TALLAHASSEE—No sooner than President-elect Donald Trump announced his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to root out federal government waste, incoming Speaker of the Florida House, Daniel Perez, announced that he would use the lower chamber in the Florida Legislature to clean out unnecessary spending at the state level fundamentally.
Speaker Perez made the announcement moments after being sworn in as Speaker of the House and pointed to the massive budgetary increase since he first entered the Florida Legislature.
During his first-ever press conference as Speaker, we asked Perez which state government agency he would start to scrutinize.
.@Daniel Perez Fl tells me he will start overhauling state government agencies #flpol pic.twitter.com/4G8w1irxv6
— Javier Manjarres (@JavManjarres) November 19, 2024
“I think everything has to have a deep dive. It doesn't matter what part of the budget you're in. We were at $82 billion when I entered the legislature— that was only seven years ago this was not a long time ago,” said Speaker Perez. “We have gotten close to $40 billion since then —that's a huge increase.”
Coincidentally, that increase Perez talks about occurred during Governor Ron DeSantis’ governorship.
Perez continued, saying that he was warning all government agencies that they would “be held accountable.”
“Everyone has to be held accountable. We have to have transparency. Where is the dollar being used? Why is it being used, and how is it being used across the board when we're looking into the budget-cutting state government,” he added.
Could Perez create a state-level "DOGE" agency, or could he work along Gov. DeSantis to create a similar accountabilty agency in Tallahassee?
The Florida legislative session begins in March 2025 and ends in May.
