Lee County Clerk saves nearly $800K, DOGE-style

The DOGE efforts recently launched on a statewide level through Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, coming to places including Manatee County and St. Petersburg in the region, among others, can probably skip the Lee County Clerk’s office on its Sunshine State tour.

That’s because the office, under Lee County Clerk and Comptroller Kevin Karnes, announced $787,175 in proposed savings of taxpayer money as direct result, it says, of the clerk’s Chief of Government Efficiency role, instituted in February. Known as CoGE, the focus is to help reduce the office’s budget, streamline operations and promote a culture of excellence, according to a statement. John Bodner, the clerk’s chief administrative office, serves as the clerk’s top CoGE official.

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The savings stem from a new line-item budget review from Bodner and a second line-item review at the clerk level. Through these new line item budget reviews, the Clerk’s office submitted a proposed budget to Lee County Commissioners for fiscal year 2025-2026 with a budgetary decrease of 4.7%, which is a $787,175 reduction from the year prior.

“As Lee County’s Clerk and Comptroller, I am committed to being a good steward of taxpayer money,” Karnes says in the release. “That is why I created the CoGE initiative — to save our county’s tax dollars. When I became clerk, I set a vision for myself and my office to be ‘1% better than yesterday.’ With that mantra in mind, my goal was to cut the office budget by at least 1%.

This is the first year in more than a decade the clerk’s office has been able to submit a decreased budget from the year prior, the release states. 

The Florida Constitution established the Clerk of the Circuit Court as a public trustee, responsible for safeguarding public records and public funds. Karnes, a Republican, was appointed to the role by DeSantis in March 2022 and elected countywide that August. 

DeSantis, meanwhile, signed an executive order in February that stated, in part, that the “EO DOGE Team shall report any legislative recommendations to the Governor, the Chief Financial Officer, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives” by Sept. 30.