Jacksonville City Council member Terrance Freeman addresses the Duval County Coalition of Black Republican Americans on July 25, 2024. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on April 7, 2025 at 12:33 pm
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A Jacksonville City Council member wants to add Florida’s state-level DOGE task force to a growing list of audits and reviews of the city’s finances, an add-on the mayor’s office says only duplicates other efforts.
Terrance Freeman, an at-large Republican, has filed legislation that volunteers the city for audit by the Florida Department of Government Efficiency task force created by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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Resolution 2025-0259, scheduled to be introduced at Tuesday’s council meeting, asks the governor’s DOGE team to review the city and Duval County’s budget and expenditures and make recommendations to eliminate any waste, fraud and abuse. The bill also voices overal support for DeSantis’ executive order forming the Florida DOGE.
“Taxpayers deserve confidence that their money is being spent wisely,” Freeman said in a news release. “By voluntarily inviting the Governor’s DOGE team to examine Jacksonville’s books, we’re embracing accountability and actively seeking ways to trim government waste, improve efficiency, and pass savings along to the taxpayers.”
If approved by the full council, it would be one of at least four financial reviews underway by the council and Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration, including the 2025-26 fiscal year budget process.
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The council’s Independent External Auditor Selection Committee met April 1 to hear scoring from a request for proposals to hire an external auditor that will conduct a full review of the city accounts and financial transactions.
The Council Auditor’s Office is in contract negotiations with the top scoring accounting firm, Carr, Riggs & Ingram, for that annual process required by the City Charter.
Added in Council Finance Committee Chair Ron Salem’s local DOGE committee, a spokesperson for Deegan’s office says Freeman’s bill asking to participate in the state’s DOGE process is redundant.
“It seems Councilman Freeman missed the memo that his colleagues are already hiring an independent external auditor, an annual process that is outlined in the City Charter,” the city’s chief communications officer, Phil Perry, said in an email Monday. “It’s hard to understand why he wants to waste taxpayer resources on duplicating this effort.”
DeSantis announced his Florida DOGE committee in February, emulating the controversial federal effort by President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser, Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk.
The governor also says the DOGE process would be necessary as part of state leaders discussion of lower or eliminating property taxes.
Part of the Florida DOGE’s stated goal was to examine local governments’ spending on grants, programs and other expenditures.
Salem previously told Jacksonville Today in March that he had not been in contact with the DeSantis administration about participating in the Duval DOGE but welcomed state involvement.
The Duval DOGE committee is looking into $90 million worth of projects in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan where there has been no spending since October 2023.
Freeman says his request would build on the committee’s work.
“I believe inviting the Governor’s team to take an outside look at our finances, combined with the Duval DOGE, will equip our city with every tool possible to ensure we are operating at peak efficiency,” he said in the release.
