Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia was in Orlando on Friday to announce an audit of the city’s budget that found over $22 million in wasteful spending.
Ingoglia’s last audit in Central Florida found Seminole County overspent by twice that much.
Ingoglia says his office’s FAFO audit of Orlando found $22,332,519 in wasteful spending in the city of Orlando.
He said this is still considerably less than the other ten county and city governments his office has audited, proving that local governments can be conservative in their spending.
“The same formula and calculation that has yielded disastrous results for Orange County, disastrous results for the City of Jacksonville, and disastrous results for Miami Dade, has yielded that the city of Orlando actually is in much better shape when it comes to spending than those other big, bloated, wasteful budgets,” Ingoglia said.
Click here to watch the results of the FAFO audit of Orlando:
CFO Blaise Ingoglia Announces Wasteful Spending in City of Orlando https://t.co/uhvbB1Gkbn
— FL DFS (@FLDFS) November 7, 2025
Still, Ingoglia says that he’d like to see the city cut off about 4.32% of its budget, in the form of consultants and special “pet” projects.
And reducing the millage rate wouldn’t hurt either.
“The city of Orlando could reduce its millage rate by 0.40 mills, even with their spending relatively in check compared to the other large, bloated budgets, and they can still provide all of the necessary services to their citizens,” Ingoglia said.
In a statement, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer says he’s proud of the city’s strong fiscal management and continues to listen to residents and make investments that reflect their priorities. “Last year alone, the city invested $406 million in police and fire services, more than we generated in property taxes ($360 million),” he said
“For more than a decade, we have maintained the same millage rate and delivered a balanced budget each year, all while meeting the needs of our growing community and the 75 million visitors who experience our city annually,” Dyer said.
Ingoglia’s office says it has revealed over $1.5 billion in wasteful funding in local governments through its audits.
His comments, which often compared the City of Orlando’s fiscal responsibility to what he called Orange County’s “big, bloated budget,” comes a day after Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings announced the kickoff of his campaign for governor.
Ingoglia’s FAFO audit of Orange County found the county could cut $190 million.
When asked about Demings running for that office, Ingoglia said he was concerned about voters electing someone with a history of what he called wasteful and excessive spending.
“We should all be concerned about that, because, look, it is with the wrong leadership here in the state of Florida, this state could very easily turn into New York and California, and I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that we do not New York our Florida,” he said.
