Manatee County voters snubbed Tallahassee last fall when they rejected Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hand-picked, pro-development commission candidates and instead elected a slate of grassroots Republicans who promised to rein in runaway growth.
True to their word, the new commissioners quickly moved to cap sprawl — vowing to raise impact fees on developers to pay for new infrastructure, pushing to restore wetland protections and halting some large-scale projects altogether.
But those steps have now put them on a collision course with the governor and the powerful real-estate industry closely aligned with his administration, which has pushed back at every turn.
In June, the governor vetoed the county's $4 million in state budget requests after a commissioner criticized Senate Bill 180, a controversial pro-developer state law. More recently, his administration warned of “inevitable consequences” if Manatee raised impact fees.
And in July, he and his chief financial officer announced the county would be the first Republican stronghold targeted for an aggressive review by Florida’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency — known as DOGE — a program DeSantis styled after the Elon Musk-backed federal initiative to slash “waste, fraud and abuse.”
The escalating fight has become one of the sharpest examples yet of DeSantis using state power to quash local control, even in GOP-dominated areas. Political experts say the timing and tenor of the moves leave little doubt that Manatee’s growth-curbing agenda triggered the response.
“It’s simple retribution,” said Martin Hyde, a former Republican congressional candidate who closely follows politics in the region. “The developers are very upset about losing their rubber-stamp status … DeSantis is sending down some kind of imperial threat.”
The governor’s DOGE team has insisted the audit is about accountability, not retaliation.
“Whether it is a Democrat majority county or a Republican majority county, I have issues with wasteful spending,” newly appointed Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia recently said at a news conference.
But interviews with more than a dozen officials and political observers by Suncoast Searchlight and the Bradenton Herald suggest many see the showdown as an unmistakable warning shot to other local governments considering similar defiance.
Experts warn that what happens in Manatee County could set the tone for how far DeSantis and his allies are willing to go to force local leaders into line.
“We should be very concerned about a chilling effect,” said Katie Belanger, senior consultant with the Local Solutions Support Center, a national nonprofit that focuses on the intersection of local and state governments. “This is the time local officials need to stand up and protect their authority and democracy.”
Does Manatee County need a DOGE audit?
Many Republicans said they support the concept of a DOGE audit on principle, pointing to examples of what they say are the county's wasteful or excessive spending — on a series of costly feasibility studies, on a $34 million plan for a new administration building or the $13 million purchase of the Mixon Fruit property in July.
But they contend those same probes would unearth similar excess spending in almost every other Florida county – pointing to the state’s onslaught as payback for standing up to powerful real-estate developers closely connected to the DeSantis administration.
Those who spoke with Suncoast Searchlight and the Bradenton Herald said they are now closely watching whether Manatee’s board begins to backpedal on campaign promises in the face of mounting pressure. Commissioners have already postponed a vote on some of those measures, though they insist they are still looking for ways to deliver.
The governor’s office declined to comment on this story. A spokesperson referred reporters to comments DeSantis made when he announced the audit at a July 24 press conference. At that event, held at the Manatee Performing Arts Center in Bradenton, DeSantis stood alongside Ingoglia and cast the county as a cautionary tale of runaway government.
In particular, he pointed to a 14% population increase over six years but an 86% jump in property tax collections — a $213 million surge he said demanded scrutiny. He argued that any budget rising faster than population and inflation deserved an audit.
“There is some dissonance there,” DeSantis told the crowd. “And so we're looking at the expanding budget. Where's the increase in spending? Where's the justification for that? How is that being done, and what's the basis, or where are the pathways to put taxpayers first and give them a seat at the table on some of this stuff?”
Manatee County’s reserves have grown from just over $597 million in fiscal year 2020 to $735 million in fiscal year 2025, according to its budget books.
DeSantis implied that, with increasing property tax revenue coming into the county, the county was hoarding money in reserves rather than applying it to taxpayer initiatives.
“There’s also a point at which we shouldn’t just be bogarting money,” DeSantis said. “We want to give back.”
Among those echoing the governor’s concerns was Pat Neal, the billionaire developer who founded Neal Communities before entering politics as a state lawmaker. With a Forbes-estimated net worth of $1.2 billion and a portfolio of subdivisions that have transformed Manatee County, Neal stands as both a driving force behind the growth commissioners are trying to rein in and one of the most powerful figures in local politics.
While county commissioners said they were not invited to DeSantis’ DOGE announcement in Bradenton, Neal was there, along with other developer-aligned Republicans.
In a statement provided to reporters, Neal aligned himself squarely with DeSantis, backing the governor’s pledge to keep property taxes in check and voicing confidence that the state’s inquiry would expose overspending in Manatee County.
