Frustration grows as beleaguered DMS Secretary dances around clear answers

Members of a state House budget oversight committee were left disappointed once again on Wednesday; they’d hoped to finally receive answers they have been awaiting for weeks from the head of the beleaguered Department of Management Services (DMS).

Secretary Pedro Allende, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick to head up the department which oversees billions of dollars and a multitude of state business operations, delivered complex replies loaded with technological terms but failed to answer the most direct of questions, including an expected completion date for a statutorily-required data collection project roughly three years overdue.

“The frustration is growing in the committee,” said Rep. Vicki Lopez, a Republican from Miami-Dade who chairs the House Administration Budget Subcommittee, which, along with other House committees, is taking a closer look into state agency spending.

“Secretary Allende gets very convoluted in his answers to us, then it gets very complex, Lopez said. “He’s not answering the exact question which is: if you have four data team members, some of which were your friends from the Department of Energy and they were supposed to have done the job, why haven’t they?”

Allende defended the hiring of the four out-of-state employees at the meeting today, insisting that he had indeed opened the positions to the public, and received numerous applications, including from Floridians. 

“So for the chief data officer, we had 54 applicants, 25 were in Florida or Florida residents,” he said. Allende did not directly answer the question of how many applicants in Florida were considered for the position, and said he did not know if the position was originally advertised as being remote. “I can tell you that our chief data officer vacations in Florida, loves Florida, family has a home in Daytona, but it’s just not the right decision for his family,” Allende said.

Edward Rhyne, the state chief data officer who earns $206,276, had the top billing amount for commuting costs – $42,000 – to Florida from his home in Maryland, state records show.

Asked if his prior employment with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and now a new contract struck between DMS and the federal agency’s National Laboratory in Idaho had colored his hiring decisions, Allende replied, “Absolutely.” The prior relationship with Rhyne, who had worked with Allende at the DOE, inspired the hiring decision. “I’ve tried to bring the very best of the folks that I have worked with,” he said.

The “Florida Data Service” team was hired by Allende in March 2023, and had, as a key mission, the completion of a statewide data inventory. As the Florida Trident first reported, the team came under scrutiny after it was discovered that the four highly paid members of the group were not only based out-of-state in places like Idaho and West Virginia, but that Florida taxpayers are paying for their commuting costs to Tallahassee, costing tens of thousands of dollars.

For the third time in as many weeks, Allende was summoned to appear before Lopez’s committee on Wednesday, where questions had been mounting on the selection of the four individuals over Florida or Florida-based ones, and what Floridians were getting in return.

The hiring controversy came at the same time the department was under fire for a state audit released in January, uncontested by Allende, noting the agency’s failure to properly track thousands of state vehicles valued at millions of dollars under its supervision.

Also Wednesday, members of the committee learned an extension of a contract to manage the benefits and payroll for state employees was overdue and a lease by DMS with the House for the use of the 21^st floor in the state Capitol for office space was abruptly cancelled earlier this month, effective April 1^st. 

An email to House leadership in early March was the only notice that the lease would be ended, Lopez said. The Secretary said he had no immediate explanation for the lease cancellation.

Following the meeting, Allende, who resides in Miami, would not answer questions posed by the Trident regarding a non-profit organization he formed in 2021 in that city together with Rhyne and two other individuals. 

Allende is expected to return for a fourth time next week to face additional grilling by the committee.