ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says some Orange County staff did not fully cooperate with an audit by the state’s DOGE team earlier this month, and the state is issuing investigative subpoenas for county employees.
DeSantis and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia made the announcement at a news conference in Orlando on Wednesday.
[WATCH: Replay of Gov. DeSantis’ news conference in Orlando]
“We issued investigatory subpoenas because we think they were hiding information from us,” Ingoglia said. “We actually think they went as far as renaming some of the files to try to hide some of the information from us.”
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.
Earlier this month, the city of Orlando and the Orange County government were subjected to audits by the state’s Department of Government Efficiency.
But DeSantis said some of the staff seemed to be reading from a prepared script, which made them suspicious.
[RELATED: What is the Florida DOGE task force now auditing local governments?]
“They wouldn’t fully answer the questions and really left a lot of our folks not satisfied that they were getting all the answers that they could. So there’s a lot of different things to unpack here,” DeSantis said.
“I’m not going to go into specifics about what we found, but I’m going to tell you what we found was pretty eye-opening,” Ingoglia said.
Ingoglia then said that his team got a call from somebody in the county government who said that staff were changing the names of files because the DOGE staff was looking for keywords like “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” and “DEI files.”
“They were changing the names of the files, the PDFs, the contracts, the tags on a computer system, in an attempt to try to hide the information from us,” Ingoglia said.
In particular, Ingoglia said there were six grants related to DEI that the county gave out that have missing emails. It’s estimated the grants are worth just more than $500,000.
Ingoglia is issuing the investigative subpoenas to the county government, including to county employees who may have been involved with DEI grant programs.
[WATCH: DOGE day in Orange County as Florida team descends for audit]
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings rejected the allegations, saying the county has fully complied with the state’s requests.
“Orange County Government fully cooperated with the Florida DOGE audit team providing all the data and documents requested. No employee was instructed to alter, change or delete any documents.
“While our employees may have read from or referred to notes or documents being discussed by the DOGE team, employees were not scripted in their remarks.
“The state has offered no evidence to support its allegation that we were hiding information or acting without integrity. We welcome the opportunity for full public transparency on this issue.”
Several Republican state lawmakers were in attendance at the news conference, but no Democrats.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, criticized the allegations by Ingoglia and DeSantis in a post on X.com.
“No allegation of ACTUAL fiscal mismanagement. Solely upset that contracts DeSantis deemed “DEI” may have been changed to describe it in a different manner. Another effort to distract us from their lack of leadership in addressing issues like cost of living."
What Florida DOGE was looking for
Gov. DeSantis signed an executive order in February to review 900 state positions, along with dozens of state boards and commissions. The governor also said the task force would review university spending and local government spending.
DeSantis said he was inspired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, which sought to make spending cuts to federal agencies.
“For too long, nobody has cared about the taxpayers, much less the next generation, who is ultimately going to have to pay for all of the mismanagement that we have seen over these many, many years,” DeSantis said in February.
In March, the state requested financial documents from every county and city government as a prelude to these audits.
Then, in July, DOGE began notifying specific county and city governments that they would be subjected to audits and would be required to open their books and facilities to DOGE teams.
Orange County received its letter on July 24, and was audited on Aug. 5 and 6.
Orlando got its letter on July 30, and was audited on Aug. 11 and 12.
[READ: DOGE letter to Orange County | DOGE letter to City of Orlando]
The DOGE team targeted specific areas of Orange County’s budget:
- Procurement and contracting, including all contracts and procurements in excess of $10,000.
- Personnel Compensation, including pay, overtime and bonuses for all employees from 2019 to the present, along with employment records.
- Property management, including records of all tangible property, any sales, any county-owned property leased to another group, and expenditures on renovations. The state is also asking for records specifically related to the Orange County Multicultural Center in Pine Hills.
- Utilities, including all utility rate studies.
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, including all jobs since Jan. 1, 2020, that had a duty to advance DEI, any training related to DEI or purported “implicit bias,” and any programs or grants that targeted specific groups.
- A category called “Green New Deal,” which looks to be about any environmental or green energy programs supported by the county, or the county’s goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. It includes documents on purchasing EV infrastructure or vehicles, including solar power systems, and records on training related to climate change, battery-operated vehicles or solar power.
- Grants and other spending, requesting all records related to grants made to non-governmental organizations, vehicle allowances and public Wi-Fi services.
- Transportation, including documents on traffic calming devices, and on bicycle lanes, trails or infrastructure.
- And finally, Homeless Services, including direct spending by the county, grants to other groups and the county’s efforts to measure the programs’ effectiveness.
Local government services vs. property tax relief
DeSantis has also made clear that the audits are part of his campaign to prove a need to roll back property taxes in the state, or do away with them completely.
[WATCH: What would getting rid of property tax actually look like?]
DeSantis and Ingoglia acknowledge that, with the population explosion in the last few years, property values have also skyrocketed. That’s led to an increase in property tax revenue, without local governments having to raise taxes.
However, they believe that, instead of local governments using the money to expand programs and services, they should offer property tax relief.
Ingoglia, in announcing the first two audits that took place in July in the city of Gainesville and Broward County, said property tax reform was a key endgame.
“We eventually want to get to property tax reform with the eventual goal of getting rid of homesteaded property taxes altogether. Because, as the governor said, Do you really own your home?” Ingoglia said earlier this month.
Florida has always had an auditor general, who is able to conduct financial audits of local and state government agencies, from water management districts to school boards to county governments to state agencies.
For the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the auditor general conducted 202 audits of government agencies. All of them are posted on the auditor general’s website.
They include audits of Citizens Property Insurance, Eastern Florida State College in Brevard County, the Sumter County School Board, the University of Central Florida, Volusia County School Board, and the Florida Department of Health.
Many local agencies also conduct financial audits, which are turned in to the Florida Auditor General every year.
For instance, Orange County submitted an audit to the state for 2024, which also appeared on the Orange County Comptroller’s website. The audit was conducted by an agency independent from the county.