CITY OF PENSACOLA / ACCOUNTABILITY

Florida DOGE Comes Back for More: State Demands Pensacola’s P-Card Logs, Payroll Data and Contract Files by June 26

The Department of Government Efficiency wants nine categories of city financial and personnel records — and is invoking a state law that allows penalties for a late response.

The Florida Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is back asking Pensacola city government for records.

In a letter dated June 16, addressed to City Clerk Burnett, DOGE Team Lead Eric J. Soskin and Office of Policy and Budget Director Leda Kelly requested nine categories of financial and personnel records covering the period from July 1, 2025, to the present. Read June Letter to Pensacola.

What the state is asking for

The request, addressed to the city clerk, covers nine broad categories:

• Purchase card transactions — every P-card charge across all departments since July 1, 2025, including cardholder name, vendor, amount and stated business purpose.
• Change orders — every contract modification, including dollar value, percentage increase over the original award, justification and who approved it.
• Sole-source and non-competitive contracts — vendor names, EINs and the written justification for skipping competitive bidding.
• Emergency purchases — vendor information, written emergency justification, and documentation of after-the-fact ratification.
• Small and disadvantaged business participation — committed versus actual subcontractor participation on city contracts, including substitutions and payment timing.
• Vendor payment timing — invoice-by-invoice data for every contract over $50,000, tracking how long the city took to pay.
• A full vendor master list — FEINs, NAICS codes, registered agents and parent-company affiliations.
• A personnel snapshot — for every filled and vacant city position: salary, pay range, job classification, department, supervisor, funding source and telework status.
• Supporting contract documents — executed base contracts, change order amendments and purchase orders, delivered as machine-readable exports rather than scanned PDFs.

DOGE’s preference, stated directly in the letter, is not just document production. The state asked the city to “make available read-only electronic access to the relevant data systems” so its team “can download information directly” rather than wait on records pulled and exported by city staff.

The deadline — and the penalty language

DOGE asked the city to turn over the records by Friday, June 26—10 days from the date of the letter. The letter closes with a reminder that, under the same budget proviso cited as DOGE’s authority, “financial penalties may accrue for an untimely response or failure to comply with the request for this information.”

The City’s response

City Administrator David Stafford replied the next day, June 17, in a letter to Soskin and Kelly acknowledging receipt of the request. Stafford framed the city’s posture as cooperative, writing that the administration “shares your commitment to transparency and efficiency in government” and is “happy to share the information requested, as we shared in previous visits with the DOGE team — and as we are any time we are asked.”

Stafford’s letter was copied to Mayor D.C. Reeves. Read FL DOGE Acknowledgement June 2026