At this week’s Walton County Commission meeting on Tuesday, District 3 Commissioner Brad Drake asked his fellow commissioners to approve a resolution to voluntarily work with Governor Ron DeSantis’ Executive Order regarding Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) teams for internal state audits and efficiencies. Commissioner Drake said he had heard from many people who are familiar with the activities of the federal DOGE department wondering “why aren’t we doing that in Walton County.” Commissioner Drake went on to explain that DOGE, as an agency, aims to place governmental expenditures, processes and overall existence under the microscope for review. “It has now landed as a priority at the highest level of government within our state and Governor DeSantis has tasked every political subdivision within the state of Florida to utilize the time to make evaluations of itself to see if cost-savings exist or to see if fraud is rampant,” he said. Commissioner Drake asked the BCC to adopt a resolution supporting Gov. DeSantis’ intention at the local level and to apply specifically to Walton County. District 1 Commissioner Dan Curry also challenged municipalities within the county to get on board with the measure and make it a countywide effort. The Florida State Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) task force plans to examine local government expenditures by utilizing publicly available county and municipal spending records to “expose bloat within local governance.” The resolution was unanimously approved with Chief Financial Officer Melissa Thomason being named as the point of contact, since this will be a budgetary exercise. It was stated at the meeting that Walton may be the first Florida county to formally take this action.
