Saying the Florida Department of Management Services’ “fiscal house is completely out of order,” a House budget leader Thursday excoriated the head of the agency and threatened to zero out his salary as lawmakers prepare to begin budget negotiations.
House State Administration Budget Chairwoman Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, for weeks has targeted Department of Management Services Secretary Pedro Allende, who she said has refused to cooperate with her panel’s efforts to weed out wasteful spending at state agencies.
“We have a crisis of leadership at DMS that has resulted in a crisis of management,” Lopez said Thursday.
The department oversees issues such as government leases, vehicles and state employees’ health insurance. Lopez said Allende, who was not present Thursday, has left unresolved a number of issues despite her committee’s requests for information.
At the top of the list is an auditor general report released this year that found the department could not account for 2,200 vehicles, which were purchased for roughly $57 million.
“To this day, nearly a month following the auditor general’s report to the (House budget) subcommittee, the secretary has no idea how many vehicles the state of Florida owns. It’s his job to know,” Lopez said.
Allende did not provide “just a simple plan” to tell the House panel how he plans to address the fleet-management issue, Lopez told reporters after Thursday’s meeting.
“He cannot tell me what corrective action he's going to take to improve on the findings,” Lopez said.
Allende’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lopez’s committee on Thursday also rolled out a budget proposal for agencies, including the Department of Management Services, that targeted Allende’s salary and axed the positions of a handful of his top aides.
Lopez earlier this month questioned Allende, who worked for the U.S. Department of Energy during President Donald Trump’s first term, about his hiring of Edward Rhyne as the agency’s chief data analyst in 2023. Rhyne, who lives in Maryland and makes more than $200,000 a year, worked alongside Allende at the federal energy department. Rhyne has billed the state for more than $42,000 in travel expenses since he was hired.
The committee’s budget would do away with Rhyne’s position along with three other Allende hires who reportedly work from outside of Florida.
“The secretary has four highly paid staff, tech staff, living out of state that appear to have little oversight. The taxpayers are paying thousands of dollars to fly to and from Tallahassee. DMS has yet to provide any real, tangible work produced by these remote workers. That's why I've decided to move forward with eliminating these positions and the associated funding,” Lopez said.
Lopez said the agency also appears to have five other out-of-state workers, including two graphic designers who work in its information-technology division, an issue she said she intends to address when House and Senate budget leaders meet to hash out a final spending plan.
The Legislature also steered $60 million to Allende’s agency to address water infiltration, flooding and other structural problems in parking garages for the House and Senate. The garages “are still leaking, and the secretary has no current plan to remedy the situation,” according to Lopez.
Lopez said she was including language in her part of the House’s budget plan that would put the salary for Allende — who earns more than $210,000 annually — in reserve.
“Not a dime of it will be replaced or released until he can answer these basic questions or perform the statutorily required objectives. These are not overly complex issues. We are merely asking a secretary to perform the bare minimum, and we can't even get that level of effort,” she said.
Sparks flew between Lopez and Allende last week when she questioned the secretary about his agency’s cancellation of a lease with the House for offices on the 21st floor of the Capitol. The House was notified this month that the lease would expire on April 1.
Lopez’s panel on Thursday also approved a measure aimed at preventing a repeat of what she called the “unfortunate situation” with the lease cancellation.
The bill (HB 5203) would make the House, Senate, governor and Cabinet members “permanent” tenants of the Capitol Complex. Any changes to the Legislature’s leases would have to be approved in advance by the House speaker or Senate president. Legislative leaders also would have to sign off on any Capitol construction or remodeling projects.
“Members, this bill will give us assurances that the space in which we conduct our business today will be our space tomorrow,” Lopez told members of the panel.
Lopez’s fiery remarks underscored an increasingly tense relationship between Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, who she said supported her stance about Allende and his agency.
“This is a collaborative effort with leadership,” Lopez said, adding that Perez directed House budget leaders to “drill into agencies and they were expected to give answers.”
When asked, Lopez said she hoped DeSantis was paying attention to the focus on Allende.
“That agency reports directly to the governor, and that’s something that I’m hopeful that he is taking very seriously,” Lopez told reporters. “I liken DMS to the house that’s on fire and you can see the fire in every single window.”
— News Service staff writer Jim Turner contributed to this report.
