Gov. Ron DeSantis is promoting a state version of the Elon Musk-led spending slash in Washington that will reach into all areas of state administration and local governments.

“We were DOGE before DOGE was cool,” DeSantis said in Tampa. He praised the Department of Governmental Efficiency in Washington while noting that Florida has already been on a similar track in terms of reining in government to make sure state administration is as “lean and efficient as possible.”

But there’s still a long way to go, DeSantis noted.

To that end, he’s creating a state “DOGE Task Force” that will sunset in a year to look at more efficiencies. Though Florida has the “lowest number of state government workers per capita of any state in these United States,” DeSantis wants that number to get lower.

He wants to cut 740 net positions in the next budget, despite adding law enforcement and corrections staff. DeSantis is also proposing the sunset of 70 Boards and Commissions with 900 associated positions “to get them off the books,” pending legislative ratification.

“There’s hundreds of these things. A lot of people have never heard of them, but they’re there,” DeSantis said.

He noted that many of them haven’t met in years. And he wants to “utilize” artificial intelligence for contract review.

Additionally, DeSantis wants to ensure colleges and universities are “good stewards” of tax dollars, asking for an independent audit of their finances in what he calls the “DOGE-ing” of the State University System.

Course offerings will also be “pruned,” with an eye to getting “some of the ideological stuff out.” And administrative “excess or bloat of personnel” will also be targeted.

Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. is on board with this, promising an audit to ensure administrators are “laser-focused” on doing things the right way.

State agencies will also be audited with artificial intelligence, with “people with strong IT” skills going in to take a second look and “put the kibosh on” contracts that backdoor diversity, equity and inclusion and the like.

Local budgets will also be eyed, given they’ve “ballooned” in recent years, and DeSantis isn’t sure “taxpayers have been at the table” amid bigger spending and tax increases.

The task force will “DOGE at the local level,” taking a look at “publicly available” budget records to make sense of local spending. DeSantis hopes to get legislative authorization to compel local governments to comply with his DOGE task force over the next few years.

“DOGE teams can show up at the county and they can audit, and they can use AI,” DeSantis said. “I think that would be really healthy.”

DeSantis also said he wants to return “close to a billion dollars” in federal funds given to the Department of Children and Families and the Department of Transportation that were unused from Joe Biden administration initiatives tied to “noxious concepts and policies” with an eye towards helping the federal DOGE initiatives and defraying debt.

The Governor’s comments here represent an evolution of thought over the years. When U.S. Sen. Rick Scott pressed states to return unused federal monies years ago, DeSantis said the feds would just send the money to “blue states.”

State Board of Administration Director Chris Spencer supplemented DeSantis’ comments, hailing the drive toward “efficiencies,” and spotlighting Florida’s strong credit rating and “accelerated debt repayment program” as “Washington’s largesse has been driving debt to historic highs.”

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Capital City Consulting notched nearly $7 million in the fourth quarter and the No. 3 spot on Florida Politics’ lobby firm rankings along with it.

New lobbying compensation reports show CCC collected $6.87 million during the closing quarter of 2024. Legislative lobbying revenues surpassed $3.55 million last quarter, and executive branch income also topped the $3 million mark by $220,000.

Florida Politics estimates lobbying pay based on the middle number of the per-client ranges firms listed on their compensation reports. Contracts are reported in $10,000 increments up to $50,000. Using median estimates, Capital City Consulting still has an iron grip on the No. 3 spot in Florida Politics’ Lobby Firm Rankings — there’s nearly $4 million in daylight between CCC and the No. 4 firm in Q4.

CCC’s legislative compensation report listed more than 250 clients, several of which paid sums exceeding the cap on range reporting, meaning the listed amounts are concrete and not estimates. That set included USAA at $68,000, Advocating for Seniors at $63,000, CVS Health at $56,000, Neal Land Development Group at $56,000 and Lennar Homes at $54,000.

Beyond the top moneymakers, CCC’s report included several well-known corporations and associations, such as AT&T, BlackRock, Paypal, Adobe, Chick-fil-A, Yamaha and 3M. The world’s largest airline, Delta, and one of just a dozen or so companies to achieve a trillion-dollar-plus market cap, Amazon, also rely on Capital City Consulting to handle their affairs in Tallahassee.

