyze tax hikes, ‘reckless' trends
"Florida is the model for fiscal responsibility at the state level, and we will utilize our authority to ensure local governments follow suit," DeSantis said in a statement after sending teams from Tallahassee to Broward County and Alachua County.
"Florida's DOGE efforts are owed to the taxpayer and yet another way their state is pursuing fiscal responsibility," he said of the operations.
FLDOGE alleged Floridians living in Broward County — anchored by Fort Lauderdale — have seen $450 million in additional "ad valorem" (property/auto/sales) taxes coming in to the county government.
The agency said Broward's operating budget expanded by $1.2 billion over a recent period in which the population only increased 5%.
On the other end of Florida's Turnpike, Gainesville is primed to spend $90 million more annually than four years ago, according to DeSantis.
"This increase in spending is now levied in part on Gainesville property owners, who are expected to pay 85% more in property taxes than what they paid in 2020," a statement from the governor's office read.
The statement added that some of that rise was genuinely related to spiking property values in Florida — which has seen a deluge of northeasterners escaping high-tax states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts.
Ingoglia called the operation part of a "new era of transparency and accountability."
"For years, I've called out reckless local spending, often on things taxpayers would never support if they knew the full story," said Ingoglia, who was previously a state senator for Hernando County and the Suncoast.
Ingoglia said it is FLDOGE's job to open the books and demand answers to "bring fiscal sanity back."
Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward confirmed to Fox News Digital the city hosted FLDOGE officials and gave them "all the information they could possibly need to review the excellent work of our city for the past several years."
"I'm hopeful they will be able to put our best practices to work across the state, as Gainesville has seen historic improvements in crime and pedestrian safety as well as growth in affordable housing production over the past two years," Ward said.
Ward said Gainesville is an "open book" when it comes to transparency of taxpayer resources and that he stands by the efficiency of his government.
The mayor went on to discuss the city's own belt-tightening, citing debt reduction and elimination of 160 staff positions and improving its municipal credit rating.
"We are now seeing other historically blue-leaning cities and counties in Florida undergoing similar scrutiny, and I'm certain they will return good results as well," Ward said.
Meanwhile, Broward officials were nonplussed at the visitors from Tallahassee.
Broward County Mayor Beam Furr told Miami's PBS affiliate that as a "home rule" county, Broward reserves the right to refuse forced reallocation of resources from the state.
Furr added that it will also cost resources for the added manpower to upload and pore through "thousands" of pages of documentation in response to FLDOGE's inquiries.
"It's a huge imposition," he said, as the report added FLDOGE is also seeking information on surtax revenue that goes to the county's public bus system.
The county also balked at FLDOGE's inquiry's subsection referring to the Green New Deal, as Furr said his office has never adopted the far-left framework created by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
But the mayor said climate change as an issue is rightly on the mind in Fort Lauderdale, which sits close to sea level.
FLDOGE indicated that several other jurisdictions are under audit and may soon see agency staff visit as well.
Orange, which includes Orlando and most of Walt Disney World; Hillsborough, which includes Tampa; and Pinellas, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater, are all counties that could hear Ingoglia's staff knock at their door.
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