HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — During the tumultuous early days of President Donald Trump’s leadership, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), once directed by the billionaire Elon Musk, inspired similar efforts at the state level. Republican governors and lawmakers sought to align themselves with party ideals by mirroring these federal initiatives.

Traditionally, governors have focused on reducing waste and streamlining bureaucracy, but DOGE has heightened the expectation for them to demonstrate a strong commitment to cost-cutting measures. Many emphasize their long-standing dedication to reducing government size, even if it does not involve large-scale staff reductions.

“I like to say we were doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in announcing her own task force in January.

Critics argue that some of these state-level initiatives are not particularly innovative and can be wasteful, as they often duplicate existing processes typically handled by legislative committees or independent state auditors.

At the same time, some governors are using their DOGE vehicles to take aim at GOP targets of the moment, such as welfare programs or diversity, equity and inclusion programs. And some governors who might be eyeing a White House run in 2028 are rebranding their cost-cutting initiatives as DOGE, perhaps eager to claim the mantle of the most DOGE of them all.

No chainsaws in the states

At least 26 states have initiated DOGE-style efforts of varying kinds, according to the Economic Policy Institute based in Washington, D.C.

Most DOGE efforts were carried out through a governor’s order — including by governors in Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma — or by lawmakers introducing legislation or creating a legislative committee.

The state initiatives have a markedly different character than Trump’s slash-and-burn approach, symbolized by Musk’s chainsaw-brandishing appearance at a Conservative Political Action Committee appearance in February.

Governors are tending to entrust their DOGE bureaus to loyalists, rather than independent auditors, and are often employing what could be yearslong processes to consolidate procurement, modernize information technology systems, introduce AI tools, repeal regulations or reduce car fleets, office leases or worker headcounts through attrition.

Steve Slivinski, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who researches state government regulatory structures, said that a lot of what he has seen from state-level DOGE initiatives are the “same stuff you do on a pretty regular basis anyway” in state governments.

States typically have routine auditing procedures and the ways states have of saving money are “relatively unsexy,” Slivinski said.

And while the state-level DOGE vehicles might be useful over time in finding marginal improvements, “branding it DOGE is more of a press op rather than anything new or substantially different than what they usually do,” Slivinski said.

Analysts at the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute say that governors and lawmakers, primarily in the South and Midwest, are using DOGE to breathe new life into long-term agendas to consolidate power away from state agencies and civil servants, dismantle public services and benefit insiders and privatization advocates.

“It’s not actually about cutting costs because of some fiscal responsibility,” EPI analyst Nina Mast said.

Governors promoting spending cuts

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry rebranded his “Fiscal Responsibility Program” as Louisiana DOGE, and promoted it as the first to team up with the federal government to scrub illegitimate enrollees from welfare programs. It has already netted $70 million in savings in the Medicaid program in an “unprecedented” coordination, Landry said in June.

In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt — who says in a blurb on the Oklahoma DOGE website that “I’ve been DOGE-ing in Oklahoma since before it was cool” — made a DOGE splash with the first report by his Division of Government Efficiency by declaring that the state would refuse some $157 million in federal public health grants.

The biggest chunk of that was $132 million intended to support epidemiology and laboratory capacity to control infectious disease outbreaks.

The Stitt administration said that funding — about one-third of the total over an eight-year period — exceeded the amount needed.

The left-leaning Oklahoma Policy Institute questioned the wisdom of that, pointing to rising numbers of measles and whooping cough cases and the rocky transition under Stitt of the state’s public health lab from Oklahoma City to Stillwater.

Oklahoma Democrats issued rebukes, citing Oklahoma’s lousy public health rankings.

“This isn’t leadership,” state Sen. Carri Hicks said. ”It’s negligence.”

Stitt’s Oklahoma DOGE has otherwise recommended changes in federal law to save money, opened up the suggestion box to state employees and members of the general public and posted a spreadsheet online with cost savings initiatives in his administration.

Those include things as mundane as agencies going paperless, refinancing bonds, buying automated lawn mowers for the Capitol grounds or eliminating a fax machine line in the State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order in February creating a task force of DOGE teams in each state agency.

In the order, DeSantis recited 10 points on what he described as his and Florida’s “history of prudent fiscal management” even before DOGE.

Among other things, DeSantis vowed to scrutinize spending by state universities and municipal and county governments — including on DEI initiatives — at a time when DeSantis is pushing to abolish the property taxes that predominantly fund local governments.

His administration has since issued letters to universities and governments requesting reams of information and received a blessing from lawmakers, who passed legislation authorizing the inquiry and imposing fines for entities that don’t respond.

After the June 30 signing ceremony, DeSantis declared on social media: “We now have full authority to DOGE local governments.”

In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched her cost-cutting Arkansas Forward last year, before DOGE, and later said the state had done the “same thing” as DOGE.

Her administration spent much of 2024 compiling a 97-page report that listed hundreds of ways to possibly save $300 million inside a $6.5 billion budget.

Achieving that savings — largely by standardizing information technology and purchasing — would sometimes require up-front spending and take years to realize savings.

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