The city of Hialeah on Tuesday approved a resolution that supports Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ establishment of the Executive Office of the Governor Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team. NBC6’s Hatzel Vela reports
The city of Hialeah on Tuesday approved a resolution that supports Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' establishment of the Executive Office of the Governor Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team.
"In the city of Hialeah, we’ve had DOGE now for a long time," said Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo outside City Hall, where he was flanked by city employees from different departments.
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WATCH HEREBovo wants the governor to know his city is willing to let the state analyze their $485 million budget.
Last week, the governor urged cities and counties to do the same as Hialeah.
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“We are working with the Florida legislature to get more prescriptive authority to be able to go in and conduct audits of these local governments," Gov. DeSantis said in a post on X.
Bovo touted that Hialeah has always been frugal with their budget.
“It’s a city that has not raised taxes in the last 13 years," Bovo said.
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Bovo admits Hialeah does have challenges and said maybe the state can help find opportunities when it comes to efficiency and other matters.
“The ever-increasing price of insurance is strangling many people in our community," Bovo said.
In recent years, there has been an erosion of local control, mainly driven by the state, and so Bovo was asked to address whether he was concerned if allowing the state to analyze city finances would further erode what's called "home rule."
Bovo said he doubts the state will force cities like Hialeah to eliminate services.
"I don’t think there is a service we provide today that I would tell you we could do without," Bovo said.
“Is the city willing to lay off employees?” Alex Penelas, NBC6 political analyst, wondered and added he will be carefully looking to see what happens next.
"We'll see in the coming weeks and months if this is a legitimate effort to provide transparency and cost-cutting or was it just a political stunt to grab some headlines," said Penelas, who knows local government well after being mayor of Miami-Dade County and a Hialeah councilman in the past.
Bryan Calvo, who is running for mayor of Hialeah, said government efficiency is necessary, but in this case, he described this as a charade a week after he said the council approved pensions that benefit the elected officials.
"The mayor and the city council just auto approved themselves a pension, a retirement, a deferred compensation retrospectively all the way back to 2021," said Calvo, who added this is money mispent.
