ORLANDO, Fla. – It’s a question of whose numbers you believe.
Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia is accusing Orange County government of overtaxing residents to the tune of $190 million, slamming the county at a Monday news conference as an example of wasteful government spending.
"$190,643,653,“ Ingoglia said. ”According to our calculations, Orange County taxpayers are being overtaxed by this amount right here. That is an astounding amount of money. We are deeming almost $200 million of the Orange County budget excessive and wasteful, that it is amazing amount of money. Now we actually think the number is a little bit bigger, but for our purposes, we know that this is absolutely almost $200 million excessive and wasteful spending."
[VIDEO BELOW: DOGE fight rages in Orange County]
However, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings took to the podium himself a few hours later to accuse the CFO of fuzzy math in the numbers Ingoglia used, and further accused Ingoglia of political rhetoric meant to divide residents.
“They suggested that we could reduce our taxation and our budget by $200 million on an $8.2 billion budget. That’s a 2.4% decrease. I can tell you today, even with $8.2 billion, it simply is not enough to solve the myriad of issues that we have as a local government,” Demings said. “If the state really cared about us here at the local level, they will sit down and talk to us like decent folk would do, rather than issue subpoenas. They could just simply come and have a conversation with us. No, they wanted to be heavy-handed. They want us to perform before the cameras."
Orange County is one of about a dozen city and county governments that were targeted by Florida’s DOGE Task Force created by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year.
DOGE officials said it would be looking at items including but not limited to employee pay, DEI and homeless services.
Ingoglia’s claims
While Ingoglia did not release a report, he said Orange County’s population increased by 79,000 people over the course of five years, and the county hired 661 new employees. He also accused the county of giving out salary increases of 24.5% to employees.
He also said that the county’s general revenue budget increased $559,151,494, an almost 54% increase in the past five years.
Ingoglia said that means someone who has a $500,000 taxable value on their home would save $428 a year.
“Orange County could easily, easily reduce the millage rate in Orange County by 0.86 mills and offer people real property tax rates,” Ingoglia said.
Ingoglia said he would be releasing a report on how he reached these numbers soon.
Demings’ response
In his news conference, Demings said Orange County’s population had increased by 125,488 people in the past five years, which he said was revised data from the Florida Bureau of Economic Business and Research.
Demings says the annual impact of tourists needs to be considered as well.
“Because in 2024, our visitation of 75.3 million tourists with an economic impact of $94.5 billion, according to Visit Orlando,” Demings said. “So this means that in addition to our permanent resident population, we must provide services for an additional 206,000 people each day within our community. That is no other local government in Florida with that type of impact on services.”
Demings also said the county’s general fund increased by $474 million over the past few years, not the $559 million Ingoglia stated.
Demings also said that while the county did add 661 new positions, 333 were for public safety, and only 100 were for general classified employees.
Demings also took issue with Ingoglia’s claims about county worker pay.
“In the last four years, Orange County employee salaries for regular staff increased by 16%, or 4% per year,” Demings said. “We are currently in negotiations with the fire union for significant increases in the bargaining unit pay. They receive 12% in three years, 4% per year, and currently, we have a 25% increase on the table that is pending for our firefighters, which would equate if the union signs off on it, 37% in four years. We funded the sheriff’s office pay increase to 41.5% in the last five years. So we are investing heavily in public safety and paying our first responders a very competitive wage.”
Demings said there are other things that can account for the increase in cost, such as inflation. He also said the state increased the amount of money it charges local counties for public pensions for government employees.
Orange County’s budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year was $7.2 billion.
The largest single source of revenue for the budget was county property taxes.
According to the county’s budget, the county has the 11th lowest property tax rate in the state, and the lowest operating tax rate among county populations with over 1 million people. You can read that budget here.
DOGE and property tax reform
[WATCH BELOW: Orange County staff subpoenaed amid DOGE audit issues, Florida CFO announces]
Ingoglia is using the DOGE audits to talk up property tax reform across the state, including getting rid of homestead property taxes altogether.
This news conference also comes after Ingoglia accused Orange County of trying to hide budget information from the DOGE team back in August and of making employees answer questions with prepared statements.
At the end of August, DeSantis claimed some Orange County staff did not fully cooperate with an audit by the state’s DOGE team. The state then issued investigative subpoenas for county employees. The state subpoenaed 16 county employees as part of the investigation, including the county attorney.
Ingoglia said his office is investigating whether county staff withheld or altered documents related to five diversity, equity and inclusion grants. He suggested the county may have renamed files to prevent disclosure.
[WATCH BELOW: Orange County mayor defends staff in DOGE audit, calls Florida investigation ‘politically motivated’]
Last month, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said there was no evidence to support the state’s accusations and called Ingoglia’s attack politically motivated.
“There has not been any direction from myself or any senior leadership to our employees to hide information or any of that,” Demings said.
“This whole process has been tainted at this point, because they’ve already tried and convicted Orange County before they’ve ever completed their investigation,” Demings added. “When that happens, you know this is politically motivated. Something else is motivating that.”