ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Members of Florida\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency have started audits in St. Pete, but not without objection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is the latest round of reviews that has been happening around the state.<\/p>\n
Protesters began gathering outside City Hall on Wednesday, saying it should be people living in the city that should decide how the city spends its tax dollars, and not government officials in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Protesters began gathering outside City Hall on Wednesday, upset with a DOGE audit by the state
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They said the state should be focused on homeowners insurance, among other things; Council member calls the audit an overreach
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State CFO defends audit, saying he is “on delivering property tax relief to the state of Florida”
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DOGE hopes to have a report ready for the public in 60 days<\/p>\n
Instead, they want the state to fix the homeowners insurance problem, find solutions to the housing shortage and better prepare Florida for hurricanes.<\/p>\n
More than a dozen protesters showed up, calling the DOGE effort performance politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want the state government coming into the city to governments and telling them how to spend their budget money,\u201d said Greg Smith. \u201cLet the local people decide what we want to do with fertilizer, what we want to do with development.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another protester, Sharon Friedman, said: \u201cI really wanted to come out and draw attention to all the things that DOGE is doing and how, really, it\u2019s not really helping us. If anything, it\u2019s just causing a lot more chaos and a lot more trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg City Council member Brandi Gabbard said government efficiency is important, saying that through the budgetary process, the city has been as efficient as possible with taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n
She called the DOGE visit an overreach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that it tramples on home rule,\u201d Gabbard said. \u201cAnd I think that more than anything, putting our employees in the crosshairs gives me great concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia is heading up the DOGE audit team. He faced off against protesters during a press conference inside City Hall. He said the basis for the DOGE audit across the state is skyrocketing property taxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou guys can talk as long and loud as you want. I am hell bent on delivering property tax relief to the state of Florida,\u201d Ingoglia said. \u201cOnce we start going through the data, we\u2019re going to start identifying some of the things that are probably not a good use of taxpayer dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, Mayor Ken Welch called the DOGE visit a “successful first day.” A second day of DOGE audits will happen Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs stated when we first received the request, the City is complying with all DOGE requests and will provide any additional information or clarification as needed,” Welch said. “As we continue through this process, our main priority remains inclusive progress for our city, based on our shared values, and moving\u00a0 forward with clarity, purpose and integrity.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
DOGE hopes to have a report ready for the public in 60 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Members of Florida\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency have started audits in St. Pete, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3140,274,2968,115,596,99,275,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-4218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-politics","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4218","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=4218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}