“Taxpayers should be put first”: DeSantis announces DOGE focus on City of Gainesville

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a press conference in Gainesville today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that Florida’s DOGE team will be visiting City Hall to audit the City of Gainesville’s spending.

DeSantis introduced newly-appointed Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, who was previously a State Senator from the Tampa Bay area; he said Ingoglia was “a huge warrior on all the issues that the voters that elected us have wanted to tackle. Now, as Chief Financial Officer, he’s going to be tackling a number of issues, helping us with property tax relief, but also using the authority of the CFO office to conduct audits and oversight of the spending of local governments.”

State’s FY2026 budget is lower than the FY2025 budget

DeSantis said the state government has been working on reducing expenses “for many years,” including retiring nearly 50% of the debt the state has accumulated over its 180-year history during DeSantis’s governorship. He said the per-capita number of state government workers is the lowest in the entire country, and the per-capita amount of money spent by the state is the second-lowest in the country. He also pointed out that in the FY2026 budget, “even though we increased teacher salaries, even though we increased the infrastructure, even though we did historic investments in the Everglades and natural resources, all those things, it still spends less, year over year, than the previous year’s budget, and that previous year’s budget spent less, year over year, than the year before that… So we’ve really led the way.”

2025 bill provides the authority to “DOGE” local governments

DeSantis said, “People are coming to me, wanting property tax relief, and I’m supportive of that,… but that property tax revenue is local revenue; it’s imposed by local governments, and it’s used for local things… So if you want to do property tax relief, part of what you have to do is identify the way [local governments are] spending the money.” A bill from the 2025 legislative session gave authority “to do the DOGEing of local governments,” including municipalities, counties, and other entities, like Sheriff’s Offices, and DeSantis announced today that Broward County and the City of Gainesville are the first two, but more will be announced in the coming weeks.

The DOGE teams will physically visit City Hall and review data systems, review the physical premises, review personnel records, along with a long list of other areas; DeSantis said these are “real auditors.”

Click here to read the Florida DOGE letter to the City of Gainesville.

City of Gainesville’s property tax revenue has more than doubled since FY2020

The City of Gainesville has increased property tax revenue from $36.6 million in FY2020 to $68 million in FY2025 and an estimated $74 million in FY2026, more than doubling the FY2020 property tax revenue over six fiscal years.

DeSantis said, “What has the City done with the money? They have DEI, they have Green New Deal. They have things that, quite frankly, a lot of taxpayers don’t want to pay more property taxes to be able to fund. And so the goal of this review is to identify these practices, seek justification for why you’ve seen the growth in the taxes.” Referring to the recent Gainesville City Commission vote to increase the property tax rate by almost 15% over the rolled-back rate, DeSantis said, “Taxpayers should be put first. Taxpayers should be respected.”

DeSantis emphasized, “This is not optional cooperation. This has been passed by the Florida Legislature, signed into law by me, as Governor… We believe that taxpayers have wanted to see this done. This will then roll into our effort to be able to do property tax relief on the ballot in 2026… We all agree on education, first responders, all that, and [you can] still be able to provide meaningful property tax relief, but not if the spending is not kept in check on these other items… I think it’s going to be really, really instructive.”

He said more jurisdictions would be announced over the next two weeks from various parts of the state, with “different political compositions,… meaningful diversity across the state, from both the county and municipal level.”

DeSantis: Ingoglia is “a guy that… puts the taxpayers… and the consumers of this state first.”

Introducing Ingoglia, DeSantis said he appointed him because he wanted “somebody in there that’s going to fight for the people of the state, for taxpayers, for consumers, and I think that’s what everybody wants. So how do you know someone’s going to do that? For me, the way to know is to see [if] they have a record of actually doing that in the offices they’ve already held, because if they’ve been in office and just been very passive and meek and not willing to get out there and run towards the fire, they’re not all of a sudden going to grow a spine of steel in a new office and start really leading.”

DeSantis said that Ingoglia has “fought for you and delivered for you” on election integrity and Second Amendment rights, particularly during Governor Rick Scott’s term, when he voted against several bills restricting gun rights; DeSantis said Ingoglia has worked to reduce illegal immigration, including voting against an effort earlier this year to make Florida “a de facto sanctuary state.” 

