In the wake of Hurricane Irma last fall, Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to scour Florida to prevent businesses from exploiting consumers by price gouging. It turns out she could have just looked down the hall in the state capitol. Based on reporting by CBS News 4 in Miami, it appears Gov. Rick Scott's administration may have been responsible for the state's most egregious case of price gouging. Ignoring existing contracts for hurricane cleanup and disposal may have inexplicably cost taxpayers $30 million in unnecessary bills.

Usually, local officials strike a deal with private firms ahead of time to insure an immediate response and price certainty after a major storm hits and cleanup is a priority. Monroe County, which absorbed the brunt of Hurricane Irma's force as it moved over the Keys, had exactly that type of contract with the debris-hauling firm AshBritt. Yet, two days after the storm, the Florida Department of Transportation hired two outside firms to begin the cleanup. Apparently, cost was not a consideration. According to documents obtained by the television station, the firm MCM was paid $913 per mile to clear roadways. The contract with AshBritt called for the same work to be done at $32 per mile. Discarded appliances were picked up by MCM for $969 each. AshBritt got $75 each. That is an indefensible price difference, no matter what the situation.

The Scott administration says it intervened because the local government asked for assistance. Except that doesn't appear to be true. In a deposition given in a lawsuit filed by AshBritt, the Monroe County emergency services expert says he never made the request. He says he later called Tallahassee and questioned why extra firms were being hired and was never given an explanation.

Even before AshBritt's lawsuit, Monroe County officials questioned the state's interference in public meetings even while cleanup was continuing. "We've already said to Tallahassee, 'You know, we've got this. We have a contractor. You're disturbing our issue. Go away,'?'' said County Administrator Roman Gastesi. "And they just went ahead and reactivated.'' Monroe County Mayor George Nugent even asked the county attorney if the outside contractors could be served with cease and desist orders. "If you talk about price gouging, based upon the contract that we already have, the governor was actually doing the price gouging,'' Nugent said in a Sept. 27 meeting.

Absurd pricing is not the only issue. Local officials say efforts were actually hampered by the hiring of outside firms because independent contractors and workers with AshBritt were jumping ship to make more money off the state's deal with MCM.

Even if this was an innocent mistake, a case of Tallahassee bureaucrats being overzealous during a time of crisis, there needs to be some reckoning or review. Reforms should be made to ensure that the state doesn't go off half-cocked in the all-too predictable event of another hurricane. This is exactly why pre-storm contracts are drawn up.

And yet Scott insists his administration did everything right. In an interview with CBS News 4, the governor blamed it all on "special interests that didn't do their job.'' Scott never named these "special interests,'' and the local officials on the scene have disputed that characterization.

The governor received understandable praise for his pre-hurricane preparations last fall, but his administration did not serve Florida taxpayers well in this situation. They deserve a more thorough explanation for this wasteful spending than vague and evasive excuses.