Miami-Dade’s budget ripe for a probe, but is Florida DOGE our fiscal savior? | Opinion

At a first glance, the premise of the Florida DOGE’s probe into spending by Miami-Dade seems somewhat reasonable. The county is facing a $402 million budget shortfall that’s forcing deep spending cuts. As the Herald Editorial Board has written before, there’s a lingering question of whether Florida’s largest county should have better prepared for the end of federal pandemic funding and the expenses related to the creation of new constitutional offices such as the sheriff’s.

No one is against reducing waste. And the Florida DOGE — like President Trump’s DOGE, or Department of Governmental Efficiency — has the potential to actually be helpful if it acts in good faith and is truly interested in saving taxpayer dollars, rather than simply being a guise for a hatchet job against Miami-Dade’s Democratic mayor, Daniella Levine Cava.

“When local governments say that they cannot cut, we’re going to show them places that they can cut,” Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia has said.

There’s no way to argue Ingoglia’s point. But it’s undeniable that the creation of the Florida DOGE is a political act meant to appease Trump and his base and meet a political moment in American history that calls for slashing and burning our institutions. And it is state overreach at its worst, following a similar pattern of Tallahassee exerting more control over local decisions and eroding home rule.

Ingoglia renamed the state DOGE the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight, or FAFO, which also stands in popular culture for “f*** around and find out,” a suggestion of what the agency’s attitude may be.

The federal DOGE once overseen by Tesla’s Elon Musk took a scattershot approach to government efficiency, firing thousands of federal employees and pushing to eliminate agencies, but its results have been dubious. A Politico analysis found that DOGE saved less than 5% of its claimed savings from nearly 10,100 contract terminations, and that its “savings calculations are based on faulty math.”

That’s the hard reality of trying to cut government budgets. It’s easy to wave chainsaws in the air, as Musk did during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year. Making government better by trimming it is much harder, especially when you’re talking about programs that directly affect residents.

The letter Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration sent to Miami-Dade earlier this month announcing DOGE’s probe of local spending singled out green-energy efforts and the county’s spending to encourage racial diversity in hiring and contracting, the Herald reported. It would be a shame if all DOGE has to show for its work is that Miami-Dade is too “woke.” Let’t not forget that county budget decisions are made not only by Levine Cava but 13 commissioners, all of whom local voters put into office to do exactly that.

The time of Florida DOGE’s auditors would be much better spent doing the meticulous and nonpolitical work of combing through a $13 billion budget and analyzing why the county is facing an enormous budget deficit. Perhaps they will. But so far it doesn’t sound that way: The letter sent to the county, for example, asked for information on “traffic calming devices” the county installed since the end of 2022 but it’s unclear why or how that might help increase efficiency.

Levine Cava has defended her budget decisions, writing in an Aug. 5 statement, “Our county has undergone regular external audits, with findings made public and easily accessible to residents. Longstanding checks and balances, oversight committees, an open and transparent budgeting process, and community advisory boards ensure that taxpayer dollars are used responsibly.”

She also noted her administration will cooperate with the state but there’s no need for “politically driven investigations that could divert staff time away from critical services.”

We share Levine Cava’s concern. The Florida DOGE certainly has ulterior motives — but could something blatantly political can also achieve the common good? It’s possible, but, for now, that remains only a possibility.