Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, trying to move on from his election-year feud with President Donald Trump, has praised the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency task force seeking to dismantle federal agencies and fire thousands of civil servants, saying DOGE has pierced government workers' "aura of invincibility" and even bragging his own administration was "DOGE before DOGE was cool."
Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives, however, do not agree. And they turned the heat up on DeSantis as they seek to root out waste and abuse in his office, Politico reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, lawmakers "criticized one agency because it can’t tell legislators how many cars the state owns. Agency secretaries were found to be working remotely even though their main headquarters are in Tallahassee. And a House panel discovered one agency spent tens of thousands of dollars on travel expenses for four state employees who aren’t living in Florida. Other budget panels are also asking questions about the number of vacant positions across multiple state agencies and whether those jobs can be eliminated."
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State House Speaker Daniel Perez said of the investigation, “We are the guardians of the taxpayer.”
DeSantis, a one-time GOP rising star who has wielded significant influence over America's third-most populous state, has increasingly had to deal with a rift between himself and the Republican-dominated state legislature.
At the start of the year, Florida lawmakers rebelled against DeSantis' demand for a broad-ranging special session, limiting the session only to illegal immigration, and also rejecting some of his ideas for beefed-up enforcement. They are also considering legislation that would take away the power of DeSantis appointees to hire and fire state university presidents, following years of DeSantis' ideology-driven reorganizations of public higher education facilities.
Trump's DOGE has yet to uncover significant waste or fraud, with its so-called "wall of receipts" documenting taxpayer money savings found to be riddled with errors and misrepresentations.
