TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Florida taxpayers paid millions of dollars more to protect Gov. Ron DeSantis and his family last year as he prepared to launch his presidential bid.
In total, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement last year spent $9.4 million on salaries for agents and transportation costs for the detail that protects DeSantis, his wife, Casey, and their three children, according to state records — a more than 55% increase in the cost of protecting him.
That’s $3 million more than the $6 million the agency spent the previous fiscal year to protect DeSantis and his family. The more recent totals cover July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023, a timeframe that saw a significant increase in travel by DeSantis. He campaigned for key Republican Senate candidates across the country during the 2022 midterms, traveled to his own political fundraisers, and, in May, launched a presidential bid.
“By law, FDLE must provide protective services to the Governor and the First Family,” said Jeremy Redfern, a DeSantis press secretary.
Redfern said the increased costs are tied to DeSantis becoming a higher-profile national politician.
“His record as the most effective conservative governor in American history has also earned him an elevated threat profile and FDLE has increased the number of protective agents to ensure the governor and his family remain,” he added.
In June, FDLE acknowledged to NBC News that there was increased security around the governor, but at that time said it was not due to his increasing political profile, but rather failures by past FDLE leadership to keep enough agents assigned to protective services, which is the department charged with protecting governors and other visiting dignitaries.
The agency said the decision was made by now-FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass based on recommendations from a transition team he put together after being appointed by DeSantis in August 2022.
“Unfortunately, the team Commission Glass put together during his transition found that after nearly a decade FDLE had failed to request necessary additional resources in Protective Operations while the threats nationwide have increased leaving the section critically underfunded, and in many cases understaffed,” FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessenger told NBC News in June.
At that time both former FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen former and Republican Sen. Rick Scott, a former two-term Florida governor, pushed back on the framing. Scott said he never had an issue with his protective services detail.
“I had a great working relationship with FDLE and the agents of the protective detail,” Scott said at the time, responding to FDLE’s claims. “Their protective and investigative work was an important part of Florida hitting record low crime rates over my eight years as governor.”
The increase in protective services over the past year is larger than most years, but it has been part of a regular increase over the years. In the fiscal year ending in June 2012, the state spent $2.1 million on protective services for Scott and his family, a number that rose $4 million over the next decade to the $6 million the state spent last year. But those increases pale in comparison to the more than $3 million one-year increase seen during the last fiscal year.
FDLE also spent $457,242 protecting visiting out-of-state dignitaries over dozens of visits.
The most expensive trip was $86,924 to send DeSantis to a Republican Governors Association conference in Utah.
