By Michelle DeMarco
A top state official spearheading the Florida governor’s much-touted mission of cutting local government spending on programs, along with employee numbers and salaries, is quietly seeking to bolster his own state agency’s spending and employee ranks.
In a state Legislative Budget Request filed last week, Blaise Ingoglia, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hand-picked new Chief Financial Officer, is seeking more than $600,000 and six full time employees to permanently establish a new “Florida Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Office,” with the provocative acronym “FAFO.” Its mission is to review local government data and “uncover the truth about how these government entities are using taxpayer funds, especially property taxes,” according to the budget request.
The $617,797 request includes $587,000 for employees and benefits, along with $60,000 for travel and other expenses, according to the documents. The funding comes on top of drawing on additional resources of the sprawling 2,000-employee Department of Financial Services.
In his request, Ingoglia indicated the new unit is duplicative of his already inherent powers. Under state law, he wrote, the CFO already has the statutory authority to “examine, audit, and investigate all local government entities that receive any funds from the State of Florida.” His office also has the power to take sworn testimony, issue subpoenas, and to assist law enforcement at both the state and federal levels.
“There’s a lot of irony at preaching government efficiency at the local level while growing your own bureaucracy,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando.
Asked how the new office and additional employees squared with a mission of cutting government, Sydney Booker, Ingoglia’s communications director replied that the new state staffers “would allow DFS … to identify waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer funds” and “provide local governments with additional expertise in auditing themselves.”
“We look forward to saving taxpayers even MORE money through our FAFO Office!” she wrote in a statement to the Florida Trident.
‘No guardrails‘
Prior to publication, Booker did not respond to a follow-up question of why a new government entity was needed if the CFO has long had the statutory authority to investigate local government spending, as Ingoglia noted in his request for additional funding.
The name “FAFO” – which in the vernacular stands for “F-around and find out” – is the latest incarnation of the “Department of Government Efficiency” task force created in February by executive order under DeSantis’ Office of Policy and Budget. The task force is modelled after the federal government’s DOGE once headed by billionaire Elon Musk. It is set to expire on March 31, 2026.
The Florida Legislature approved the task force functions in language tucked into budget language in the final days of the 2025 legislative session, allowing DOGE to issue fines for non-compliance with the audits. The task force was limited to public records and technology to gather signs of “waste and bloat” by those cities and counties it selected for audit.
The head of Florida’s DOGE is Eric Soskin, a former U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general appointed, and later fired, by President Donald Trump. Soskin was hired by DeSantis in March at an annual salary of $197,621.
The immediate appearance of Ingoglia after his appointment as CFO as both the spokesperson and legal muscle on behalf of DOGE only bolstered suspicions that politics, not good government, was driving the selection of local governments for audit.
While DOGE was promoted as a fiscal watchdog, accusations by the governor and his CFO of widespread wasteful spending are widely seen as a vehicle for DeSantis to justify his push for eliminating property taxes in Florida, a primary source of revenue for local governments.
Thus far, a disproportionate number of the cities and counties targeted by DOGE are run by Democrats, including the city of Jacksonville, and Palm Beach, Broward, and Orange Counties. Ingoglia, who is not included as a member of DOGE under either the executive order or budget language, has written letters demanding local government records and, in Orange County, issued subpoenas in his power as CFO to 16 employees he accused of obstructing DOGE.
“I will not stand idly by while Floridians are forced to pay higher property taxes to fund wasteful and bloated government budgets,” Ingoglia said in a press release last month.
Questions arose, however, over whether Ingoglia is bullying local governments for political purposes.
“There is no question when one party controls all levers of government, it’s going to go after its enemies and its perceived enemies,” noted Bob Jarvis, a constitutional law professor with Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. “There are no checks and balances. There are no guardrails.”
Fellow constitutional law professor, Ralph DeMeo, who teaches at both Florida State University and Stetson Law, agreed. “He’s trying to tread lightly on those governments he supports,” DeMeo said. “Reward your friends and punish your enemies.”
Targeting Democrat-run cities and agendas
In the subpoenas issued to Orange County, Ingoglia cast a wide net, requesting documents on a host of subjects, including “DEI” or diversity, equity and inclusion, “climate,” including electric vehicles, and records related to “Black History Project Inc., Caribbean Community Connection of Orlando, Inc., and the Central Florida Urban League,” among others.
In a July 21 letter to Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward, Ingoglia and DOGE officials sought information on bids, vendors, sole-source contracts, personnel compensation, DEI, “Green New Deal,” and grants, among other items.
