The state’s most recent Chief Financial Officer headed to Congress at the beginning of April, and he’s wondering why his old job hasn’t been filled yet.
“It’s been over four months since we’ve had the vacancy as CFO of the state of Florida, and I know this. I watched every single dollar. I can audit every single transaction. I can question any finances anywhere in the state if it’s taxpayer related. Without a CFO in place, who in the hell is doing the business of the people,” asked a frustrated Rep. Jimmy Patronis to Matt Gaetz on his One America News Network show Friday.
Patronis ran to fill Gaetz’s seat after the latter resigned when being considered as Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, meaning that the need to hire a CFO has been no surprise for a long time. A resign-to-run law meant that Patronis had to leave office whether he won or not.
The former CFO went on to make an unfavorable comparison of the Governor to former President Joe Biden.
“The Constitution specifically states that the only person who can sign checks is the CFO of the State of Florida. They’ve got a couple of friendly attorneys who have found some way to find comfort language in allowing essentially an AutoPen to sign the checks for the state of Florida,” Patronis claimed.
DeSantis has said he wanted to see how the “dust settled” once the Legislative Session ended, seemingly telegraphing his intent to appoint a friendly member like Sen. Blaise Ingoglia. Asked about the vacancy on April 1, DeSantis suggested the opening would be filled expeditiously.
That wasn’t the case.
In other fiscal matters, Patronis also sided with the Legislature in its thus far frustrated probe of $10 million in Medicaid settlement money that the Hope Florida Foundation routed into political advertising to kill a pro-pot amendment last year, via a political committee chaired by current Attorney General James Uthmeier.
“I applaud the Legislature for asking tough questions of the executive branch. That’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s what our constituents expect us to do,” Patronis said.
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