Florida’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will be in Pensacola to audit the City of Pensacola next week, August 18-19. The Florida DOGE was established by Gov. Ron DeSantis to uncover governmental waste at the municipal level.
However, the question that has floated around Pensacola since we broke the story yesterday is why target Pensacola, a city of less than 54,000 people.
Other cities specifically targeted by Florida DOGE are much larger:
- Jacksonville: 1.01 million
- Orlando: 334,854
- St. Petersburg:267,102
- Gainesville: 148,720
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves doesn’t appear to be concerned. “We appreciate the significant investments made by Gov. DeSantis and his team in Pensacola, and we look forward to working with the DOGE team on their efforts and our shared mission to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar.”
Three Theories
1. Mayor Reeves’ Endorsement of Byron Donalds
In June, the mayor officially endorsed Congressman Byron Donalds for governor, adding another high-profile endorsement to Donalds’ campaign that already enjoys President Donald Trump’s backing.
- Speaking to reporters, Mayor Reeves made his support clear and personal: “I consider Byron and Erika Donalds friends. I’ve gotten to know her a lot this year in Leadership Florida, and she’s doing amazing things in education. I think Byron is a great guy who’s earned everything that he’s gotten. Just an impressive family. And yeah, he has my full support. I think he’s an amazing guy and I think he’ll be a great governor.”
First Lady Casey DeSantis is still being mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2026.
2. Community Pushback Over DeSantis UWF Trustee Appointments
Gov. DeSantis hasn’t been pleased that Save Our UWF and others have pushed back against his takeover of the University of West Florida. He has only made one appearance in Pensacola this year, and it was to defend Hope Florida and blast UWF at Pensacola State College.
3. Salzman Put Pensacola on DOGE’s Radar
Earlier this month, Rep. Michelle Salzman bragged on Facebook that she had asked Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia to audit Escambia County, paying close attention to the Escambia Children’s Trust and the Escambia County School Board. Salzman has inadvertently – or intentionally – put her “favorite mayor” on their radar.
CFO Holds “Chilling” Presser
The Tampa Bay Times reports Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia announced at a press conference on Monday that his Department of Government Efficiency team has found “egregious examples of waste, fraud and abuse.” He warned local officials that this is a “long-term” effort, not a temporary initiative.
- Tampa Bay area officials have pushed back, with Pinellas County commissioners arguing the reviews don’t account for unfunded state mandates and grants when examining budget increases. The DOGE team cited a $220 million property tax increase in Pinellas since 2020.
Ingoglia said he and Gov. Ron DeSantis agreed on eliminating property taxes on primary residences statewide. However, DeSantis vetoed spending $1 million for state economists to study the effects of eliminating or significantly reducing property taxes. The CFO said he expects a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes to be on the November 2026 ballot.
- The state plans to create an anonymous tip line for reporting wasteful spending and warned local governments against changing terminology around diversity programs to hide spending. Ingoglia emphasized the team has subpoena power and will complete reports within 60 days of each review.
Featured Photo by saeed karimi on Unsplash
There should lots of employees, and X employees, lining up to speak with DOGE reps. To me, major decisions involving staffing, pay, and classification are being made by the Mayor without benefit of professional advice or Ethical considerations. Finance and HR should be major players in righting the ship but only appear to be collaborators……BTW, merit pay and performance standards went out the window when the new mayor took took over leadership of policy and internal practices of the City!
Now the tax payers and DOGE are seeing the results!
Gotta comment about a couple things. There’s too much invasiveness going on around here. Too many cameras. Shouldn’t that be a concern tall. And that money should pay property taxes. Did we vote on this. They are placing them on back roads. Snapping pics on 8 and half mile road . 2 places around 9 mile I see them back roads should be off limits y’all. Not red light there. It’s invasive to residents. Also gas stations price gouging lately. And look at whose in them running them? I’m not understanding why noone says anything about foreigners running most of stores in Pensacola?.
Ok. Why are they coming. We need them. Can’t wait to see what they do. Sit tight get out the pop corn. And if you gave out money or got money hiding they gonna find it. Lol. Why are people upset. We need people come in to keep thing on up and up . Enjoy your day. Welcome to Pensacola!?
How stupid does Salzman think we are. Well maybe she’s thinking of her supporters. So she invites doge reps to Pensacola for Blie Wahoos and other attractions and oh by the way you might want to audit local city government while you’re here. Crazy.
She did this for the same reason DeSantis was threatening UWF…solely political reasons. They both have further political ambitions and since this is the most conservative part of the state…need to shore their base up any way they can. Playing and manipulating for political gain. Nothing more and nothing less.
My, those must be some superhuman auditors working some bad ass tech to barge down those doors and have all that “auditing” done in a couple of days.
Or maybe they already know what they are planning on “revealing”, and what state money they are going to claw back, all the while laughing up their sleeves for admonishing left-leaning municipalities for handing gentrification over to developers on a silver platter, which is exactly what the Florida GOP wants. Hell, they’ve mandated it.
What a joke.
As one of DC’s most vocal critics of the Baptist demo, and not a fan of his increasing strong-arm tantrum way of conducting himself, it took me a day or so to walk myself back from the ledge of “Welp he deserves it if anyone” and “This is gonna be fun” back to the correct ethical and moral place, which is that nobody–no individual and no collective body–should be the target of governmental terrorism in this country.
The Baptist demo doesn’t require an audit, for anyone who can read and who isn’t highly suspectible to gaslighting. Pretty simply, it did not conform to state statute.
There so many levels of tragedy with what is happening, people who ought to know better celebrating this garbage is just one of the saddest. Note to all good peope: you can’t justify supporting the inanity, resource suck, staff stress, recklessness, authoritarian destruction, and collateral damage of DOGE just when it falls on political opponents. Not if you are going to have a claim to being a right actor. It just doesn’t work that way.
These audits are dog and pony show farce of the first order, and although I myself am having trouble with the temptation of revelling in Salzman’s boneheaded moves catching up her Best Boy (I can just imagine the syrup sliding out of the phone on *that* call), our historical moment calls for holding rigid standards of democracy, the rule of law, and proper process–not to mention home rule–when it comes to *EVERYBODY*.
If these were going to be real audits, performed by skilled and objective forensic accountants, by the *proper* authority, one who is acting completely apart from any political bias–sure, it would be nice to have some obvious glaring questions–starting with procurement in Escambia Schools going back 20 years–settled.
That is not, of course, what this is, and anybody preparing to accept the results of a cherry picked witch hunt needs to have their heads examined. The only thing that remains to be seen, now that the huxster shock and awe announce has passed, is what part shake up, what part shake down, and what part white wash will make up the predetermined results. Nobody should be celebrating this breakdown of democracy. But I guess we are at the phase where we are going to find out who is going to jump the authoritarian bandwagon, and who isn’t.
Such a horrible and shocking thing to witness. And it has only just started.