Despite repeated requests from theTrident, questions to the CFO, including what triggered the subpoenas and why DEI is included in a financial audit, have gone unanswered.
Last week, Ingoglia held two press conferences, the first in Orlando, announcing his department’s “high level” findings of millions of dollars in wasteful spending over the past five years, but provided no specifics, saying they would be produced at a later date.
Responding to the accusations, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Ingoglia was using “some fuzzy math” and attributed increased spending to several factors, including inflation, population surges, and a significant increase in the hiring of public safety personnel along with salary increases for police and fire. He also admonished Ingoglia for failing to address pressing issues including still-rising property insurance rates and an increasingly unaffordable cost of living in Florida.
“The CFO ought to get his own house in order before he starts looking in someone else’s house,” Demings fired back.
Hurling accusations of out-of-control spending has been a hallmark of Ingoglia for more than a decade. First elected to the House of Representatives in 2014, the Spring Hill Republican initially made a name for himself producing what he called “Government Gone Wild” videos that took aim at federal spending and immigration. “Government Gone Wild” is also the name of his political action committee, his X handle, and a refrain from his current campaign for CFO in the 2026 election.
The same week he filed his budget request for additional funding, Ingoglia appeared at a press conference in Jacksonville. Singling out Mayor Donna Deegan, a Democrat, and echoing similar claims he made in Orange County earlier last week, Ingoglia claimed that “every excuse in the book” would be offered by city officials to maintain “large, bloated bureaucracies.”
“Deegan’s spending is on steroids,” Ingoglia said, while again offering no details of his findings.
Deegan, who was elected in 2023 over a Republican, responded that the budgets being reviewed were “passed by super-majority Republican City Councils.”
So far, the local governments under scrutiny have publicly welcomed the outside audits, noting that their budgets are published online and open for full public review. But critics allege that no similar efforts are being made by Ingoglia and DOGE on the state level, such as the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by DeSantis on no-bid contracts for the hastily constructed immigrant detention camp, “Alligator Alcatraz,” in the federally protected Everglades.
“[The state has] no checks and balances, no accountability to what they’re doing,” said Palm Beach County Commissioner Maria Sachs, a Democrat whose county has also been targeted for audit.
Sachs said DOGE scrutiny could help improve local government efficiency, but only if done fairly. It shouldn’t be done to trample home rule or tell counties who they can and cannot hire. And it shouldn’t stop in Palm Beach County.
“Maybe the citizens need to do a DOGE of Tallahassee,” said Sachs. “See how they’re operating.”
Michelle DeMarco is an award-winning investigative reporter who returned to journalism after more than two decades in public service. Contact her at [email protected]
HayRide says
They’ll have a field day in this town
CH says
I have some questions. Where are the funds “from the state” originating from? Tax payers? The tax payers from where? Shouldn’t the funds stay local? Is the state government actually the middleman?
Who would have thought accounting would be so dramatic.
Sherry says
Meanwhile Maga Sweetheart desantis has spent “Hundreds of MILLIONS” of your hard earned tax dollars in going after the migrants that kept the tourism economy humming in Florida. Read the AI summary if you dare:
As of February 2025, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed a state budget that includes over half a billion dollars for immigration enforcement. This follows several years of using state funds on immigration-related measures, including millions spent on relocating migrants and sending law enforcement to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Spending highlights by year
2025
$500+ million for immigration enforcement: Proposed in his fiscal year 2025-2026 budget, this funding was recommended during an ongoing standoff with the state legislature over immigration policy.
2023
$15.2 million on immigration efforts: Records from the first half of the year show at least this much was spent from a $500 million emergency fund. A Miami Herald review indicated that DeSantis used this money for efforts related to “illegal migration”.
$10 million for migrant transport: Following the controversial Martha’s Vineyard flights, the legislature granted DeSantis an additional $10 million for the program to transport migrants from other states to “sanctuary cities”.
2022
$1.5 million for Martha’s Vineyard flights: The state spent approximately $1.5 million to fly about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. This was part of a larger $12 million legislative allocation for migrant transport.
2021
$1.6 million on law enforcement deployment: DeSantis spent at least $1.6 million to send Florida law enforcement personnel to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas for seven weeks.
Sources of funding
Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund: In 2023, DeSantis tapped this $500 million fund, originally intended for storm recovery, to cover immigration-related costs.
