Shortly after requesting initial financial information, Florida DOGE officials are seeking more from Palm Beach County officials and will be visiting their offices next week for further review into the county’s spending.
In a letter sent to County Mayor Maria Marino on Aug. 7, the state Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, officials wrote that county taxpayers “have watched as your county government has increased annual estimated property tax collections by nearly $480 million” since fiscal year 2020.
“Having entrusted their governments with the power to tax, the citizens of Florida have a right to expect that their elected officials will spend the collected funds responsibly and on truly necessary programs,” officials wrote in the letter. They plan to visit the county offices on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19.
These state DOGE inspections are part of efforts to “employ innovative technology to identify and eliminate unnecessary and oftentimes frivolous spending, to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity and to reform the federal workforce,” according to the executive order signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Feb. 24.
On Monday in Tampa, state Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia said the DOGE team has had “a couple of very productive weeks … since starting off these audits.”
“We are finding pretty egregious examples of waste, fraud and abuse,” he said, adding that the DOGE teams are “cracking down” and “will be delivering some substantial examples of where local governments can cut.”
“We want to make sure that we are as thorough as possible. We have a lot of work to do with the counties. We have a lot of work to do with the cities,” Ingoglia said. “What I can tell you is that I’m not going away.”
Before the Aug. 7 letter, DOGE had sent an email to Palm Beach County leaders on July 11 seeking information about the county’s revenue and expenses from 2020 to 2024.
“I think we and every local government was expecting to get a follow-up request from the state,” interim county administrator Todd J. Bonlarron said. He has worked in the role since Verdenia Baker retired in May and will continue to until Joseph Abruzzo officially becomes the new county administrator on Aug. 19.
“I wouldn’t say that it was a surprise to us. … And we had a chance to look at some of the first letters that they sent out to in Broward County, Gainesville, some of the local governments, and so some of the requests that they had that we’ve seen is fairly consistent with what they’ve sent out to most of the other local governments,” Bonlarron said.
Broward County officials recently gave DOGE officials nearly 55,000 files for review. In Orlando, Mayor Buddy Dyer said the state auditing team arrived Monday and city staff had prepared 27,000 files for review, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
In 2024, Palm Beach County had a budget of $8.8 billion. This money funds nearly 40 departments. A large portion of the expenses — almost $2.8 billion — goes to the board of county commissioners. Nearly $1 billion goes to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
In an Aug. 7 letter, DOGE officials detailed specific requests they wanted Palm Beach County officials to make available before or during the Aug. 18 and 19 visits. The new requests include:
— “Green New Deal” information, such as county goals for “carbon or emissions reduction that have been adopted or are being pursued” and the purchase of any environmentally driven technology.
— Transportation information, such as the installation and maintenance of “traffic calming devices,” which could be speed humps, raised intersections or curb extensions.
— Homeless services information, including the county’s spending on all homeless-related programs and the county’s efforts to measure the effectiveness of such programs.
— Inventory of the county’s property and leases.
— Personnel compensation, including total employee pay, salary increases and performance standards and reviews for county employees who make more than $200,000.
DOGE officials also had nearly 20 different requests under the umbrella of diversity, equity and inclusion. This includes a specific call-out to any efforts made by the county to support diversity and inclusion efforts at Mounts Botanical Garden.
On its website, Mounts Botanical Garden states: “Our commitment to inclusion and diversity guides our decisions on staffing, programming, outreach and communications. We strive to inspire and educate through freedom of expression and acceptance of different points of view.
In June, Palm Beach County commissioners took emergency action to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from its policies.
“We’ve always taken this approach with our government partners both at the federal level, the state level and local level that we work as teams,” Bonlarron said. “So we’re going to obviously continue with the same approach, and we look forward to those discussions and conversations when they arrive.”