Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale that his office was going to conduct on-site inspections of local governments that don’t cooperate with his efforts to audit their spending.

At the press conference, he also accused Broward County of not complying with the effort, though he acknowledged local officials had given his office requested financial information.

DeSantis announced the Florida Department of Government Efficiency task force in February, mimicking the name of the Elon Musk-affiliated federal program, in order to “further eliminate waste within state government, save taxpayers money, and ensure accountability in Florida.”

On July 11, the governor’s office sent Broward county officials an email requesting details about their revenues and expenditures. County officials told the Herald they complied with the request by about 5 p.m. July 21. On Monday, shortly after former Sen. Blaise Ingoglia was sworn in as the state’s Chief Financial Officer, he and DeSantis’ office increased the pressure.

“WE’RE NOT WASTING ANY TIME!” Ingoglia posted on X Monday evening, sharing the copy of another letter the DeSantis administration sent to the mayor of Broward County less than two hours prior. “Accountability is coming.”

This letter, sent to Broward Mayor Beam Furr and County Administrator Monica Cepero, accused county officials of increasing “burdens on property owners to the annual tune of $450 million” and being on a “spending spree.”

In the press conference on Tuesday, DeSantis and his head of DOGE, Eric Soskin, acknowledged that Broward County had responded to their request for financial information — but said they still considered the local government to be uncooperative because it had not passed a resolution supporting their financial audits.

“They responded to our most recent information request,” Soskin said. “They have not passed a resolution announcing that they are a cooperating jurisdiction or a resolution of support for the DOGE effort, as (have) over 75 other jurisdictions across the state.”

Hillsborough County approved a DOGE committee in April to serve as a liaison to the governor’s office and help with any requested audits on spending. That same month, Miami city commissioners voted to invite DOGE to root out government misspending and fraud.

DeSantis said his office had already planned to increase the pressure on Broward regardless of the information they submitted in response to their request.

“They haven’t done the compliance that we obviously hoped for. They did submit an answer, I think close-of-business yesterday on that,” DeSantis said. “Now, we had already decided that this was going to be something, you know, that we were going to do going forward.”

Fiscal red flags

Broward County Commissioner Steven Geller said he and his colleagues never received guidance from DeSantis’ office on passing a resolution to support the auditing.

Geller said county officials were sent the new letter with much lengthier audit requests less than two hours after they submitted the requested financial information to the governor’s office. “I guarantee you this letter was written before we sent the data to the governor,” said Geller.

And Geller said he suspects the audit requests are a political stunt. Broward County is the only solid Democratic stronghold in South Florida. Voters in Gainesville, where the mayor received a similar letter from the DeSantis administration on Monday, favored former-Vice President Kamala Harris with nearly 60% of the vote in last year’s presidential elections.

DeSantis said they were kicking off the announcement in Broward, in part, because “taxpayers” had complained about the county government’s spending.

“When we started announcing DOGE, we got a lot of incoming (complaints) on a handful (of governments),” DeSantis said. “I would say Broward was one people talked about, I’d say Gainesville and Alachua were big. I would say Hillsborough. I would say Manatee.”

DeSantis said his office considers it a red flag when a local government had “modest population” growth alongside “big increases in spending.”

In the letter, the DOGE team blasted Broward County for supposed financial irresponsibility. “This has been part of a spending spree that has seen Broward County’s annual operating budget expand by over $1.2 billion a year, during a time when the county’s population has grown less than 5%,” the letter reads.

DeSantis’ DOGE team is requesting sweeping access to Broward’s “physical premises, data systems, and responsive personnel,” as well as documents related to employee salaries, climate change initiatives, homeless services and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. He said that his administration would start doing on-site audits beginning July 31.

‘We follow the law’

Broward County officials have pushed back on the administration’s claims. From 2021 to 2024, Geller calculated, county ad valorem taxes increased by $340 million, not $450 million a year like the DOGE letter states.

“That is a complete and total misstatement of the facts,” Geller said. “It is absolutely incorrect, untrue. What other words would you like me to use to describe it? Inaccurate.”

Geller stressed that the county is fiscally responsible and has a AAA bond rating. He said any increase in spending is mathematically in line with population increases and inflation.

Regardless of his frustrations with the letter, Geller said Broward will comply with “any lawful, valid” request made by the state, just like how the county complied with the July 11 request.

“We follow the law in Broward and will continue to do so,” Geller said.

Reached over the phone Monday night, County Commissioner Nan Rich said the county met the state’s deadline for the July 11 requests and will comply further.

“Everything we have sent them has shown that we do things properly in Broward County, so I don’t know what they’re really looking for,” Rich said. “We have very good audits, we have a great bond rating and we do things right in Broward County. They keep asking for audits, we’re going to keep responding and giving them what they ask for.”

If they don’t comply, DeSantis said local governments could face a fine of $1,000 per day “for each line item,” further scrutiny by the Chief Financial Officer, or even suspension from office due to “neglect of obvious duties.”

“So, I’m confident that the enforcement is going to be adequate,” DeSantis said.

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