On the executive side, CCC’s most lucrative contract was a $77,000 deal to represent Horne LLP, a major professional services firm. Other contracts crossing the $50,000 threshold included PCI Gaming at $60,000 and Fox Corporation at an even $50,000.

Gaming is one of the firm’s specialties — Iarossi is a past winner of INFLUENCE Magazine’s “Gaming Lobbyist of the Year” award as well as the 2021 “Lobbyist of the Year” award — and its client roster includes a handful of other gambling enterprises such as bestbet Jacksonville and Melbourne Greyhound Park.

In addition to Iarossi and LaFace, Capital City Consulting’s fourth-quarter team included Anthony Carvalho, Justin Day, Cory Dowd, Megan Fay, Kaley Flynn, Kenneth Granger, Maicel Green, Ashley Kalifeh, Andrew Ketchel, Drew Meiner, Joseph Mongiovi, Jared Rosenstein, Scott Ross and Chris Schoonover.

Of note, Capital City Consulting also has a robust local lobbying presence following its acquisition two years ago of Miami-based Prodigy Public Affairs, now known as CCC Miami. The new compensation reports only cover state-level lobbying revenues — pay received for lobbying county and municipal governments is not included.

Capital City Consulting’s Q4 haul makes for a full year of reports in the $7 million neighborhood. The firm’s growth has accelerated rapidly over the past two years, surpassing $25 million in earnings for 2023, just one year after it broke the $20 million mark. This year saw CCC raise the bar yet again with total revenues $26.83 million, a total that includes $14 million in legislative lobbying revenues and $12.83 million in executive branch pay.

Florida lobbyists and lobbying firms faced a mid-February deadline to file compensation reports for the period covering Oct. 1 through Dec. 31. Compensation reports for the first quarter are due to the state on May 15.

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The Southern Group bested its previous quarterly record in lobbying pay, netting more than $9 million in the fourth quarter and taking the top spot in Florida Politics’ lobby firm rankings.

According to newly filed Q4 compensation reports, the firm led by founder Paul Bradshaw earned an estimated $9.11 million during the October-through-December reporting period.

Florida Politics estimates lobbying pay based on the middle number of the per-client ranges firms listed on their compensation reports. Contracts are reported in $10,000 increments up to $50,000. Firms are also required to register overall earnings ranges. However, firm-level ranges top out at $1 million, a hurdle most Top 10 earning firms quickly cleared.

The Southern Group’s Q4 haul included $5.42 million in legislative lobbying pay and an additional $3.69 million in earnings lobbying the Governor, Cabinet and state agencies. The combined total is a $340,000 increase over Q3 2024 and continues the firm’s long-running quarter-over-quarter growth streak. Since 2022, the firm’s revenues have grown from roughly $6 million a quarter to now $9 million-plus.

Additionally, The Southern Group was the only major lobbying firm to report a revenue increase over the first quarter, as explained in this chart:

With a client list approaching 400, TSG’s team represents more clients than any other lobbying firm in the state, and many names on their compensation reports are well known national and international corporations, such as Airbnb, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Siemens Corporation, Royal Caribbean and FedEx.

Ballard Partners wasn’t far behind TSG, earning an estimated $8.83 million and securing the No. 2 spot in Florida Politics’ rankings.

The firm, founded by Brian Ballard, collected $5.20 million in legislative lobbying pay and reeled in $3.62 million lobbying the executive branch for an overall total of $8.83 million in Q4.

Ballard Partners was the No. 1 firm in in Q1 and Q3 last year, while TSG took last quarter and in Q2, putting the firms in a dead heat for the No. 1 spot in the annual rankings.

The final tally for 2024 shows The Southern Group as the overall No. 1 with $35.46 million to Ballard’s $35.32 million — a gap of just $138,000. TSG also took the top spot in the Legislature by about $500,000 although Ballard Partners snagged the title in executive lobbying revenues, earning $14.61 million to The Southern Group’s $14.61 million.

Florida lobbyists and lobbying firms faced a mid-February deadline to file compensation reports for the period covering Oct. 1 through Dec. 31. Compensation reports for the first quarter are due to the state on May 15.

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