Florida taxpayers spent years watching local governments hand six-figure contracts to DEI consultants who produced nothing.
Now DeSantis just signed the bills to end it.
And one city's $300,000 "sustainability action plan" just became the face of everything he's shutting down.
Your Tax Dollars Were Funding a Very Comfortable Scam
Here's how the hustle worked.
A DEI consultant finds a friendly city commissioner.
The city cuts them a $100,000 contract to audit the workforce, run some trainings, file a report nobody reads.
Then the same consultant walks across town to the next municipality.
Another $100,000.
Then the county. Then a neighboring city.
Stack four or five of those contracts and you're clearing $400,000 to $500,000 a year – telling local governments they aren't diverse enough, with zero accountability and zero results.
Your property taxes funded every dollar of it.
Ron DeSantis called it exactly what it was at the Jacksonville press conference.
"Honestly, some of this is a total scam," he said.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2047011420727033899?s=20
He wasn't being generous.
SB 1134 ends the arrangement completely.
Counties and municipalities can no longer fund or promote DEI policies.
Local officers who implement DEI programs anyway face removal from office.
"When people know there's accountability, they're much more apt to toe the line and do what the law requires," DeSantis said.
That's the piece the old system never had – consequences for the politicians writing the checks and the consultants cashing them.
SB 1134 takes effect January 1, 2027.
St. Pete Spent $300,000 of Your Money on a Document Nobody Asked For
The second bill DeSantis signed – HB 1217 – targets the climate bureaucracy local governments have been quietly building for years.
DeSantis called out the City of St. Petersburg by name.
They spent $300,000 on a consulting service for a "sustainability action plan."
Three hundred thousand dollars.
For a plan.
Not a project. Not infrastructure. Not a single pothole filled.
A document.
Broward County made the list too.
HB 1217 blocks local governments from adopting net-zero mandates, carbon taxes, or Green New Deal purchasing rules.
It cuts off taxpayer funding to NGOs and trade associations pushing radical climate policies.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2047023400279765077?s=20
It prevents any carbon offset fees from being passed to consumers or businesses.
This matters because the left's playbook has never been to win climate votes – it's to bypass them.
Congress wouldn't pass the Green New Deal.
State legislatures wouldn't pass it either.
So they push it through city commissions and county boards, buried in procurement rules and consulting contracts, while your property taxes pay for it and the national media ignores it.
St. Pete doesn't need Congressional approval to hire a $300,000 sustainability consultant.
A county commission doesn't need federal legislation to adopt net-zero purchasing rules that quietly drive up the cost of every government contract.
They just do it – at the local level, at your expense, while nobody's watching.
DeSantis just closed that backdoor.
HB 1217 takes effect July 1, 2026.
Florida Just Wrote the Playbook Every Red State Needs
DeSantis has been building this framework for years, protecting Florida from the net-zero pipeline the Biden administration spent four years constructing through regulatory pressure and federal grants.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1655268806690848771?s=20
SB 1134 and HB 1217 seal the perimeter.
The left's strategy has always been the same: when federal legislation fails, push the agenda through the back door – state agencies, local governments, grant requirements attached to federal money, consulting contracts attached to nothing at all.
DeSantis saw the entire strategy and legislated against all of it at once.
That's the difference between playing defense and actually winning.
Florida just won.
And every governor in a red state should be on the phone with Tallahassee today asking for the bill numbers.
Sources:
- Michael Costeines, "DeSantis Signs Bills Banning DEI, Carbon Taxes by Local Governments," Florida's Voice, April 22, 2026.
- Staff, "Florida SB 1134 – DEI Prohibition in Local Government," Florida Legislature, 2026.
- Staff, "Florida HB 1217 – Local Government Climate Mandate Prohibition," Florida Legislature, 2026.
