Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Credit: Photo via Shutterstock

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan for a Florida version of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” to root out excessive government spending would include auditing local governments budgets.

And in the future, the governor mused on Monday, the state could at some point outright eliminate the ability of those local governments to collect property taxes.

“I think that a lot of these local budgets have ballooned in recent years,” DeSantis said while speaking at the Vault in downtown Tampa. “I think that there’s been a lot of spending. I don’t know that the taxpayers have always had a seat at the table. I don’t know that the visibility on how the money has been spent has been very good. But we’re going to find out.”

DeSantis said his “DOGE” state task force would investigate local government expenditures using publicly available county and municipal spending records to provide such information “in a digestible way for the taxpayers throughout the state of Florida.”

The governor said he has been in talks with House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton about enacting legislation to grant the DOGE team enforcement power “so that these municipalities and counties have to comply” with audits using artificial intelligence over the next year.

The Florida DOGE program would eliminate a net of at least 740 state positions and more than 70 state boards and commissions that audit state universities and local governments. He also wants to scrutinize programs as public colleges and universities.

While not part of the DOGE plan, the governor went on to expand on comments he made on social media last week about escalating property taxes. He began by explicitly reminding the public that it’s not the state that holds power to raise such taxes, but in fact local governments, which can tax more when the assessed values of homes increase.

“The reality is, you don’t really know how much your home is worth until someone offers you money and is willing to pull the trigger on a sale,” the governor said. “That’s how a market works. You can say it’s worth this much, but if no one’s going to come and offer you that much, why should you pay taxes on that?”

A bill (SB 852) has already been filed going into the 2025 legislative session by Lee County Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin that would require the Office of Economic and Demographic Research to study the elimination of property taxes. To do that, the measure would have to go before state voters in a constitutional amendment and win approval of 60% of voters.

The governor said that Florida’s homestead property tax exemption, which can reduce the assessed value of a homeowner’s residence by as much as $50,000, can’t provide enough protections for homeowners (separately, a proposal Hernando County Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (SB 1018) introduced on Monday would increase the homestead tax exemption to $75,000 of assessed valuation for all levies).

DeSantis added that the idea of “ponying up money to the government just for the courtesy of using your own property” is a different type of tax than any other, comparing it unfavorably to the immediate one-time tax a consumer pays when purchasing an item. He did not discuss what sources would need to be tapped to make up for that loss of revenue.

Local governments unhappy

The idea of eliminating property taxes isn’t going over well with some local elected officials and policy research groups.

“Maybe the worst idea of the year to come out of Tallahassee,” Tampa City Council member Luis Viera said last week after DeSantis floated the proposal.

“Local property taxes fund your firefighters, fire stations, police officers, and other public safety measures. They fund stormwater infrastructure improvements. And they help fund your public schools,” Viera wrote on his Facebook page. “Replacing property taxes with sales taxes would be a punitive hit on the vulnerable through a tax that is even more regressive.”

If the voters eliminate property taxes in Florida, policymakers would need to raise $43 billion to maintain public services now funded with property tax revenue, according to the Florida Policy Institute in a report issued Monday.

The governor noted that Florida’s homestead property tax exemption can’t provide enough protections for homeowners.

“Property taxes are skyrocketing, and Floridians are demanding relief,” Ingoglia said in a written statement about his legislation. “The current homestead exemption doesn’t cut it anymore. That’s why I’m filing for a new $75,000 homestead exemption that will be adjusted for inflation every year. When your home value goes up, so does your exemption. If approved by the voters, it will be the largest property tax cut in the history of Florida at $2.6B.”

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2025.