Florida's property taxes have surged nearly 60% in five years while local politicians swore they had no choice.
One small county just got caught blowing $59.8 million more than it ever needed to spend.
CFO Blaise Ingoglia flew into Palm Coast Thursday with a spreadsheet – and Flagler County's numbers are the worst he's found in sixteen audits across the state.
The County That Couldn't Stop Spending Your Money
The population of Flagler County grew 29% over the past six years.
Its budget grew 119%.
That gap – the space between what the government actually needed and what it actually spent – is $59.8 million of your money.
Ingoglia's Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight uses a straightforward benchmark: government growth should track inflation plus population.
Every dollar above that line is money stripped from taxpayers for reasons that have nothing to do with serving more residents.
https://twitter.com/GovGoneWild/status/2037276403171795281?s=20
For every new person who moved to Flagler County, local officials increased the budget by $3,385.
Bring a family of four? That's $13,541 in new government spending just because you showed up.
The general fund exploded from $92.5 million to $202.7 million – a $110 million increase in six years.
Eighty new full-time administrative employees were added while the population grew by 32,564 people.
Only a fraction were first responders.
"The budget increase we have seen in Flagler County represents the single largest increase we have seen out of the 16 spending reviews we have conducted so far," Ingoglia said Thursday, "and it should concern every single taxpayer in this county."
Here's what that money could have stayed in homeowners' pockets as.
A 1.4 mill reduction – right now, no services cut – saves a $400,000 homeowner $558 a year.
A $500,000 home saves $698.
A $600,000 home saves $838.
$2 Billion in Waste and Counting
Flagler County is not an outlier.
https://twitter.com/SkylarZander/status/2037247214980858201?s=20
It's the worst example of a pattern Ingoglia has been documenting across Florida for months.
His running tally has now blown past $2 billion in excessive spending across sixteen local governments.
Palm Beach County: $344 million in alleged waste.
Hillsborough County: $278 million.
Jacksonville: $199 million.
Orange and Broward: roughly $190 million each.
At a joint press conference in Jacksonville, Governor DeSantis stood next to Ingoglia as the CFO described what his auditors keep finding – local governments "crying poor" while billing taxpayers to count trees.
Across Florida, property tax collections climbed from $33.9 billion in 2019 to $55.1 billion in 2024 – a 62% increase.
Not because services expanded 62%.
Because when home values spike, politicians treat it as permission to spend the windfall instead of lowering the rate.
https://twitter.com/GovGoneWild/status/2036793879148593461?s=20
Florida has no constitutional mechanism to stop them – no spending cap tied to population and inflation the way Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights locks things down.
Without it, every housing boom becomes a budget boom for the bureaucrats running your county.
They've Been Running This Play for Years
Ingoglia's tour isn't just about embarrassing county commissioners with bad math.
It's building the case for a constitutional amendment DeSantis wants on the November 2026 ballot – one that would eliminate property taxes on homesteaded properties entirely.
The governor's argument is exactly what Flagler County just proved.
Local governments don't need the money.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2036463516694057197?s=20
They want it.
"Taxes are going up because of successful wasteful spending by career politicians who think that you are an endless ATM," Ingoglia said at his Citrus County stop two days ago.
He's been saying it sixteen times now because it keeps being true.
The playbook is this simple: home values rise, the tax base expands, revenue floods in, and instead of returning the windfall to the people who earned it, officials hire administrators, fund programs, and lock in the higher spending as the new normal.
Then when anyone asks for relief, they threaten to cut police and fire.
Sixteen audits just proved that's a lie.
Sources:
- Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, "Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia Announces Over $59 Million in Flagler County Budget as 'Excessive, Wasteful Spending,'" Florida Department of Financial Services, March 26, 2026.
- Governor Ron DeSantis and CFO Blaise Ingoglia, "Governor Ron DeSantis and CFO Blaise Ingoglia Highlight Excessive Local Government Spending Uncovered by Florida DOGE Audits," Executive Office of the Governor, 2025.
- Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, "Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia Announces Over $39 Million in Citrus County Budget as 'Excessive, Wasteful Spending,'" Florida Department of Financial Services, March 25, 2026.
- James Madison Institute, "Property Tax Relief in Florida: Challenges, Options, and the Path to True Homeownership," October 15, 2025.
