Miami isn’t alone in having an overspending problem, but it’s by far the worst example among local governments that Florida is auditing under its DOGE initiative, CFO Blaise Ingoglia says.
At an afternoon press conference in the “Magic City,” Ingoglia said that even after accounting for factors often cited in explaining bloating budgets — from inflation, population growth and money for more first responders to raises for law enforcement and general government employees — Miami “blew past” the appropriate spending number by $94 million.
“If this was a business, the city of Miami would go bankrupt,” he said. “This is money that should be back in the hands of the taxpayer and not in the hands of a government bureaucrat.”
Holding up posters displaying charts and figures in front of a room full of government, media and business attendees, Ingoglia went over what he called damning numbers.
Between 2019 and 2024, he said, Miami’s general fund budget ballooned by 44%, a $358 million uptick in five years.
“That’s more than double what we’re seeing (elsewhere),” he said. “Honestly, we had to go back through these numbers three, four, five times to make sure it’s right.”
Over those five years, Miami added 193 full-time employees — some first responders, but many in bureaucratic posts — as its population grew by just 23,000 residents. Every time someone moves to Miami, Ingoglia said, the city’s budget grows by $15,320.
Notably, Miami’s per-year budget breakdowns show a general fund of $763 million in 2019 and a general fund of $1.043 million in 2024 — a $280 million difference.
Ingoglia said he chose 2019 as a comparison date because it was the last normal year before COVID upended normal spending and budget metrics. Miami’s City Manager that year was Emilio González, who is running for Mayor with an endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis, with whom Ingoglia is closely allied. The following year, current City Manager Art Noriega took over.
Asked if the Department of Financial Services and DOGE would release its numbers to the public, Ingoglia said yes. He said local governments will no doubt try to mislead voters, but that it’s all subterfuge.
“They are going to cry. They are going to do everything they can to convince you, the taxpayer, that they need every single dollar,” he said. “(Miami) could have given all that money back to the taxpayers. But they chose not to. They chose to spend it. The taxpayers could have received a 0.05-mil reduction in their property taxes and not even have skipped a beat.”
Inspired by an identically named federal initiative launched under billionaire Elon Musk, DeSantis rolled out the Florida Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Task Force in February to slash state and local budgets and make government as “lean and efficient as possible.”
In the months that followed and under Ingoglia, a former Senator whom DeSantis tapped as Chief Financial Officer in July, the DOGE effort set its auditing sights on many local governments, including Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Orange counties, and cities like Miami, Jacksonville, St. Petersburg and Melbourne.
By Thursday’s press conference, Ingoglia said, DOGE has uncovered “more than $1.1 billion in wasteful, excessive spending” in this year alone across just eight localities. That’s after considering inflation, population growth, pay raises and other variables.
He likened the current overspending he says is rampant in Florida to a shift seen across the U.S. in the mid-2010s, when rising property values led to increased property tax revenue and, in turn, expanded governments that frequently mismanaged the extra funds it received.
It led to a “property tax revolt” in Florida, he continued, which ultimately resulted in the establishment of a second $25,000 homestead property tax exemption. But because of the way the exemption was designed, combined with soaring property values over the past decade, the tax exemption program that once relieved homeowners of as much as 33% of their property’s taxable value now covers about 9%.
Ingoglia opened the press conference by discussing not Miami’s alleged overspending but the general issue of property taxation — a priority shared by DeSantis and leaders in the Legislature ahead of the 2026 Session.
In February, the Governor called for higher homestead tax exemption levels and Ingoglia sprang into action, filing a pair of companion measures to raise the limit to $75,000. Neither bill was heard.
DeSantis has said he’d be open to wiping out property taxes altogether, something Ocala Republican Rep. Ryan Chamberlin proposed last year.
After the end of the Legislature’s protracted 2025 Session, House Speaker Daniel Perez — a Miami resident — assembled a Select Committee on Property Taxes to delve into the matter and produce actionable recommendations for delivering homeowners relief. The result came last week: a package of eight joint resolutions that would go directly to voters for approval if passed in the Legislature next year.
Chamberlin contemporaneously and separately filed the first of what he said is a three-bill package to roll back current property tax levels to 2022-23 levels.
DeSantis derided the House proposals on Wednesday as being part of a “political game” Perez, whom he’s frequently clashed with since Perez took the gavel late last year, is playing.
“Placing more than one property tax measure on the ballot represents an attempt to kill anything on property taxes,” the Governor said on X.
Perez fired back Thursday, noting that despite DeSantis’ stated support of delivering tax relief to Floridians, he “has not produced a plan” to do so and isn’t willing “to engage in a conversation” with House leadership to get it done.
“So when the Governor says he wants to ‘abolish’ property taxes. How? We don’t have any details,” he said. “We offered multiple proposals in good faith because it is unclear to us what — if anything — any other party is willing to do.”
Something needs to be done, said Americans for Prosperity Florida Strategic Director Rachel Moscoco, Ingoglia’s guest speaker at the Miami press conference.
“Property taxes are making it harder to live, work and thrive in the Sunshine State,” she said. “That’s why these audits matter … because informed citizens are empowered citizens. Let’s be bold, let’s be principled, and let’s be relentless in our pursuit of a Florida where home ownership is secure, government is lean and taxpayers are respected.”
A September report by the Florida Policy Institute found that eliminating property taxes statewide — the second-largest source of per capita revenue after federal transfers — would create a more than $50 billion budget hole for local governments. Ending property taxes only for homesteaded properties would result in a $18.5 billion reduction in county, municipal and district coffers.