TALLAHASSEE — Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Florida’s fiscal watchdog, has tapped state agents to provide him transportation and security at big-ticket sporting events around the state, raising questions about why taxpayers are footing the bill for his private activities.
Publicly, Ingoglia has become known for barnstorming the state to hold choreographed news conferences scolding cities and counties for wasteful spending.
But Ingoglia also has found time in the last eight months to hang out in the presidential suite at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for a University of Florida football game, a skybox at Hard Rock Stadium to watch the Miami Dolphins, a suite at a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game and at a premiere boxing match in Miami.
At all four events, his agency, the Florida Department of Financial Services, provided the security and rides for him and his entourage, emails obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show. Agents and detectives were tapped to provide that protection, according to the emails between officials in the department’s Criminal Investigations Division. The names of the senders and recipients of the emails were redacted.
One email noted Ingoglia faced “no threat or concern” but just wanted additional law enforcement with him.
For the UF game, agents from the CFO’s criminal investigative division picked his party up at Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille in Gainesville, drove them to the stadium and later returned them to the upscale eatery, according to the emails. At the Dolphins game, the instructions were to “escort to sky box,” one official wrote.
Ingoglia’s spokeswoman Sydney Booker defended the practice, saying in an email that he needed a security detail at large, high-profile events “to keep himself and those around him safe in the current heightened political climate. Unfortunately, security concerns don’t clock out at 5pm.”
The emails do not say how much the Department of Financial Services spent providing agents to shuttle Ingoglia to games and shadow him while he watched. They also do not show who paid for the tickets to the events or for Ingoglia’s travel from Tallahassee to some of Florida’s best-known sports venues, although Booker insisted Ingoglia handled some expenses himself.
“The CFO pays for tickets, food and accommodations for these types of events out of his own pocket,” she said.
No state aircraft were used, she added.
A public records request for all state payments related to the trips mentioned in the emails as well as some events Ingoglia posted about on social media — the college football national championship game in Miami Jan. 19 and the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15 — was pending late Thursday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Ingoglia, a state senator from Spring Hill, in July to fill the CFO Cabinet position left vacant when Jimmy Patronis won a special election to represent a Panhandle district in Congress.
Since his appointment, Ingoglia has sought to portray himself as a taxpayer watchdog, showcasing how he thinks Florida cities and counties are spending well over what their population growth and inflation should require. He claims to have uncovered $2.4 billion in wasteful spending by local governments since 2019, including $747.5 million by Orange County.
Most local governments targeted by Ingoglia have pushed back, criticizing his “audits” as superficial and inaccurate. Orange County officials call the claims “not only misleading but false,” echoing comments made by Mayor Jerry Demings, a Democratic candidate for governor, who in September said Ingoglia used “fuzzy math” and “ought to get his own house in order first before he goes looking in someone else’s house.”
As CFO, Ingoglia is responsible for all the state’s financial matters, including investigations of insurance fraud, public assistance abuse and arson. He has a criminal investigations division at his disposal and can use its detectives and agents to provide security at public events and official government functions, frequently with the help of local law enforcement agencies.
State law specifically says the CFO “may engage the full-time services of two law enforcement officers” to protect the “property in the custody or control of the Chief Financial Officer from all criminal acts.”
But unless he was at any of those athletic events in his official capacity, there is no reason for taxpayers to foot the bill for his security there, said Michael Barfield, executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog that promotes transparency.
“Florida law distinguishes between official acts and personal activities for good reason,” Barfield said. “Taxpayers fund the former, not the latter. Otherwise it turns a legitimate protection function into an excuse for avoiding accountability,” Barfield said.
“The optics are hard to justify,” he added.
The first requests for heightened security came days after Ingoglia received a postcard from a retired veteran with a three-word message: “You lack values.” Ingoglia’s office treated the postcard as a perceived threat and sent two agents to the veteran’s home in Largo to interview him and his politically active wife. The couple was shocked the postcard led to a police visit.
The visit was a precautionary measure given the political climate, a spokesperson for Ingoglia said at the time. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had been assassinated in Utah just weeks earlier in September and conservatives and liberals were clashing over the direction the country was headed.
On Oct. 4, the morning of the UF-Texas Longhorns football game, the criminal investigations division received a request for “a closer LEO presence” at UF’s stadium, known as The Swamp, while Ingoglia and his guests were at the game, sitting in the presidential suite. “No threat or concern just additional presence,” an email said.
Seats in the president’s suite are invitation-only and restricted to the president of UF, high-level university officials and invited guests.
The email also said the division would have two detectives “park under the stadium at the drop off point and both shadow the CFO as he moves around the event. … UFPD will also provide a uniform to assist in familiarity within the stadium.”
In addition, UF police were to provide a motorcade for Ingoglia and his three companions from Spurrier’s Gridiron Grill, more than four miles away from the stadium, the emails said.
“I get it that public officials face genuine security risks, but a security detail doesn’t transfer football games into state business,” Barfield said. “The moment a protective detail is attached the line between a public duty and personal recreation is effectively erased and with it any oversight of the state resources and personnel are used.”
The football game directive came about a week after Ingoglia held a news conference criticizing Alachua County — where UF’s campus is located — for excessive or wasteful spending to the tune of $84 million over five years, claiming the budget grew by 77%.
More than three weeks later, on Oct. 29, Ingoglia requested security for two events in Miami — piggybacking a football game onto a news conference.
Ingoglia had three officers assigned to provide security during a news conference at Florida International University’s Biscayne Bay campus in North Miami from 1 to 2 p.m. on Oct. 30. He used the event to accuse Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami for wastefully spending hundreds of millions of dollars.
Later that day, Ingoglia and his entourage were picked up at 6:45 p.m. at the Four Points Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Airport, 12 miles north of the campus. Three agents and two vehicles took the CFO and three staff members to the Hard Rock Stadium nearly 14 miles southwest in time for kickoff for the Dolphins-Baltimore Ravens game, the email said.
“Escort to skybox, standby as needed. Return to escort vehicles, and return transport to original location,” the Criminal Investigations Division email said.
Almost two months later, Ingoglia asked for transportation and security for himself, his wife and two staff members from the Capital Grille next to Tampa International Airport to the Benchmark International Arena six miles away, where they were to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning play the Florida Panthers.
Four days later, on Dec. 19, the criminal investigations division got a last-minute request for transportation and security for Ingoglia and three other people to attend the UFC boxing match at the Kaseya Center in Miami. “Details are still changing but would expect a 6:00pm pickup tonight, with the event running late into the evening (main fight scheduled to begin at approx.11:00pm),” the Criminal Investigations Division email said.
The request was for four agents. “We may be able to operate with 3 members and two vehicles depending on details to come,” an official wrote.
The email did not provide a pickup location for the Ingoglia party.
Frank Collige, a public adjuster from North Florida running against Ingoglia in the August Republican primary for CFO, said it is “hypocritical” of Ingoglia to go around the state talking about holding city and county governments accountable for wasteful spending when the public is footing bills for his attendance at sporting events.
Also, he said, those officers must have been diverted from other investigative duties, which he said could amount to fraud.
“He’s talking about fiscal responsibility yet wasting taxpayer money having CID agents as his personal security,” Collige said.
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