Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia holds a sign showing the amount of money he claims the city of Miami is overspending in its 2025 budget. Ingoglia spoke at a press conference at the Rohde Building in downtown Miami on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.
jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com
Florida’s chief financial officer brought his tax-cut campaign to Miami on Thursday, using some basic math to insist the city spends too much on salaries and services.
State CFO Blaise Ingoglia rested his argument on what he described as “high-level spending numbers” to show that the city’s $1.2 billion tax-funded budget for 2025 was millions of dollars higher than it should be based on inflation and modest population growth over the last five years.
Running for a full four-year term in 2026, the former chair of Florida’s Republican Party has used the same formula in barn-storming stops across Florida to argue that local governments should cut tax rates and shrink their budgets. Ingoglia used to represent Hernando County in the Florida Senate and was best known for his “Government Gone Wild” slogan targeting what he saw as excessive spending.
“I’m here today to once again call BS on local governments,” he said Thursday. “Local governments can cut property taxes, can cut their budgets safely and not cut any essential services.”
Ingoglia’s latest stop brought him to a city led by a term-limited Republican, Mayor Francis Suarez, who is leaving office later this year. One of the candidates to succeed him, former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, was in the front row of the invitation-only event but did not speak. Ingoglia has not made an endorsement in the mayor’s race but the man who appointed him, Gov. Ron DeSantis, is backing Gonzalez, a critic of the city’s administration.
In a statement, Suarez defended Miami’s budget by pointing out that the city cut tax rates in recent years and that Florida’s budget has been growing in recent years, too.
“Miami has shown real fiscal discipline, making tough choices to protect taxpayers while maintaining essential services,” he said. “We’re delivering results within our means, lowering taxes responsibly, and setting the statewide standard for efficient, accountable government.”
Most of the chairs for Ingoglia’s press conference at a downtown state office building were filled with supporters who applauded his remarks. His presentation included no specifics on where Miami should cut the $1 billion budget funded by property taxes.
Instead, he said if Miami had limited spending increases to the inflation rate since 2000, plus allowances for the city’s population growth, that budget would be about $95 million lower.
He said his staff’s calculations did not include extra money for public safety beyond what would be generated if revenue increases matched inflation and population growth. But he argued Miami could afford raises for police and paramedics if public safety took priority over other spending needs in the city.
“We should be funding and prioritizing our first responders,” he said.
Speaking at City Hall on Thursday, City Manager Art Noriega called the state’s analysis “absurd” and said it’s “absolutely” politically motivated.
The city said in a statement that Ingoglia’s analysis was “incomplete” and that other factors “beyond inflation and population growth” need to be taken into account, like the fact that the city “provides services to thousands of individuals who work in the city but reside elsewhere within Miami-Dade or other surrounding areas of South Florida.”
“It’s important to note the shortsightedness of drawing broad conclusions from just a few data points without considering external factors,” the city’s statement said. “… A formula applied to a suburban or rural city would never reasonably apply to a city that inherently is as complex and unique as the City of Miami.”
Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia holds a sign showing the amount of population growth in the city of Miami over the last five years during a press conference at the Rohde Building in downtown Miami on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. Jose Iglesias jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com
In Miami, property taxes account for about half of the $1 billion general-fund budget, which was the focus of Ingoglia’s presentation. The general fund also pays for parks, trash pickup, public works, code enforcement, and the county’s administrators and management staff, according to budget documents. Spending per resident has grown about 40% between 2020 and 2024, according to a city analysis: from $2,235 per person to $3,129.
Ingoglia and DeSantis want Florida voters to mandate tax cuts through constitutional amendments next year, which could include eliminating property taxes on primary residences.
Asked by a reporter if he could share the math behind his charts, Ingoglia said those numbers were not available. But he said to eventually expect detailed breakdowns on wasteful spending in Miami and other cities that have been subject to his office’s “DOGE” audits, where staff study local government documents and data to scrutinize how tax dollars are spent.
Earlier this year, the Miami City Commission invited state DOGE auditors to scrutinize the city’s finances. Another candidate for city mayor — Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo — said he welcomed the kind of spending reductions Ingoglia is championing.
“The city of Miami’s got a lot of fat that needs to be trimmed,” he told the Miami Herald.
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 7:14 PM.
CORRECTION: This article was updated to describe Miami mayor candidate Emilio Gonzalez as a critic of the city’s administration. It was also updated with the correct dollar amount, $95 million, that CFO Blaise Ingoglia said Miami was overspending in 2025.
Corrected Oct 24, 2025
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