Cragin Mosteller interviewed Steven Geller and Lee Constantine at the Florida Association of Counties 2025 legislative conference in Tampa, Florida on Nov. 19, 2025. Credit: Mitch Perry / Florida Phoenix
TAMPA — Two longtime former state lawmakers who now serve in local government don’t think much of the audits of their counties’ spending conducted by Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia’s office in recent months.
Since being appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the position in July, Ingoglia has held press conferences in some of the state’s cities and counties, where he has aggressively called out alleged overspending. It’s been a central feature of the state’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts, later rebranded by Ingoglia as the Florida Agency For Fiscal Oversight (FAFO).
The media events are also a way to plug a (still to be written) constitutional amendment for the 2026 ballot that likely will ask Floridians if they support reducing or possibly eliminating property taxes on homestead properties.
“We’re not going away,” Ingoglia said during a press conference in Seminole County in September. “We’re going to continue beating this drum from now up until the time that we get actual property tax reform on the ballot in 2026.”
Seminole County Republican County Commissioner Lee Constantine isn’t impressed.
“This whole thing is a made-for-television event, and it’s specifically made for television for the CFO’s reelection,” he said Wednesday during the Florida Association of Counties 2025 legislative meeting. That’s where he and Broward County Democratic County Commissioner Steven Geller traded stories about their counties’ FAFO audits.
Geller, who served in both chambers of the Legislature for 20 years (1988-2018), criticized the calculations Ingoglia’s office derived to allege that Broward has indulged in $189 million in “wasteful spending” over the past five years.
“Check the numbers,” he said. “Because they are fictitious. Made-up. Phony. False.”
Constantine, too, questioned the accuracy of some of the CFO’s numbers for Seminole County. He found it telling that, when a local reporter asked Ingoglia to provide specific examples of alleged waste, “He couldn’t answer specifically where he got it, referring to the suggestion his county had indulged in $48 million in excessive and wasteful spending.”
“He also could not answer all this money we were overspending. Give us one example. Just one.”
Similar criticism has come from additional local governments that have received a FAFO audit. The CFO has said that he ultimately will come forward with thosse details.
The governor’s office did release a statement on Oct. 1 with 10 specific examples of such alleged overspending by local governments around the state, such as the city of Jacksonville spending $75,000 for a hologram of Mayor Donna Deegan greeting travelers at Jacksonville International Airport in multiple languages.
(Deegan responded in a written statement; “Mayors greet travelers at airports across the country and use multimedia platforms to promote their cities as tourist destinations. This is just a new and innovative way to do that.”)
The Seminole audit came shortly after the five-member Seminole County Commission — all Republicans — voted 4-1 to increase the base property tax rate by 0.5 mills in the face of a $35 million budget deficit, a 10% increase over the previous year.
Constantine defended the increase Wednesday, saying it was the county’s first in 16 years. He went on to say that the commission sent Ingoglia a letter immediately after he held his press conference but didn’t receive an immediate response.
“Crickets,” he said.
Days later, Seminole County went public in a press release.
“On October 7, the CFO’s Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO) presentation alleged that County spending exceeds an index he created based on population growth and inflation,” part of the release said. “However, the CFO’s model ignores more than $120 million of state-imposed mandates and essential services that Seminole County is legally required to fund.”
Ingoglia then “started calling some of our prominent citizens … and asked if they would endorse him for CFO. And they all said, ‘Not until you make it right in Seminole County,’” Constantine continued.
That’s when the CFO sent a letter to the county commissioners, thanking them for their efforts and saying that “no future action” was needed on their part, other than to “continue to look out for the taxpayers of Seminole County.”
Constantine is actually grateful for the whole exercise, because he says it allowed county officials to further inform their citizens about the need for the property tax increase. “The CFO did not move the needle in my county at all,” he said. “In fact, after our response, it was much more positive for the tax increase than it was before.”
Advice for other counties
When asked what advice they would give other counties facing similar scrutiny, Geller said it’s incumbent that “you get the information out to your voters.”
“We all know this is only being done as part of the governor’s tax elimination package for ad valorem taxes, and you have to start attacking those numbers,” he added.
The answer is not to respond directly to the CFO’s office.
“They’re not going to apologize,” Constantine said. “They’re not going to change their mind. They’re not going to say, ‘Oh, we now studied the numbers and this county is doing great.’ So, your real response is to your citizens, and letting them know exactly where your money is being spent, and why it’s being spent, and that’s something that we have to do every day, anyway.”
The Phoenix reached out to CFO Ingoglia’s office for comment.
“The CFO’s message to these big government apologists is clear: Stop lying to the taxpayers and stop wasting money to the tune of tens of hundreds of millions of dollars each year,” said Sydney Booker, communications director for Ingoglia.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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