Federal American Rescue Plan Funds: The $12 million authorized in 2022 for migrant relocation came from interest earnings on federal COVID-19 relief funds given to Florida. Critics argued this use was inconsistent with the intent of the federal aid.
Sherry says
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS WASTED BY DESANTIS:
As of February 2025, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed a state budget that includes over half a billion dollars for immigration enforcement. This follows several years of using state funds on immigration-related measures, including millions spent on relocating migrants and sending law enforcement to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Spending highlights by year
2025
$500+ million for immigration enforcement: Proposed in his fiscal year 2025-2026 budget, this funding was recommended during an ongoing standoff with the state legislature over immigration policy.
2023
$15.2 million on immigration efforts: Records from the first half of the year show at least this much was spent from a $500 million emergency fund. A Miami Herald review indicated that DeSantis used this money for efforts related to “illegal migration”.
$10 million for migrant transport: Following the controversial Martha’s Vineyard flights, the legislature granted DeSantis an additional $10 million for the program to transport migrants from other states to “sanctuary cities”.
2022
$1.5 million for Martha’s Vineyard flights: The state spent approximately $1.5 million to fly about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. This was part of a larger $12 million legislative allocation for migrant transport.
2021
$1.6 million on law enforcement deployment: DeSantis spent at least $1.6 million to send Florida law enforcement personnel to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas for seven weeks.
Sources of funding
Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund: In 2023, DeSantis tapped this $500 million fund, originally intended for storm recovery, to cover immigration-related costs.
Federal American Rescue Plan Funds: The $12 million authorized in 2022 for migrant relocation came from interest earnings on federal COVID-19 relief funds given to Florida. Critics argued this use was inconsistent with the intent of the federal aid.
Ray W. says
Interestingly, in 1921, Winston Churchill was appointed to lead a new cabinet position that had been created to administer British interests in the Middle East (Mesopotamia).
Prior to creation of the new cabinet position, administration of Middle Eastern affairs was split between the Colonial Office and the Indian office.
Prior to 1921, the cost for administering Mesopotamia was 30 million pounds per annum. The stated reason for the creation of the new cabinet position was economy, so Churchill was soon given direct orders from the Prime Minister and by the Cabinet to cut costs, above all else.
Within a year, Churchill cut costs from 30 million pounds to 8 million pounds.
In 2024, immediately after a conservative government had formed under Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister, Churchill, still a Liberal member of Parliament, was given one of the highest cabinet positions in the government, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the intense dismay of the most hardline of the conservatives in Parliament.
In just five months, he put together a balanced budget that cut taxes on workers and broadened the social safety net for millions of Britons.
When Churchill introduced next year’s budget to the House of Commons on April 28, 1925, he started his speech by advising members of the House that since he had been appointed, he had negotiated a cut to interest payments on the nation’s war debt by 2.5 million pounds per year and he had persuaded Germany to pay reparations for the existing budget year of 12 million pounds. He intended to return the nation to the gold standard. He had sourced funds sufficient to pay the June and December British war debt installments to the United States and he had negotiated “credit facilities” from the United States of $300 million.
He had increased tariff duties on the narrowly targeted sectors of hops and on raw and artificial silks. But Churchill had removed duties on Empire dried fruits and gave tariff preferences to Empire tobacco, wines, and sugar.
He introduced a widows and orphans and retirement scheme that would be funded by weekly contributions both from workers and their employers (what we call Social Security), with the government providing sufficient funding until the social security funds raised from paycheck deductions were sufficient to take over all payments. More than 200,000 widows would immediately benefit from the scheme, as would more that 350,000 children. Retirement age was set at 65.
On this issue of widows and orphans insurance, and on the issue of retirement pensions, Churchill told the House:
“I like the association of this new scheme of widows’ pensions and earlier old-age pensions with the dying out of the cost of the war pensions. I like to think that the sufferings, the sacrifices, the sorrow of the war have sown a seed from which a strong tree will grow, under which, perhaps many generations of British people may find shelter against some at least of the storms of life. This is far the finest war memorial you could set up to the men who gave their lives, their limits, or their health, and those who lost their dear ones in the country’s cause.”
On income taxes, it would be reduced proportionately the most for the poorest among English laborers. Earned incomes of 2,000 pounds or less would be given a 10% cut in taxation, plus allowances for children. And the rate at which income taxes were withheld from paychecks was cut from four shillings and sixpence in the pound to four shillings in the pound. Those earning more than 2,000 pounds per year did not receive a tax cut.
