Across the state, employees of Florida’s new Department of Government Efficiency are dive-bombing local governments, demanding to inspect their fiscal affairs — with a host of implied threats if county and city officials don’t comply. But this latest aggression from Gov. Ron DeSantis is illegitimate to its core: It has nothing to do with fiscal integrity, and everything to do with ideological witch hunts.
Local leaders should prepare to fight back. And they should expect the governor and his henchmen to fight dirty.
Because they already are.
A bogus audit
To start, let’s make one thing clear: We wholeheartedly support fiscal integrity and accountability.
But Orange County, one of the first local governments to be served with its notice of fiscal inquisition, has been accused — with absolutely no evidence — of hiding documents that detailed supposed financial sins. Last week, Florida’s unelected Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia (a DeSantis loyalist in the Legislature who’s been rewarded with one of Florida’s most powerful positions) issued a barrage of subpoenas and then held a smirking press conference where he leveled the accusations that county employees changed the names of documents and engaged in other diversions to shield county spending from the state’s inspection.
Ingoglia needs to offer proof when making accusations like that. When DOGE first announced its “audit” of Orange County in early August, it demanded a massive number of documents. County Mayor Jerry Demings immediately ordered county staff to comply. “While it may temporarily divert us from the daily business of governance, we have nothing to hide and are proud of our record of serving the residents of Orange County,” he said in a guest column that appeared in the Sentinel soon after DOGE announced it was targeting Orange County.
In remarkably short order, the county produced 1.2 million records, including emails and supporting documents. We find it hard to believe that the state has actually gone through all those files, but that didn’t stop Ingoglia from spitting out scripted phrases like “Orange County fooled around, and now they are about to find out,” at a press conference last week.
This is as ludicrous as it is offensive. Ingoglia made his remarks supported by nothing beyond the flimsy claim that DOGE had been contacted by a supposed anonymous tipster. If he has actual proof of duplicity, he should show it. And now he’s demanding records about programs that he apparently considered to have been funded clandestinely through county coffers. His list includes Zebra Youth, a organization dedicated to the mental health of homeless LGBTQ teens; a program through the Central Florida Urban League intended to help kids at risk of suspension from school; and a joint effort with the school board and sheriff’s office to reduce conflict between at-risk youth and law enforcement.
How secret were these programs? Well, they were all reviewed and approved for county grant funding by a 20-plus-member citizen’s committee that was subject to open-meetings and public-records laws. That doesn’t sound secret at all.
Stop power grab
But there are bigger implications here. Notably, that DeSantis and his henchmen are trampling boundaries set up by Florida law. So far, the governor has gotten away with it time and again. But the latest spurt of aggression against local governments has the governor so far out of his lane that it should serve as a sharp wakeup call to politically aware Floridians of any partisan persuasion.
DeSantis could be circumventing multiple points of law, says Ralph DeMeo, a professor at two of Florida’s leading law schools — Stetson and Florida State — and an acknowledged expert on Florida’s careful system of checks and balances meant to keep one power-mad official from seizing control outside their constitutional authority.
The governor did get the approval of the Legislature to create DOGE after the fact, but that power was limited and will require further action to make the new agency permanent. That law didn’t address other legal conflicts, such as a 1996 law that prohibits executive branch agencies from enforcing rules without specific authority. And he’s ignoring two whole chapters of law that spell out the rights and responsibilities of local governments — including the right to set property-tax rates and decide how that money is supposed to be spent.
“I tell my students we are living in the post-truth, post-fact, post-rule of law era,” DeMeo says.
For three-quarters of his term, legislators were apparently afraid to stand up to DeSantis — and local leaders were often subdued by his threat to remove them from public office and replace them with his own cronies. Meanwhile, DeSantis has been steadily packing appellate courts with judges he apparently assumes will do his bidding and rule in his favor despite the law.
Where’s DOGE now?
But here’s the irony. While DeSantis and Ingoglia are busy pestering local governments about their spending, the real excesses are in the state’s spendthrift ways.
Why isn’t DOGE investigating the most glaring example yet of DeSantis’ overspending — the $250 million that the state squandered on the monument to cruelty known as “Alligator Alcatraz?” This state-funded detention center hidden deep in the Everglades has been used as storage for people suspected of being in the country illegally. It was ordered shut down last week by a federal judge. And while the federal government at one point promised to repay Florida for the amount the state spent to construct the prison camp, federal officials including President Donald Trump were backing away from that promise even before the court ruled.
In terms of human misery, Alligator Alcatraz does indeed rank as one of DeSantis’ greatest sins. But his vicious attacks on local government could — in the long run — do more to destabilize Florida’s governing structure. And it should mean something that so many of these aggressive, power-hungry moves were supported by claims with little evidence backing them.
Finding a solution
The state’s best remaining hope is that voters start looking around for replacements to the elected lawmakers who so eagerly did DeSantis’ bidding — or even better, that the current leadership in House and Senate have the courage to confront the governor’s abuse of power even when they might agree with the ideology behind his acts. House Speaker Daniel Perez has taken back the reins from DeSantis multiple times, often acting with the backup of Senate President Ben Albritton. We can only hope that both men find the courage to keep defying the governor. Over the coming months, Florida residents must make it clear: The governor has gone much too far in his attacks on Florida’s integrity and system of laws. It’s time for DeSantis and his minions to learn what it really means to fool around and find out.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
