Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Monday the creation of the Florida Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), a task force dedicated to eliminating waste, saving taxpayer money, and ensuring accountability within Florida’s state government. According to Fox News, DeSantis said that Florida has “never been in better fiscal health,” but “we always want to get better. DeSantis shared that he looked at what Elon Musk is doing with the DOGE on the federal level and determined that its operations in financial oversight and accountability are worth incorporating into the state of Florida.

According to the press release, DeSantis said, “Florida has set the standard for fiscally conservative governance, and our new Florida DOGE task force will do even more to serve the people of Florida.”

The task force will focus on eliminating “redundant boards and commissions,” reviewing state university and college operations and spending, using artificial intelligence to identify hidden waste in state agencies, and auditing local government spending to expose inefficiencies.

The Florida DOGE Task Force plans to implement a comprehensive approach to streamline state government by leveraging AI and new technologies to identify wasteful spending. The task force has a one-year term with key initiatives that include eliminating an additional 70 boards and commissions this year, conducting in-depth reviews of college and university operations and spending to recommend the elimination of wasteful expenditures, and utilizing AI to supplement ongoing reviews of state agencies to identify further opportunities for cutting unnecessary spending and bureaucracy. Furthermore, the task force will review publicly available county and municipal spending records to expose inefficiencies while aiding efforts to save taxpayer money by “returning unused or surplus federal dollars allocated to the state.”

DeSantis explained that he had already been cutting spending in Florida and touted “having the lowest number of government workers per capita in the country,” while providing “better services at a lower cost than any other state of comparable size,” according to the press release, which notes that Florida has “eliminated dozens of unnecessary boards and lifted needless regulations,” and saved billions for Floridians including $3.5 billion in spending last year.

Speaking on enhancing the effort that has already begun, DeSantis said, “this is some high-powered stuff and I think would be able to provide us with some good information.”

DeSantis posted to X that “Florida was DOGE before DOGE was cool,” Fox News reports, noting the billions cut in Florida’s budget under his leadership since 2019.