Florida CFO alleges some local governments scrubbed records before DOGE audits

While officials with the state DOGE began a two-day, in-person review Thursday of Jacksonville’s financial systems, Florida’s chief financial officer accused some local governments targeted for audits of tampering with public records. 

Speaking to reporters on the steps of Jacksonville City Hall, state CFO Blaise Ingoglia alleged, without presenting evidence, that “multiple sources” told his office that local officials are digitally eliminating key words and phrases to make it more difficult for DOGE auditors to locate documents on city and county programs. 

He did not specifically mention Jacksonville.

Ingoglia’s comments were the latest controversy in the Florida DOGE’s efforts, which started in February to pressure local governments to lower property tax levies and eliminate what the state CFO and Gov. Ron DeSantis consider “fraud, waste and abuse” in city and county spending.

“It has come to my attention, and I am getting information, that there are some governments — cities and/or counties, not at liberty to say right now — are having some meetings with the sole purpose of scrubbing the information from public record as we start looking for some of the things that are outlined in our DOGE letters,” he said.

“We may investigate it. We may show that maybe there is some explanation, right? I don’t know if it’s a good explanation, but that is part of our fact-finding process,” he said. “We have heard allegations of this from numerous sources, enough where it concerns us in the CFO’s office and the DOGE team for us to investigate.”

Ingoglia said DOGE’s “sources” are inside or adjacent to the local governments, but he declined to identify which cities or counties could be subject to his investigation.

Mayor Donna Deegan said his comments do not refer to Jacksonville. 

“We would never do anything like that, so I don’t have any reason to believe he’s talking about Jacksonville,” Deegan said in a news conference Thursday afternoon.

Ingoglia’s threats included using the state’s subpoena power to get documents and called it “a warning to any local government that tries to hide the spending.” 

System access 

Jacksonville is just the latest in a sting of on-site audits DOGE has been conducting throughout the state including Broward, Orange and Pinellas counties and the cities of Gainesville and St. Petersburg — all areas that lean Democratic.

Auditors with the Florida DOGE — Department of Government Efficiency — gained access Thursday to city financial systems, ending a dispute between Deegan’s office and Ingoglia over the city’s request that the state personnel sign a technology security form before entering the system.

Deegan said her staff decided to waive the form requirement, a standard city policy, when the officials determined most of the state auditors were familiar to her staff. 

The mayor said the auditors had access only to “read-only” files, and she had no concerns about the state officials sharing system passwords or other sensitive data.

“We’re not going to be able to police them, but that’s what I understand and I have every reason to believe that they’re going to do their professional duty.” she said. “We’ve worked with some of them before, and they’ve been very professional.”

Deegan’s office tried to set up a phone call Tuesday with the state CFO’s office to resolve the issue, but the mayor said Ingoglia did not respond to the invitation.

“The auditors were lovely. The auditors were lovely. There are people, some of them we’ve worked with before, and they gave us all the information we needed to have, so we just exempted the form. But it’s unfortunate we didn’t get a chance to meet with the CFO. I would have liked to have done that.” 

Ingoglia confirmed that Deegan’s staff reached out to his team. 

“Quite frankly, I have just been inundated protecting the taxpayers of the state of Florida. (I) have not had a chance to have a conversation,” he said.

What’s being reviewed?

Florida DOGE’s letter to Deegan announcing the audit, dated July 18, outlined a list of things the state auditors could look for, but it’s unclear what information they collected Thursday.  

Five specific items in the letter were development projects currently under planning or construction using city funds including the $1.4 billion renovation of EverBank Stadium for the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

Ingoglia was asked during the news conference if the stadium deal would be subject to review, and he said the DOGE focus is information that taxpayers “are not privy to.”

“I think a lot of it is subject to review. Some of it is going to be subjective. And some of it is going to be objective. We have to separate subjective from objective,” he said. “So if people already know about the spending, the subsidies, that is something that’s already been in the news. I’m sure you guys have reported, so the taxpayers are already privy to that.”

Ingoglia claimed Thursday that the spending of some Florida cities and counties is outpacing inflation and population growth. Pinellas County commissioners are rebutting some of the DOGE findings, saying the auditors overestimated the spending increases since 2020 by nearly $80 million.

“But even if we’re off by a couple million dollars, the fact still remains that their budgets have exploded,” Ingoglia said Thursday. “And that’s what they should be worried about, not making sure that our information is 100% correct. It’s 99.9% correct. It’s still correct in my eyes.”

Property taxes

Ingoglia’s visit coincided with the first day of the Jacksonville City Council’s Finance Committee hearings on Deegan’s proposed $2 billion budget for 2025-26. 

The first action by the predominantly Republican group was to advance a ⅛-mil cut to the city’s property tax rate. The reduction would drop property tax collection and expected city revenue next year by about $13 million.

Ignolgia praised the move and also urged local school districts and other local taxing authorities to do the same.

When DeSantis launched the Florida DOGE in February, he called the task force a necessary part of state leaders’ discussion on lowering or eliminating taxes on homestead properties statewide. 

“Local governments should get ahead of the curve, cut property taxes now, because they’re definitely going to be coming later,” Ingoglia said.