Florida DOGE targets Broward, Alachua counties over government spending

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and State CFO Blaise Ingoglia have sent teams from the Florida Department of Government Efficiency (FLDOGE) into two major blue jurisdictions, citing ballooning budgets and rising taxes as cause for outside accountability.

“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.

DESANTIS GOADS CONGRESS TO FOLLOW FL’S DOGE BLUEPRINT

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…