Governor DeSantis (FL) recently sent almost $1 billion in unspent funding to DOGE.

Additionally, the Governor issued a statement to all county and municipal entities notifying them of upcoming reviews of spending to ensure their use of funds align with the state’s DOGE division and their new standards.

Currently, most state-level DOGE initiatives are popping up in Southeastern states, with Wisconsin being the first state in the Midwest to role out their own version of DOGE (the Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency (GOAT) committee). More, however, are expected to form and begin operations across the Country.

As funding review boards grow more numerous across the US and, potentially, more states return funds that local entities were not yet able to use, spending patterns and procurement standards for publicly funded entities will be required to adjust.

At the Federal level, DOGE has highlighted a few things that they’ve deemed a “bad practice” and want to change or stop:

1. Short-term buying strategies: Multiple cabinet members (ie Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce and Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury) have stated that they want to see federal procurement take long-term goals into account when making purchases
   • This is particularly true of IT purchases as many cabinet members have stated a belief that “many short-term” purchases have been done to keep older technology alive instead of purchases to facilitate longer term replacements of older software and hardware
2. Funding Already-Funded Programs: DOGE has identified numerous projects that are behind schedule and exceeding their initial budgets.
   • State DOGE committees (ie Florida) have stated that they will also target these “over-budget, behind-schedule” projects and may penalize local entities for using “taxpayer dollars” in this way.
3. Unused or Underutilized Services: Payments for unused, or oversized, office space and underused consultants have caught a lot of attention regarding federal use of funds.
   • At local levels, it’s not expected that a city or county would rent multiple, empty office spaces, but it is possible that local entities may have contracted with service providers that have been used to a lesser degree than initially anticipated.

As DOGE’s goals are reenforced by its continued auditing activities, we can see how its initial findings will likely impact future policies, practices, and standards. Some states may adopt these same standards in whole, in part, or push back altogether, but the short-term changes that will most effect our tomorrow are starting to become clearer and more real.

*Service Driven University is an information-focused initiative from DOF to assist leaders across technology, or impacted by technology, to stay aware and up to date.