$4 billion dispute arises over county’s true spending level

Written by Miami Today on April 22, 2026

Officials differ by $4 billion about the true size of Miami-Dade’s budget as well as what data the public may see, unveiling of a new spending dashboard revealed.

Asked by Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins the scope of the county budget last week, the commission’s auditor told her $17 million and the county’s chief administrative officer said $13.2 billion.

For more than an hour the Intergovernmental and Economic Committee grappled with the gap, finally calling for one-on-one meetings to reveal the facts.

“The budget book excludes certain numbers, but the calculation that we have and we’re working with the administration on is a reflection of the total expenses of all the departments, which is probably closer to about $17 billion,” the auditor who works directly for commissioners, Yinka Majekodunm, said in explaining a tool his department created for commissioners to monitor spending as it occurs, department by department.

“We passed a budget of $13.23 billion just a few months ago, but you’re saying that our budget is closer to $17 billion?” said Ms. Cohen Higgins. “I’m not sure how that can be.”

“The number that you’re familiar with excludes certain transactions,” Mr. Majekodunm said. “But in doing the dashboard, our goal was to pull every single transaction in the expenditure of every single department … and that number is bigger than the number that you’re familiar with, and that number is closer to 17 than 13,” he said.

“This seems absolutely absurd,” said the newest commissioner, Vicki Lopez, who until recently was a state legislator. “At the state we have a much bigger budget and what is eventually passed … whatever is left is exactly, to the penny, what executive agencies have as their budget and what they can spend.”

“If it doesn’t match, there’s something wrong,” Ms. Lopez continued. “Because if you appropriate a certain money, that is all you are authorized to spend.”

“Our budget has been transparent,” said Chief Administrative Officer Carladenise Edwards, an aide to the mayor, whose office created the budget. “What we have here is a discrepancy between the budget that you approved and the dashboard that’s been created. That will and can be resolved.”

Certain spending is excluded from the “$13.2 billion that is the annual individual operating expenditures for each county department,” Ms. Edwards said. It excludes inter-agency revenues “so that we could avoid double counting and falsely inflating the budget.” She went on to list types of non-operating expenditures that aren’t in the $13.2 billion.

Beyond the commission, its auditor and the mayor’s office, an independent office weighed in on the budget’s real scope.

The Clerk of the Court and Controller’s Office, which audits county spending, was not contacted as Mr. Majekodunm created the dashboard that revealed that total spending is $17 billion, far larger than ever reported. “We don’t know how he is putting the information together,” said Barbara Galvez, chief administrative officer for that independent office.

Several commissioners asked how the dashboard could be made public. Ms. Edwards was firm that the data remain out of view, saying “I would urge us not to make anything public that has not been vetted appropriately by the departments, by the clerk and by the comptroller.”

Commissioners leveled no accusations in the $4 billion discrepancy, as Roberto Gonzalez noted “I don’t think any of us are assuming that anything nefarious is happening.”