DOGE for thee, not for DeSantis: Who’s following $1 billion immigration bill? | Opinion

Where’s FAFO when you need it?

Remember FAFO? Last year, Florida’s recently-appointed Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia made a big splash with a new agency to DOGE and shame local governments for overspending tax dollars. Republicans got a big kick out of its acronym. It stands for the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight — but also “f--- around and find out.”

Florida taxpayers could use some FAFOing of the whopping $1 billion in contracts Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has signed in the past year for his immigration enforcement efforts, as the Herald reported Friday.

Most of those contracts were for building and maintaining Alligator Alcatraz, the tent-and-trailer immigration detention center DeSantis hastily built in the middle of the Everglades last year. The center is expected to be shuttered soon. The rest went to a facility in North Florida known as Deportation Depot.

That’s enough money to give every public school teacher in the state a $6,000 bonus, according to the Herald. Alligator Alcatraz cost as much as the response to three hurricanes between 2022 and 2024 cost the governor’s emergency fund.

The immigration enforcement money went to contractors, without a competitive bidding process, to help DeSantis look tough on immigration. The state hasn’t yet paid out most of the contracts, but how are your tax dollars projected to be spent?

The largest contract went to a company called Doodie Calls, which accounted for $219 million across the two state-run immigration detention facilities, the Herald reported. Those are your state dollars working hard to provide — portable toilets?

It’s no secret that building a detention center in the Everglades presented infrastructure challenges — crucially, what to do with human waste in this environmentally sensitive place. But we doubt many Floridians would agree that those costs are justified in a state facing an affordability and property insurance crisis.

DeSantis and the Republicans in charge of state government have made a big stink about what they describe as the lack of fiscal responsibility of cities and counties. They recently placed a measure on the November ballot to slash taxes for homesteaded properties. If voters approve it, local governments will lose part of the tax revenue that pays for public safety, libraries, infrastructure and other basic services.

Meanwhile, Florida is projected to face budget deficits in upcoming years. House and Senate leaders bragged about tightening spending in the state budget they just passed. At the same time, they have mostly turned a blind eye to DeSantis’ spending frenzy.

Florida has already spent at least $335 million to pay out some of those 55 contracts, the Herald reported. The money came from an emergency fund the Legislature created after the pandemic, which allows the governor to spend tax dollars with less oversight. Florida expects a $608 million federal reimbursement for its immigration enforcement efforts, but so far, it has received only $58 million, the Herald reported.

A $1 billion price tag should raise red flags for any conservative lawmaker or state CFO. If DeSantis didn’t have such a strong hold on Florida politics, we’re sure state auditors and legislative committees would have been aggressively asking questions about the governor’s spending. Alas, that’s not the Florida of today.

This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 1:54 PM.