Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday a new state program modeled after the federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
“I’m excited about this effort to take some of what we’ve seen in Washington that they’re doing with Elon Musk and apply it to Florida,” DeSantis was quoted as saying by Tampa reporters.
The one-year plan calls for eliminating 900 positions, as well as 70 state boards and commissions. It will also require state universities to conduct independent reviews and audits to track spending, particularly for Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion programs and classes deemed “unnecessary.”
The governor also called for budget reviews at the local, city, and county levels, utilizing advanced technology and artificial intelligence to identify unnecessary spending and contracts.
“I think taxpayers need to have a seat at the table in Washington and for too long, nobody has cared about the taxpayers and the next generation that is ultimately going to have to pay for this mismanagement that we have seen over these many years,” DeSantis tweeted.
In 2006, Florida voters approved a government efficiency task force as part of a state constitutional amendment. The working committee “is required to meet every four years for the purpose of developing recommendations to improve governmental operations and reduce costs.”
On Monday, Democratic Orlando state Rep. Anna Eskamani blasted DeSantis and the Florida DOGE Task Force.
“The problems are the fact that we have a broken unemployment system, that we don’t have regulation of insurance companies and their predatory and fraudulent behavior, so there’s a lot of areas where we could cut costs,” Eskamani said. “Unfortunately, a lot of it is created by Gov. Ron DeSantis.”
The Governor’s DOGE Task Force would only be in place for one year, ending in 2026, as DeSantis prepares to leave office for his second and final term.
“Today, we are formalizing a Florida DOGE task force to go even further,” DeSantis wrote in a Monday X post. “Federal DOGE efforts have demonstrated the power of cutting edge technology, and I look forward to Florida’s DOGE task force doing even more for taxpayers.”
In just one month since President Trump’s inauguration, DOGE has exposed wasteful spending, tackled the entrenched bureaucracy, and challenged the way the federal government operates. We’ve been doing these things in Florida since I took office, but today, we are formalizing a… pic.twitter.com/Dnxof9eva8— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 24, 2025
