TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — He is a well-known face for folk within the Tampa Bay space, however now his presence is being felt statewide.
Chief Monetary Officer Blaise Ingoglia and the state’s DOGE process power are ramping up investigation’s county by county. But, critics are calling into query his strategy to all of it.
“I’ll be on this workplace for 9 years, and I am telling native governments proper now my audit authority shouldn’t be going away,” Ingoglia mentioned. “I’ll be a pitbull in the case of spending and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.”
8 On Your Aspect requested the brand new CFO how a lot financial savings DOGE may have for Floridians.
“I believe it should rely on the federal government that we’re taking a look at,” Ingoglia mentioned.
Ingoglia mentioned some extra fiscally conservative areas will see much less financial savings from these DOGE inspections than the bigger counties which have a historical past of overtaxing.
“They can’t inform me that there is no waste, fraud, and abuse in there,” he mentioned. “There’s. We’ll discover it, and relaxation assured, if we do not discover it a primary go round, there might be a 2nd and a 3rd go round.”
Nevertheless, Florida Democrats inside the statehouse problem the motivation behind these investigations.
“What is the function of all of this? Simply to carry it over the heads and cargo it over our native governments. That is not proper,” mentioned Home Minority Chief Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa. “I believe as an alternative, the state needs to be within the enterprise of serving to our native authorities succeed, to not attempt to entrap them into failing, and by the way in which, it is all the time simple to seek out waste in any individual else’s price range. I believe that if the state needs to DOGE something, it ought to DOGE itself.”
As native DOGE investigations intensify, Florida is nearing peak hurricane season, and CFO Ingoglia assures of us again at residence the state is financially ready to deal with any approaching storms.
“I’ve briefed my group that the response boots on the bottom, it should be paramount to them,” he mentioned. “Each certainly one of our staff across the state know that they will be relocated to the areas the place the hurricanes hit to assist individuals fill out insurance coverage processing claims kinds and see what we will do to get them again entire as quickly as potential.”
Democrats argue again, saying the state’s checking account could also be financially sound, however that does not imply Florida households are outfitted for the subsequent storm to hit.
“There are households in our neighborhood proper right here in Tampa Bay that I characterize which are nonetheless attempting to place their lives collectively which are nonetheless not of their properties after the 2 hurricanes that we had final season,” Driskell mentioned.
There are additionally insurance coverage issues to dive into, particularly because the state awaits the subsequent hurricane.
“I mentioned all alongside that I’m not going to tolerate insurance coverage corporations for not doing what they’re contractually obligated to do,” Ingoglia mentioned. “They’ll hear from me. They’ll hear from my workplace. They’ll hear from the Workplace of Insurance coverage Regulation and Commissioner, Mike Yaworski. We will make it possible for they do what they are saying they will do.”