“The county board has not been willing to roll back the millage to offset the equivalent
increase in property tax evaluations,” Neal said in the statement. “So I believe that there will be very significant findings in the DOGE report … I heard that they found quite a few interesting examples of how the expenditures had gotten out of hand.”
Manatee County commissioners have, in fact, trimmed the millage rate three times in the past five years, lowering it from 6.4326 in 2021 to 6.0826 today. It is projected to remain the same for fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1.
Not everyone shared Neal’s view. Joe McClash, a former Manatee County commissioner who now publishes The Bradenton Times, dismissed the audit as political theater, arguing that the county’s finances are already open to scrutiny through routine public records and the county’s annual budgeting and auditing processes.
He called the audit “a very political attack on local government.”
“The false messages and narratives from Tallahassee about wasteful spending without oversight are just not accurate,” McClash said. “Anytime somebody tells you, ‘you can’t do something, or we’re going to do this to you,’ that’s extortion. We’ve seen too much …. where it’s forcing elected officials to not do what’s in the best interest of the community because they’re being threatened by someone with more power.”
How DOGE landed in Manatee County
The state’s audit of Manatee County formally began with a July 24 letter from the Florida Department of Government Efficiency. The sprawling document outlined over 60 specific requests on everything from personnel and expenditures to property acquisitions and high-profile projects, like the Gulf Islands Ferry service and the county’s purchase of Mixon Fruit Farms.
Landing after months of public sparring between county leaders and the governor, the letter signaled the start of an intensive review that would put nearly every corner of county government under Tallahassee’s microscope.
Less than two weeks later, a DOGE task force arrived in Bradenton for a two-day visit, combing through files and interviewing staff. Ingoglia said the state would have a report completed in about 60 days, a timetable that left county leaders bracing for what might come next.
Publicly, Manatee County commissioners struck a confident tone, saying they welcome the review with open arms and insisting they have no spending discrepancies to hide.
Commissioner George Kruse called the audit a “great opportunity” in a social media post the day it was announced and, when asked what he thought about the intentions of the audit, said it did not appear to be targeting municipalities.
But he also railed against the rationale behind it — the suggestion that Manatee’s property tax collections were excessive.
Between 2019 and 2025, Manatee County added more than 60,000 residents, pushing its population past 455,000 and naturally driving up property tax revenues with new development. DeSantis has argued that receipts far outpaced spending, alluding to unnecessary overages.
Kruse called that claim “asinine,” stressing that rapid growth requires matching investment in services.
“Sixty thousand people need schools for their kids. They want more libraries, pickleball, boat ramps. They need more roads to drive their cars on, and more soccer fields for the kids to play on the weekends,” he said. “So when you have more people move here, you need more services.”
What remains unclear, Kruse added, is what the state intends to do with the audit once it’s finished.
“I don’t believe anybody in Manatee County knows what to expect,” he said. “Is it a report coming back saying, ‘You are now obligated to cut X percent of your head count, or do this, this and this’?”
Some also seemed to chafe at the scope of the inquiry — which extended down to requests for records of clothing and uniform purchases for county employees — and wondered whether the real purpose is less about fiscal oversight than about sending a political message.
Commissioner Carol Ann Felts struck a measured tone, saying she welcomed the review if it shed light on decisions made by the current or previous board.
“I think it’s more weighted towards things that happened in the prior administration,” she said, adding, “I welcome that, it’s a good thing.”
Asked if she thought politics were at play in the governor’s choice of Manatee County for the audit, Felts said: “Maybe.”
“Could there be some political things behind it?” she said. “Was it because DeSantis was running against Trump, and our board was rather pro-Trump? We did name a park after (DeSantis), so there’s that.”
But overall, Felts said she’s choosing to look at the audit as a “positive opportunity.”
From Washington playbook to Florida weapon
Florida’s DOGE program launched in February, borrowing its name and mission from the controversial federal program that has resulted in mass layoffs, domestic and foreign funding cuts and a glut of ongoing legal challenges.
Whereas the federal DOGE focused on U.S. agencies and programs, DeSantis’ version has trained its sights not on Tallahassee’s own bureaucracy but on local governments — in particular on Democratic strongholds like St. Petersburg, Orlando and Alachua and Broward counties.
That pattern made the decision to unleash DOGE on “ruby red” Manatee County – a GOP stronghold where Republicans occupy nearly all elected positions and maintain a roughly 2-1 voting advantage over Democrats – all the more striking. It sent a signal that even Republican-led communities are not immune if they stray from the governor’s pro-growth agenda.
The only other Republican areas targeted were Hillsborough County, which recently flipped red and still has a large Democratic contingent, and the city of Pensacola in Northwest Florida, where state GOP officials have clashed with DeSantis.
