Q&A – What Florida’s DOGE is Asking Your City to Do
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: @Brianmuddradio Can you explain what Florida’s DOGE is doing? I saw a report that they’ve started reviewing local government budgets.
Bottom Line: You bet. It was just over a month ago that Governor DeSantis announced Florida’s incarnation of DOGE – which is in addition to the quasi-DOGE program the state has had in place since 2007 – through a voter approved constitutional amendment. When the governor announced Florida’s version of the Muskqueraders he outlined these very specific objectives:
- Florida will abolish an additional 70 boards and commissions this year
- Florida will conduct a deep dive into all facets of college and university operations and spending and make recommendations to the Board of Governors and State Board of Education to eliminate any wasteful spending.
- Florida will utilize AI to supplement ongoing efforts to review operations at our state agencies and identify more ways to cut unnecessary spending and eliminate bureaucracy.
- Florida will aid DOGE’s federal efforts to save taxpayers’ money by returning unused or surplus federal dollars allocated to the state.
The first four were/are aimed at ways the state government could operate more efficiently. As we quickly saw this led to the state sending over $800 million back to the federal government in unused/unneeded funds.
But the fifth was all about what happens within our municipalities:
- State task force will look into local government expenditures by utilizing publicly available county and municipal spending records to expose bloat within local governance.
Recently Florida’s DOGE team began to dive into that piece of the puzzle. Every local government received a letter from the Office of the Governor, under the heading of Florida DOGE stating...
<<Pursuant to Executive Order 25-44, the Executive Office of the Governor has established an EOG DOGE Team which will use advanced technology to identify, review, and report on unnecessary spending within county and municipal governments and recommend legislative reforms to promote efficiency, maximize productivity, and eliminate waste in state and local government. These efforts are focused on ensuring fiscal responsibility throughout Florida.
In addition to assessing your municipality’s publicly available information over the coming weeks and months, the EOG DOGE Team is also assessing compliance with the financial management requirements set forth in section 218.503, Florida Statutes. This provision outlines the circumstances under which a local governmental entity is deemed to be in financial emergency or distress, triggering necessary corrective actions.
To fulfill our oversight role, and in accordance with article IV, section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution, we respectfully request confirmation as to whether your municipality has encountered any instances of financial emergency or distress, including those listed in section 218.503(1), Florida Statutes such as:
- Failure to pay short-term loans or obligations when due as a result of lack of funds
- Failure to make debt service payments on bonds, loans, or other debt instruments when due
- Failure to timely pay uncontested claims from creditors for more than 90 days due to lack of funds
- Failure to transfer taxes, social security contributions, or retirement plan contributions as required by law
- An unreserved or total fund balance deficit in the general fund or any major operating fund that persists for two consecutive years>>
The letter then stated that all responses are to be received no later than April 8th for review. Any community that doesn’t comply with request will be presumed to be in “possible statutory violation and in need of assistance”.
So basically, what the state is saying to municipalities is this. Prove to us that you’re already operating efficiently, and we’ll consider whether an additional response from the state to review operating efficiencies is necessary based on the information that’s provided...or do nothing and it will be assumed that your community is an operating mess and we’ll soon be in your business.
Many communities across the state and throughout South Florida have already completed the questionnaire for Florida’s DOGE team. Many haven’t, with just over a week remaining for communities to comply. It remains to be seen both how many communities will be non-compliant, and what it will mean for the state DOGE team to become hands on with communities it finds in need of some DOGEing. To be continued...