Jacksonville spent $54 million more on bike lanes than on fire and rescue.
Now a Florida audit team just walked into city halls across the state and found equity officers, Pride budgets, and sidewalk projects billed at eight times market rate – all on the taxpayer’s dime.
But Ron DeSantis caught them with their hands in the cookie jar, and the receipts are jaw-dropping.
FL-DOGE Sends Auditors Into Cities and Finds What Democrats Tried to Hide
DeSantis established the Florida Department of Government Efficiency in February 2025 through Executive Order 25-44, appointing Eric Soskin – Harvard Law graduate and former U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general – to lead it.
The task force's first move was finding $878 million in unused federal dollars and returning every cent to the Treasury.
Then audit teams fanned out across Florida – hitting Broward County, Gainesville, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Orange, Manatee, and Duval counties – and what they found was infuriating.
https://twitter.com/RobertJSalvador/status/2076708696080421093?s=20
St. Petersburg was paying a chief equity officer $219,000 a year and an LGBTQ+ coordinator $87,000, while dropping more than $100,000 every year on Pride events.
Miami-Dade had budgeted a $9 million "art allowance" for a detention center.
Orlando was routing taxpayer money to a nonprofit that helps illegal immigrants dodge deportation.
Jacksonville funded one mile of sidewalk for $7.5 million – more than eight times what the Florida Department of Transportation says the job should cost.
DeSantis didn't just expose it.
He named names, published the receipts, and handed the findings to the legislature.
The AI Pilot Program That Spent $4,900 and Found $32 Million
FL-DOGE didn't stop at auditing – it launched AI pilot programs to turn the model into something every conservative governor in America could replicate.
In Manatee County, officials partnered with Promota.ai to run AI agents through roughly $5 billion in public transactions and spending budgets.
The software caught government contractors still collecting on expired licenses, agencies paying for the same software twice, and fraud patterns buried so deep in the data that no human team would have found them.
https://twitter.com/IanJaeger29/status/1902115253334274237?s=20
The result – between $15 million and $50 million in annual savings identified, with an average of $32 million.
Total cost to Manatee County: $4,900.
Think about what that means: a piece of software did in weeks what an army of auditors couldn't find in years – and it cost less than a used car.
This is the playbook Democrats don't want other governors to see – because once AI starts running through their budgets, the game is over.
The Florida Playbook Is Already Spreading to 26 States
At least 26 states have launched DOGE-style efficiency programs of their own – including Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Georgia.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas DOGE into law in April 2025.
Oklahoma's governor issued an executive order placing a chief DOGE adviser inside every state agency with full access to budgets, operations, and IT systems.
Iowa completed a sweeping government restructuring in 2023 – cutting hundreds of positions and using the savings to fund tax cuts for residents.
Federal DOGE under Elon Musk reported $215 billion in savings by January 2026 – roughly $1,335 back in the pocket of every taxpayer.
https://twitter.com/NicoleHuyer/status/2076680433924751627?s=20
Florida's operation proves the model works at every level of government, not just in Washington.
DeSantis has meanwhile vetoed $1.6 billion from Florida's fiscal year 2026–27 budget – on top of paying down over one-third of the state's total debt and maxing out the rainy-day fund since taking office in 2019.
Under his leadership, Florida runs the lowest ratio of state government workers to population in the country – and still outperforms comparable states on services.
The left wants you to believe government efficiency is impossible and that every dollar the government spends is essential.
If your governor isn't doing this, ask why.
Sources:
- Nicole Huyer and Christopher Lynch, "Florida's DOGE Has Promoted Government Efficiency Under DeSantis," The Daily Signal, July 13, 2026.
- Eric Soskin, "Leading the DOGE Effort at the State Level, Florida Continues to Exemplify Effective Governance," James Madison Institute, April 7, 2026.
- "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Florida DOGE Efforts," Executive Office of the Governor of Florida, February 24, 2025.
- "Florida DOGE Puts Boots on the Ground in Gainesville and Broward County," Executive Office of the Governor of Florida, July 31, 2025.
- "The DOGE Effect: Making Government Lean Again," The Daily Signal, May 21, 2026.