Aubrey Jewett, an associate professor and associate school director at the University of Central Florida, said the tone of some of the DOGE letters to counties was indicative of political retaliation.
“It doesn’t seem like these were just randomly drawn out of a hat,” Jewett said.
“It was pretty clear, based on some of the letters that were written to local governments, that the state had an agenda.”
Jewett pointed to Orange County’s letter as one that struck him as a “political attack.”
Like many other letters sent to Florida counties, Manatee County’s also requested information about funds spent on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and environmental initiatives.
Over the next year, Jewett said he will be interested to see how the DOGE audits continue to roll through Florida.
J. Edwin Benton, a political science professor from the University of South Florida, sees the DOGE moves as a way for DeSantis, who has a little over a year left in office, to mimic Trump in an attempt to remain relevant.
“It’s an opportunity to even scores with people he sees as political enemies or have crossed swords with him over the years,” Benton said. “He has an enemy list just like Donald Trump.”
Clashing over new development
Tensions between Manatee County and the DeSantis administration have been mounting since last year’s Republican primary election, when local voters overwhelmingly chose grassroots GOP candidates over DeSantis and developer-backed choices.
Felts captured the District 1 seat, prevailing over developer-backed Steve Metallo in the county’s sprawling eastern territory, where much of Manatee’s future growth is being pushed.
In District 3, a western stretch of the county defined by new development projects like Aqua by the Bay, Tal Siddique beat April Culbreath, a better-funded opponent and then-chair of the local GOP committee.
On a similar campaign to slow down rapid development, Robert McCann claimed an election victory over DeSantis-appointed incumbent Raymond Turner for the District 5 seat on the commission.
In at-large District 7, Kruse pulled off an upset by defeating Kevin Van Ostenbridge, a developer and DeSantis-backed candidate who had led the prior board’s charge to roll back development restrictions and wetland protections.
Since then, the new board majority has moved to restrict growth in a variety of ways, including attempts to restore the county’s Future Development Area Boundary that blocks urban sprawl from marching east, raising the impact fees that developers pay to support new growth to the maximum allowed by state law and outright rejecting some large-scale development projects.
The commission has also sought to bring back local wetland protections that put restrictions on development to protect water quality and wildlife habitat.
But as county leaders have tried to pass these measures, they’ve met increasing hostility from state agencies — including the Florida Department of Commerce, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Department of Transportation — as well as from developers.
In particular, the state and builders are interpreting Florida’s new SB 180 in a broad and controversial manner that strips local government control over growth. The bill was pitched as a post-disaster relief measure, preventing counties hit by hurricanes from enacting moratoriums, raising impact fees or altering land-use rules during recovery.
Developers have since seized on it to challenge nearly any local effort to slow or shape growth.
After Manatee County commissioners passed an impact fee increase in June — resulting in developers paying millions of dollars more to support infrastructure needs like roads, sewer and water utilities — local builders sued to block the measure.
Now they have backing from the state.
On Aug. 15, the DeSantis administration sent a letter to every county commissioner threatening “inevitable consequences” if the fee hike proceeds, followed by another letter warning against the county’s plans to restore wetland protections and the development boundary.
“These consequences may include litigation, heightened public scrutiny, and becoming the example of the local government that caused a law to be clarified, amended, or enacted to ensure actions such as these do not happen in the future,” says one of the letters from Commerce Department Secretary J. Alex Kelly.
The letter also threatens possible losses or delays in state funding “given the board’s clear inability to understand and follow state law.”
Commissioners scuttled a planned vote on the matter, citing the letter, but could still bring up the issue later.
Critics say it’s a clear attack on the board for standing up to powerful real-estate developers.
“Developers are going to fight as hard as they can against an increase in impact fees,” former Manatee County Commissioner Betsy Benac said. “If you look at what’s going on at the state level, they’re certainly trying to take over control of a lot of what local government does.”
What’s happening in Manatee, said Belanger of the Local Solutions Support Center, reflects a broader strategy playing out in states nationwide, where governors have increasingly preempted local decisions on everything from criminal justice to health care and social policy.
The approach has even stirred infighting within the GOP, as grassroots Republicans clash with state leaders aligned with powerful business interests.
“This is not about partisanship,” Belanger said. “It’s about policies designed to enrich a select few.”
After canceling votes to defy SB 180 and restore wetland protections and development restrictions, many are now watching to see if the board caves to the governor’s pressure.
“All of the candidates in Manatee County got elected because of who they weren’t – not who they were,” Hyde said. “If you give in to any threat, this form of bullying never stops.”
This story is a collaboration between Bradenton Herald and Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
