Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida's chief financial officer announced investigative subpoenas on Wednesday for Orange County employees accused of covering up taxpayer spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
CFO Blaise Ingoglia urged Orange County employees not to lie to his DOGE task force as questioning ramps up, threatening at an Orlando press conference to employ the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and digital forensic teams to determine whether county employees purposely renamed files related to DEI grants to "hide" them from Ingoglia.
"[We] are issuing investigative subpoenas for all documents related to these grant programs," Ingoglia said, noting that he'd signed the subpoenas immediately before the Wednesday afternoon press conference.
" In addition, I have issued investigative subpoenas for Orange County employees who we think were involved in the grant process...don't lie to us," he added.
Ingoglia did not disclose how many subpoenas were issued or to whom.
Wednesday's subpoenas are the latest and boldest move by Florida's new DOGE task force, which began auditing local governments in Alachua, Duval, Broward, and Manatee counties at the end of July.
It followed months of DeSantis pushing lawmakers to find a solution to eliminating property taxes, which can only be adjusted with a constitutional amendment.
DeSantis, along with top ally Ingoglia, has pointed the finger at various local governments for allegedly overspending and wasting taxpayer money. The subpoenas issued Wednesday are the first legal action the state has taken in the process of "DOGE-ing." It also marks the first time Florida's CFO, a traditionally quiet role, has pushed to the front of the news cycle.
"I know that you haven't seen CFOs necessarily flex this muscle in the past," DeSantis said Wednesday, but Ingoglia is a "fiscal pitbull."
The subpoenas came after the DOGE team found that Orange County employees were acting "shady," Ingoglia said. This includes an 80,000-person population increase while the budget has increased $560 million, and a call from within city government claiming employees were "tampering with documents to circumvent our review of their egregious spending."
The CFO continued, adding that they'd reviewed 1.2 million emails related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and none mentioned five of the six grants that Ingoglia said went to DEI-related programs.
"It's telling me that it is probable that we did have county employees try to hide some of this information," Ingoglia said.
But not all remain convinced. State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a leading Democrat from Orlando, accused the duo of distracting from Alligator Alcatraz, Florida's controversial migrant detention center.
"Sounds like another distraction of them losing the lawsuit on Alligator Alcatraz," Eskamani said in a text.
DeSantis first employed the DOGE task force at the end of July alongside Ingoglia, just days after the Spring Hill Republican was elevated to the CFO role. This came five months after DeSantis created a Florida DOGE task force to audit universities and eliminate state commissions for excessive spending.
DOGE stands for the Department of Governmental Efficiency, a new federal agency founded by tech billionaire Elon Musk before his embattled departure from the Trump administration. DOGE claims to have saved taxpayers over $190 billion.
