Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia charged Monday that Orange County residents are overtaxed to the tune of at least $148 per person and that county leaders could “easily” slash close to $200 million in “wasteful” spending from their budget.
In response, a fiery Mayor Jerry Demings defended Orange County’s spending and said Ingoglia “ought to get his own house in order first before he goes looking in someone else’s house.”
Ingoglia’s comments were the latest salvo in a bubbling feud between the Republican CFO and the Orange County government. But it was also a personal attack on Demings, a potential Democratic candidate for governor, complete with a warning that the state could withhold funding for the county in the future.
“I think this is such a big issue that a lot of them will be voted out of office,” Ingoglia said at a press conference held at an Orlando-area restaurant supply business. “And quite frankly you have a mayor now who’s deciding that he wants to run for governor. This type of spending should be disqualifying.”
Demings, who can’t seek re-election when his second and final term as Orange County mayor expires next year, is reportedly considering a run for governor in 2026, according to a Florida Politics post early Monday.
In his late afternoon press conference, Demings hinted that he might join the race.
“I’m not saying I’m not going to run. Given all these things that have been happening? I might just do that,” he said.
Earlier this month, Ingoglia issued investigative subpoenas for 16 county staffers related to a Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE, audit overseen by his office. He alleged county officials “possibly” tampered with records to impede a state review of “egregious spending.”
Florida’s DOGE effort is modeled after a similar federal initiative created by Elon Musk for the Trump administration and has turned its sights on Orange County, which Ingoglia similarly attacked in a late August press conference.
Ingoglia’s visit to the county Monday comes days ahead of the county’s final budget hearing, where the commission is expected to adopt an $8.2 billion spending plan that holds the property tax rate at $4.43 per $1,000 — the 11th lowest of Florida’s 67 counties.
Ingoglia was asked to cite specifics of wasteful spending by the county, but declined and said some items would be revealed in an audit report to be published by DOGE.
“Some of it’s jarring, some of the money they’re spending and what they’re spending it on,” he said. “They know where the wasteful spending is, they know where to cut.”
Ingoglia said his calculation of exactly $190,643,653 in “excessive and wasteful” spending was determined by going to the county’s 2019-2020 budget and increasing it every year for inflation and population growth. He said he also added a 5% buffer and a 10% buffer “because government doesn’t run as efficiently as the private sector.”
“Once you account for population growth, inflation, hiring more police, giving police and firefighters their raises, adding for government efficiency — everything — when you factor in all of that, Orange County’s budget should be almost $200 million less than it is right now,” Ingoglia said.
In his own news conference, Demings defended pay increases to county employees, which he said received 4% increases each of the past four years, and argued state workers are underpaid and should receive higher wages.
“We’re not running away from what we pay our staff here in Orange County, I’m going to suggest the state of Florida should pay its employees better,” Demings said.
Demings said the county’s population growth is actually higher than Ingoglia has said. The county has added about 125,000 new residents over the past four years, the mayor said, while the county must also provide services for more than 75 million tourists annually, or about 206,000 people per day.
“There is no other local government in Florida with that kind of impact in services,” he said.
The county spends $1.2 billion on public safety, covering the sheriff’s office, fire department and the jail. Those budgets increase about 10% year over year, and have grown $445 million since 2022.
Spiking public safety costs are a challenge for cities and counties across the region. For example, in Republican-led Seminole County, commissioners are on the verge of raising their property tax rate 10% to $5.38 per $1,000 in taxable value, with officials blaming the increase in part due to increased costs of the sheriff’s office.
Asked about the proposed increase, Ingoglia said his office isn’t auditing Seminole.
Ingoglia said his findings, which were reviewed by the Florida Department of Revenue, found that Orange County was overtaxing taxpayers by $148 per person, and that the county could slash its property tax rate by .86 per $1,000 in taxable value, for a savings of about $257 annually on a $300,000 house.
Since 2019-2020, Orange County’s general fund — the pool of money used to fund core services like police and fire protection, parks and libraries — increased more than $500 million. “Anyone who sits back and thinks that in five years that a budget goes from $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion for only 79,000 people, it’s sort of common sense that they’re wasting a crap ton of this money,” he said.