DeSantis continued, “I watch these guys campaign, not only here, but around the country. They all say the same thing when they want your vote, especially in a Republican primary, but then once it comes time to get into office, the number of them who actually deliver on what they say is, honestly, in Republicans, few and far between, unfortunately. And so, when you have somebody that not only talks the talk but walks the walk and delivers results, that’s the best indicator that you’re going to see meaningful leadership and action in this new office. I think you’re… going to find, in short order, that he’s a guy that’s going to fight for you. He’s a guy that really, really puts the taxpayers of this state and the consumers of this state first, and that’s exactly what we need as a CFO.”

Ingoglia: DeSantis is “trying to eliminate property taxes on homesteaded properties and auditing and DOGEing local governments, and that’s why we’re here today.”

Ingoglia said DeSantis is “leading on property tax reform, trying to eliminate property taxes on homesteaded properties and auditing and DOGEing local governments, and that’s why we’re here today.”

Ingoglia said that when property values increase, local governments are “taking the extra tax revenue [and] spending it recklessly… You cannot have meaningful property tax reform unless you have meaningful spending reform, and the only way to do that is to let the citizens and taxpayers know exactly what your local governments are actually spending the money on.”

Ingoglia: “We are on a mission to prove that a lot of the stuff that they don’t want to cut, they could cut.”

Ingoglia said that in preparation for a possible 2026 referendum on property taxes, “local governments are already positioning and saying, ‘We can’t do that. We have this, this, this, that we have to pay for,’ and I’m going to tell you right now that we are on a mission to prove that a lot of the stuff that they don’t want to cut, they could cut. There’s just not a willingness to cut.”

Ingoglia continued, “What local governments need to understand is, it’s not their money; it’s your money, the taxpayer money, and we all need to be better fiscal watchdogs for what they’re spending it on… We cannot start off with this faulty assumption that the level of government and spending that they have right now is needed, because we know that it’s not.” He said the DOGE audits would encourage local governments to “start cutting back now, or the voters are going to do that on the ’26 ballot… Governor, and the team at DOGE Florida, I look forward to working with you, side by side, to make sure that we’re holding people accountable. I will tell you, this is a new era of accountability.”

DeSantis: “Don’t tell me that your City’s run well; show me.”

When DeSantis took questions, a reporter asked if he could read a statement from Mayor Harvey Ward, and DeSantis cut him off and said, “Don’t tell me that your City’s run well; show me. And you will have an opportunity to show how the City is run, and taxpayers will be able to get transparency in that… If you’re proud of the way things are being run, then that will be made very apparent to folks.”

DeSantis said he was convinced there are “problem areas,… and maybe they’re doing better than what some people are led on to believe, but I do think you’re going to see that when you have that type of increase over a short period of time without a commensurate population increase,… you’re going to end up flagging things that I think taxpayers are going to want to see.”

DeSantis criticizes high salaries for City and County employees

DeSantis continued, “I can tell you, when I see things where you’ve got $250,000, $300,000 for a City or County employee — look, maybe that’s justifiable. I can tell you, the [Florida] CFO isn’t making anywhere close to that much. There’s folks throughout the state government who have major responsibilities who are not anywhere near that.”

Speaking of property taxes, DeSantis said, “[We want to] show that this idea that you should forever have to just pay increasing taxes as your home’s going up, even though it’s not a realized gain, that is not required to be able to fund the things we need to fund globally, like the first responders and the schools.” He said he wants to initially provide relief for Florida residents because “investors, snowbirds, commercial — that’s a little bit different.” He said that philosophically, he would like to get rid of property taxes entirely, but “certainly for you, as a Florida resident, with your primary homesteaded residence, right? And don’t tell me it can’t be done, because it can be done.” He said the revenue from homesteaded property is “a distinct minority of the amount of revenue that comes into these City and County governments for property tax.”

DeSantis concluded, “If you [eliminated property taxes on homesteaded residential properties], in addition to having no income tax, you’re talking about the best place to live, work, raise a family, or retire, bar none, at that point.”