{"id":241496,"date":"2026-04-22T07:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/241496\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:58:10","slug":"4-billion-dispute-arises-over-countys-true-spending-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/241496\/","title":{"rendered":"$4 billion dispute arises over county\u2019s true spending level"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"www.miamitodaynews.com\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Written by Miami Today<\/a> on April 22, 2026<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"$4<\/p>\n

Officials differ by $4 billion about the true size of Miami-Dade\u2019s budget as well as what data the public may see, unveiling of a new spending dashboard revealed.<\/p>\n

Asked by Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins the scope of the county budget last week, the commission\u2019s auditor told her $17 million and the county\u2019s chief administrative officer said $13.2 billion.<\/p>\n

For more than an hour the Intergovernmental and Economic Committee grappled with the gap, finally calling for one-on-one meetings to reveal the facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget book excludes certain numbers, but the calculation that we have and we\u2019re working with the administration on is a reflection of the total expenses of all the departments, which is probably closer to about $17 billion,\u201d the auditor who works directly for commissioners, Yinka Majekodunm, said in explaining a tool his department created for commissioners to monitor spending as it occurs, department by department.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe passed a budget of $13.23 billion just a few months ago, but you\u2019re saying that our budget is closer to $17 billion?\u201d said Ms. Cohen Higgins. \u201cI\u2019m not sure how that can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number that you\u2019re familiar with excludes certain transactions,\u201d Mr. Majekodunm said. \u201cBut in doing the dashboard, our goal was to pull every single transaction in the expenditure of every single department \u2026 and that number is bigger than the number that you\u2019re familiar with, and that number is closer to 17 than 13,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis seems absolutely absurd,\u201d said the newest commissioner, Vicki Lopez, who until recently was a state legislator. \u201cAt the state we have a much bigger budget and what is eventually passed \u2026 whatever is left is exactly, to the penny, what executive agencies have as their budget and what they can spend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it doesn\u2019t match, there\u2019s something wrong,\u201d Ms. Lopez continued. \u201cBecause if you appropriate a certain money, that is all you are authorized to spend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur budget has been transparent,\u201d said Chief Administrative Officer Carladenise Edwards, an aide to the mayor, whose office created the budget. \u201cWhat we have here is a discrepancy between the budget that you approved and the dashboard that\u2019s been created. That will and can be resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certain spending is excluded from the \u201c$13.2 billion that is the annual individual operating expenditures for each county department,\u201d Ms. Edwards said. It excludes inter-agency revenues \u201cso that we could avoid double counting and falsely inflating the budget.\u201d She went on to list types of non-operating expenditures that aren\u2019t in the $13.2 billion.<\/p>\n

Beyond the commission, its auditor and the mayor\u2019s office, an independent office weighed in on the budget\u2019s real scope.<\/p>\n

The Clerk of the Court and Controller\u2019s Office, which audits county spending, was not contacted as Mr. Majekodunm created the dashboard that revealed that total spending is $17 billion, far larger than ever reported. \u201cWe don\u2019t know how he is putting the information together,\u201d said Barbara Galvez, chief administrative officer for that independent office.<\/p>\n

Several commissioners asked how the dashboard could be made public. Ms. Edwards was firm that the data remain out of view, saying \u201cI would urge us not to make anything public that has not been vetted appropriately by the departments, by the clerk and by the comptroller.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioners leveled no accusations in the $4 billion discrepancy, as Roberto Gonzalez noted \u201cI don\u2019t think any of us are assuming that anything nefarious is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advertisement Written by Miami Today on April 22, 2026 Officials differ by $4 billion about the true size…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-241496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}