At the time of the speech, there existed a “supertax” on the wealthiest Britons, which tax was to be cut, but the cut was to be offset by a raise in the death tax.
As was customary for that age, after Churchill’s speech, Prime Minister Baldwin wrote to the King:
“The general impression was that Mr. Churchill rose magnificently to the occasion. His speech was not only a great feat of endurance, lasting as it did for two hours and forty minutes, but was a first-rate example of Mr. Churchill’s characteristic style. At one moment he would be expounding quietly and lucidly facts and figures relating to the financial position during the past and current years. At another moment, inspired and animated by the old political controversies on the subject of tariff reform, he indulged in witty levity and humour which come as a refreshing relief in the dry atmosphere of a Budget speech. At another moment, when announcing the introduction of a scheme for widows’ and mothers’ pensions, he soared into emotional flights of rhetoric in which he has few equals; and throughout the speech he showed that he is not only possessed of consummate ability as a parliamentarian, but also all the versatility of an actor.”
Churchill’s predecessor at the Exchequer, Phillip Snowden, a Labour minister, criticized Churchill’s speech as a “rich man’s budget.” Churchill replied at a Primrose League demonstration:
“Let the Socialists go after January 4 next to the 200,000 widows, who, with 350,000 children, will be enjoying their pensions, and let them say to these people – ‘You are the victims of a rich man’s Budget.’ Let them go into 6,000,000 homes and tell the wives who will have behind them the guarantee that they will not be left penniless if anything happens to the breadwinner. … Let them go to the 75,000 veterans, over 70 years of age, who are not allowed to receive their pensions because they are still earning wages by honest work, and who after July 1926 will find all these inquisitions and restrictions, and disabilities swept away. Let them say to them — ‘All this is part of a dodge to enable the Conservative Government to relieve the poor, starving supertax payer’. Let them go in 1928 to the 500,000 men and women of 65 who will march up or who will hobble up to receive their pensions and say — ‘Comrades, we meant to give you these pensions ourselves. We would have given them to you on a non-contributory basis, but we had to go and help our Russian friends first.'”
When preparing for the budget, Churchill had to overcome objections to his national insurance schemes for retirement pensions and widows and orphans funds raised by the Admiralty, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Labour. A former Liberal Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, wrote to a friend 10 weeks before the Budget speech that Churchill was “a Chimborazo or Everest among the sandhills of the Baldwin Cabinet”.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I comment because today’s political culture is so fragmented and delusional that lying has become an obligation of office.
Churchill, long a liberal thorn in the hide of the everyday arch-conservative, was widely recognized as the greatest parliamentarian of his day.
By 1925, at the age of 49, he had partially resolved the Irish question by trilateral treaty and he had prepared the Admiralty for war prior to August of 1914.
After the 1911 Agadir Crisis with Germany, he had prepared a memorandum titled “Military Aspects of the Continental Problem”, in which memorandum he predicted the events on the Western front should England, France and Russia be at war with Germany and Austria. He predicted that the initial German offensive would drive the French back onto Paris within 20 days of the onset of war. “All plans based upon the opposite assumption ask too much of fortune.” But each successive day of German advance would weaken German forces, by heavier losses inflicted upon attackers, by increasing Russian threats to the east by the thirtieth day, by the English Army arriving in France and by lengthening German lines of communications and supply. “By the fortieth day Germany should be extended at full strain both internally and on her war fronts, and this strain will become daily more severe and ultimately overwhelming, unless it is relieved by decisive victories in France. If the French Army has not been squandered by precipitate or desperate action, the balance of forces should be favourable after the fortieth day, and will improve steadily as time passes. For the German armies will be confronted with a situation which combines an ever-growing need for a successful offensive with a battle-front which tends continually towards numerical equality. Opportunities for the decisive trial of strength may then occur. … Such a policy demands heavy and hard sacrifices from France, who must, with great constancy, expose herself to invasion, to having her provinces occupied by the enemy, and to the investment of Paris, and whose armies may be committed to retrograde or defensive operations. Whether her rulers contemplate or her soldiers endure this trial may depend upon the military support that Great Britain can give.” Within exactly 20 days of the German invasion, every aspect of Churchill’s prediction had occurred. Within 30 days, amidst British retreat, depression had set in across England. On that 30th day, Churchill reprinted his memorandum and distributed it to various officials. He wanted them to see that the moment for counterattack would soon arrive. The next day, General Haldane wrote: “I have read tonight your remarkable military operation written in 1911. … It is extraordinarily accurate as a forecast of events up to now, & shows great insight – a memorable document in full. Asquith said to me this afternoon that you were the equivalent of a large force in the field & this is true. You inspire us all by your courage & resolution.” General Hamilton, who commanded the British force that was to soon counterattack, wrote: “This is indeed a masterly paper. All the way down you hit the nail bang on the head as if you were a historian recapitulating rather than a statesman risking prophecies!” On or about the fortieth day, the French and British armies counterattacked and drove back the Germans into defensive positions.
