The state’s government waste task force, Florida DOGE, ordered the Broward Sheriff’s Office to turn over mountains of financial records on the same day the law enforcement agency asked the county government for a $103 million increase in its annual budget.
In a May 28 letter to Sheriff Gregory Tony, the Department of Governmental Efficiency demanded information by June 11 on, among other things, every construction contract; every purchase over $5,000; software licenses; salary and benefits for all non-law enforcement personnel; records on the purchase of three helicopters; and contracts for the salary studies BSO has relied on in negotiations with the county and every municipality where it provides law enforcement and fire-rescue services.
Tony invited the audit in conversations with the DOGE team, according to the letter.
It’s the kind of information public officials have repeatedly said they would want to see as they decide whether to accept Tony’s growing funding requests. Last year he asked the county for a 9% funding increase and received a 3% bump to $833 million. This year, he all but renewed last year’s rejected request and built on it, submitting a 2027 budget request that is 12.4% higher than the adopted budget for 2026.
Deerfield Beach decided to restart its own police and fire-rescue service in 2027 rather than meet Tony’s funding requests.
County Mayor Mark Bogen asked representatives of the Sheriff’s Office at a budget workshop on Thursday whether they would agree to an audit. Under current law, once the county approves funding for the Sheriff’s Office, the sheriff has the ability to move funds around to spend as he sees fit, answering to no one, county elected officials say. That kind of power, they say, undermines accountability.
“That’s what we’ve just asked for at our meeting,” Bogen said on Friday. “I have no problem with any county government being audited. If the state can get things that we can’t get, that has to be a good thing.”
No one brought up the DOGE letter at Thursday’s budget workshop, and neither Bogen nor Commissioner Steve Geller knew about it until contacted late Friday afternoon.
Tony “keeps saying we need more for salaries. We’ve given him money for salaries, but he’s shifted it into other areas,” Geller said on Friday. “Hopefully, somehow, we’ll now be able to get the numbers.”
The DOGE team, modeled after the effort by Elon Musk to root out overspending at the federal level, visited Broward County last year and concluded the local government spending growth was outpacing inflation at an unacceptably high rate, promising a later more detailed outline of local waste.
Both the federal and state DOGE efforts have been criticized by Democrats as efforts to label spending priorities as “wasteful” if they disagree with the president or the governor’s agenda. The Florida DOGE effort has been cited as part of the governor’s effort to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish taxes for homesteaded properties.
Earlier this week, the city of Fort Lauderdale was given until June 23 to provide records for a DOGE review.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office supplied the Sun Sentinel with a copy of the May 28 letter in response to a public records request but did not issue a further comment. It did not disclose as of early Friday evening whether the office had met the DOGE deadline.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.