Blaise Ingoglia is spending millions in taxpayer money on advertising as he runs for election

Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, an interim appointee of Ron DeSantis who is now running for election to a full term, has ordered up a barrage of pre-election “public service announcements.”

Photo credit: Florida Department of Financial Services

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Blaise Ingoglia, Florida’s interim chief financial officer, is spending more than $3 million on taxpayer-funded advertising as he runs for election to a full term in the powerful statewide post.

The publicly subsidized ad blitz includes a series of commercials urging Floridians to prepare for hurricane season that conclude with a narrator emphasizing Ingoglia’s name. The ads also direct viewers to a website where the first thing they see is a smiling picture of the little-known politician and a link to “Meet Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia.”

The self-promotional ads began airing over the past month — about halfway through the six-month hurricane season and just before Floridians begin voting in the November election.

“This is a public service message from the Department of Financial Services and Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia,” the narrator says at the end of each 30-second spot. Seeking Rents has spotted three versions of the commercial airing during local TV news broadcasts in Orlando over the past week.

There are at least three variations of the hurricane-preparedness ads, but each ends with the narrator emphasizing Blaise Ingoglia’s name.

Ingoglia’s tax-funded advertising goes beyond belated reminders to prepare for hurricanes.

Records show that the agency Ingoglia runs — the Florida Department of Financial Services — has in recent weeks also ordered up so-called “public service announcements” related to abandoned property and senior citizen fraud. Some of those ads are already running on local television stations, where they frequently appear during the same program as the hurricane-prep spots. Others will begin broadcasting closer to Election Day.

Altogether, Ingoglia’s agency has paid more than $3.7 million to three Tallahassee ad agencies to produce and place PSAs, according to a Seeking Rents review of payment records and purchase orders. The payments began in July, but most of the money — more than $2.3 million — has been spent in just the past three weeks.

In addition, another state agency — the Office of Financial Regulation, which is administratively housed within the Department of Financial Services but reports to the governor and Florida Cabinet — just paid more than $50,000 for a dozen additional PSAs related to various kinds of consumer scams.

The Department of Financial Services has spent more than $3.7 million on advertising development and placement since July.

Ingoglia, a Republican who used to represent a Tampa-area seat in the Florida Legislature, has never run statewide before and remains largely unknown to most Floridians. He was not elected chief financial officer but instead temporarily installed in the job by Gov. Ron DeSantis after the previous CFO stepped down early to run for Congress.

Ingoglia is now running for election to a full, four-year term against Democrat Annette Taddeo, a former lawmaker from Miami who was the first Latina Democrat ever elected to the state Senate.

The winner will control a sprawling state agency with more than 2,000 employees and a nearly $700 million budget that regulates everything from cryptocurrency to fire codes.

What’s more, the CFO is one of three statewide elected officials to serve on the Cabinet, which, along with the governor, decides important issues such as when and where to buy land for conservation — and from whom to buy it.

The hurricane-prep PSAs were produced by Strategic Digital Services, a Republican-aligned advertising agency in Tallahassee. That’s the same vendor the DeSantis administration used two years ago when five different state agencies sponsored a barrage of thinly veiled campaign commercials intended to erode support for a pair of proposed constitutional amendments that would have ended a statewide abortion ban and legalized recreational marijuana.

DeSantis and his staff ultimately spent an estimated $35 million to $40 million in taxpayer money on that 2024 campaign, which helped keep the abortion and marijuana ballot measures just below the 60 percent supermajority threshold needed to amend the state constitution. The unprecedented scheme prompted the Florida Legislature to pass a law in 2025 prohibiting state agencies from spending money promoting or opposing proposed constitutional amendments.

Records show the Department of Financial Services has paid about $1.5 million to Strategic Digital Services for the ads — including a $1.24 million payment on Sept. 14.

Sydney Booker, a spokesperson for Ingoglia, said the television spots begin airing the week of Aug. 24 and social media ads started the week of Aug. 31. A public ad library maintained by Meta Platforms shows that the agency began running ads on Facebook and Instagram between Sept. 8 and Sept. 11.

The six-month hurricane season began on June 1, but Booker said the ads coincide with “peak hurricane season.” Most Atlantic hurricane activity occurs between mid-August and mid-October, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Department of Financial hired Strategic Digital Services on June 8. Three days later, records show, the agency hired another Tallahassee ad agency called Adele Creative to produce a different set of PSAs.

Those commercials, which are also currently airing on broadcast television stations, tout a state website that people can search for unclaimed money that may be owed to them — like cash left in an inactive bank account or utility deposit that was never refunded. The abandoned-property ads seen by Seeking Rents don’t promote Ingoglia by name. But they steer viewers to a website that does.

Ingoglia’s agency has far paid about $1.5 million to Adele Creative, including a $400,000 payment issued on Sept. 10.

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One week after contracting with Strategic Digital Services and Adele Creative, the Department of Financial Services hired a third Tallahassee marketing firm: The Taproot Agency.

Taproot, records show, is producing PSAs related to senior citizen fraud. The Department of Financial Services has paid the firm $710,000 so far — including a pair of payments, totaling just under $700,000, made on Sept. 14.

Booker, the spokesperson for Ingoglia, said the ads produced by Taproot will begin broadcasting “in the next couple of weeks.”

And more PSAs may be on the way from other agencies, too.

Specifically, the Office of Financial Regulation — an agency that reports to the full Cabinet, which, in addition to Ingoglia, includes Attorney General James Uthmeier and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson — recently enlisted another Tallahassee ad firm to develop six more television ads and another half dozen radio spots.

Records show that office paid $51,825 to Sachs Media on Sept. 18 for the PSAs, which deal with various kinds of consumer scams. It’s not yet clear whether any of those ads have begun airing in certain markets around the state — or whether they, too, will surface closer to the November election.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the Department of Financial Services had paid four advertising agencies to produce PSAs. One of the vendors was paid by the Office of Financial Regulation, which is administratively housed within DFS but reports directly to the governor and Cabinet. The story has been updated to reflect that distinction. The story has also been updated to include a comment from the Department of Financial Services that advertisements related to senior citizen fraud will begin airing “in the next couple of weeks.”