He had personally ordered over great military and political opposition the partially trained Royal Naval Division to the defense of Antwerp, by which act of leadership he had delayed the German advance on the entire Atlantic coast for some three days, an act called in the British press as “The Antwerp Blunder”, but an act described by the King of Belgium in 1918 as perhaps the single most crucial act enabling the restoration of the viability of the Belgian Army at a time when it was disintegrating. In March 1918, the Belgian King in conversation rebutted a claim by a British general against Churchill that the deployment of the Royal Naval Division to Antwerp had been of no value. He later dictated for preservation the conversation, as follows: “… You are wrong in considering the RND Expedition as a forlorn hope. In my opinion it rendered great service to us and those who deprecate it simply do not understand the history of the War in its early days. Only one man of all your people had the prevision of what the loss of Antwerp would entail and that man was Churchill. … Delaying an enemy is often of far greater service than the defeat of the enemy, and in the case of Antwerp the delay the RND caused to the enemy was of inestimable service to us. These three days allowed the French and British Armies to move NW. Otherwise our whole army might have been captured and the Northern French Ports secured by the enemy. Moreover, the advent of the RND inspired our troops, and owing to your arrival, and holding out for three days, great quantities of supplies were enabled to be destroyed. You kept a large army employed, and I repeat the RND rendered a service we shall never forget.”
He had objected to the Dardanelles operation from the outset, but once he was ordered to take government responsibility for it, he advocated for a combined military and naval force, an advocacy that was resisted by other government departments to the detriment of the entire operation. History records the Dardanelles as a military fiasco, and he was blamed for that fiasco, but had his superiors not imposed their will against his strategies, the outcome might have been far different.
He had advocated from the outbreak of the war for massive tank production, another plan that was repeatedly thwarted and delayed by his superiors at a cost of who knows how many thousands of lives.
He had advocated for a separate Royal Air Force during the war, something America didn’t do until after WWII.
He came back from the front to take over the Munitions Department at a time when the British Army was running out of all sorts of munitions prior to the German push starting in March of 1918. Within weeks, he had settled labor relations and consolidated sectors of the munitions factories, leading to a restoration of an ample supply of arms to the military.
In those 20 years of ministerial service, almost every advance made by the British government bore Churchill’s fingerprints.
Despised by ardent Conservatives who never forgave him for leaving the Conservative Party over tariffs, and opposed by ardent Liberals who never accepted him because he wouldn’t entirely embrace the Liberal agenda, and hated by Labour politicians, a hate he reciprocated, somehow Churchill navigated the political minefields of his day to impose his ideas on governments led by all three political parties.
In essence, Churchill was the epitome of a “nation before party” politician, a type of political creature who no longer walks among us today.
woolly covered eyes says
Any hardcore trumper would thump the table in support of this. You can’t blame them, I’d not be able to see through that wool either!
Follow the money, baby – thump thump thump thump!
Deborah Coffey says
When will our MAGA and Republican friends finally be sick and tired of all the Nazi/Fascist shenanigans they most likely were unaware of when they voted these horrible people into public service? When will they finally see that Trump is using them only to remain in power and pocket their hard earned money? I will say that a few of my Republican neighbors have seen (and felt) the truth that exposes Donald Trump as a complete fraud. It gives me hope.
But, it’s time for all of us to unite and let Speaker Mike Johnson know that his House must take back its Article 1 powers and behave as if they are an EQUAL branch of our government. Each one of them took an oath to protect our Constitution and they have broken that oath daily, allowing Donald Trump to throw our Constitution into the wind, also on a daily basis. Ingoglia took that same oath. He’s breaking it.
Sherry says
I sincerely apologize for posting the same long article regarding desantis’ massive waste of taxpayers’ money twice. There was a technical error on my part. . . sorry!
But, then again, maybe it should be repeated again and again! We should NEVER EVER forget how trump sycophant, desantis, is destroying Florida from the inside!