As the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee enters the final two days of deliberations on Mayor Donna Deegan’s proposed $2.02 billion city budget for 2025-26, it has cut spending on a number of Deegan’s priority items.
By the end of the Aug. 15 session, the committee’s cuts of proposed funding included:
• $6.25 million in homelessness prevention initiatives.
• $2.18 million for a telehealth program.
• $1.94 million for a Meals on Wheels expansion.
• $300,000 in the mayor’s budget for personnel.
• $237,000 for the State of Jax online database, which Deegan had introduced days earlier.
Those reductions and others total more than $33 million, or $20 million more than cuts needed for a one-eighth of a mill rollback in property taxes that was adopted by the committee at the outset of the budget hearings.
One mill is equal to a $1 tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value. For the owner of a Jacksonville property with an assessed property value of $200,000 and a $50,000 homestead exemption, the annual tax savings would be $18.75.
The proposed moves and cuts are recommendations from the committee and could be revised by the full Council as it finalizes the budget, which by state law must be balanced.
Deegan is pushing back at the cuts, saying they are motivated by politics in the run-up to the 2027 mayoral and Council elections.
The committee members driving the cuts are Republicans. Deegan is a Democrat.
The administration singled out the elimination of money for the telehealth program. It said the program is saving the city millions in emergency room visits and helping thousands of people.
“I think a lot of today was performance,” Deegan told reporters Aug. 7. Deegan said she felt committee members were under pressure from the state’s chief financial officer, who visited City Hall that day for a Florida Department of Government Efficiency audit.
“A couple of people surprised me, but I’m not at all surprised that (the millage cut) passed in finance,” Deegan said.
The next day, the Finance Committee had its response prepared.
“If they want a performance, the performance starts today,” Chair Raul Arias said at the top of the hearing. “So get ready.”
More cuts to Deegan’s priorities ensued, including $8.7 million in city contributions to Edward Waters University, $6.75 million for affordable housing assistance and $1 million for the Jacksonville Urban League.
The tax cut
In her operating budget, Deegan proposed $2.02 billion in spending, up from $1.88 billion in the approved budget for the city’s current fiscal year.
It includes about $110 million in new spending, much of which would provide $100.1 million in salary and pension increases to Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department employees, which Deegan and Council approved in 2024.
The increased spending in Deegan’s 2025-26 budget blueprint would mostly be funded from tax revenue that came in $20 million higher than projected, from a $40 million, one-time payment from city utility JEA in its annual contribution to the city, and from a $40 million reduction in city spending for an annual subsidy to pay residents’ fees for trash hauling.
Deegan says the city should retain status quo on millage rates to provide services to a growing population.
Committee Vice Chair Nick Howland has repeated that $1 in the hands of an individual is better than $1 in the hands of the government. Deegan’s administration has maintained that millions in budget cuts wouldn’t amount to much more than a few dollars for the average Jacksonville resident.
Control over $14 million
Even before finding enough cuts to reduce the millage rate, Council started in a $14 million hole just to return to a legally required balanced budget because the Finance Committee wanted more Council control over how to spend that money.
That $14 million was spread evenly across each of the 14 Council districts as part of the Community Benefits Agreement connected to the stadium deal between the city and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Deegan put the money in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan. The committee moved it to the operating budget so it could be used at the Council members’ discretion — not just for capital improvement projects funded by debt.
Council members were given the option of moving the funding back into the Capital Improvement Plan, which is funded by debt, but it is unclear how many will do so.
Committee vs. Deegan
On Aug. 8, the committee started by cutting Deegan’s personnel budget, which prompted online back-and-forth arguments from members of Deegan’s staff and the mayor’s critics on the Council.
The proposed budget called for a 20.4% increase in her office’s payroll, from about $3.15 million to almost $3.79 million.
Deegan said the increase was necessary to hire a new chief of staff and a chief of analytics.
Chief of Staff Mike Weinstein replaced Florida Blue executive Darnell Smith, who was an executive on loan to the city. Parvez Ahmed is the city’s chief of analytics. Ahmed moved to that job after Council cut the funding for his position as chief of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The office also added part-time hours for a special adviser to the mayor and the conversion of the Hispanic outreach coordinator to a full-time position.
During a break, Arias said the committee felt the mayor’s office had exceeded what was an appropriate increase in salaries, which he placed at 6-7%.
“You hear the narrative out in the public, in the community, that people get paid way too much working in this office, in this building,” Arias said.
“We’re trying to just bring that in a little bit more.”
The committee cut the request by $300,000, leaving Deegan with a 10.8% increase at $3.49 million.
“There is a separation of powers between the Mayor’s Office and the City Council,” a spokesperson for Deegan said in an email. “Given that we do not meddle in the City Council’s staff and that we provided all the resources they asked for in the budget, this feels political and personal.”
Deegan hopes for millage rate return
Members of the Finance Committee expressed interest in further spending cuts and more reduction to the millage rate.
With the current proposed cut of one-eighth mill, the rate would stand at 11.1919. If spending cuts rise high enough, members have talked about cutting another eighth.
Deegan, however, has said she’s hopeful that once the full Council discusses the budget Sept. 23, the millage rate will be restored and some items cut from the budget will return. Last year, after the Finance Committee cut $47 million of reserve spending from the budget, the Council put $10 million back in.
“I am sincerely hopeful that once we get to the full council, that we’ll have less performers and more statesmen,” Deegan said after the millage cut.
“This is clearly something that is just so fiscally irresponsible for us right now, and it, frankly, just doesn’t give any tax relief to think of.”
The road ahead
Deegan will have an uphill battle to see her millage rate restored. A majority of Council – 10 members – would have to vote to bring the rate back to the proposed level of 11.3169. Four Republicans would have to join the Council’s six Democrats to side with the mayor.
“I think there’s a chance,” said Council member Matt Carlucci, a Republican ally of Deegan’s administration.
“I think there’s a couple of Republican members that are very reasonable and understand the implications of a millage cut when it comes to long-term obligations.”
Carlucci named himself and Council member Michael Boylan, another moderate Republican, as two votes who would be likely to restore the millage rate.
“We need to emphasize that you can’t cut yourself to a great city. You don’t have to raise, raise, raise taxes,” Carlucci said. “You have to invest in your city.”
Boylan said he did not support the restoration of the millage rate at present, noting that if Council could lower the millage rate and bring back $3.5 million of health care spending into the budget, he would vote for that.