Mayor Deegan tells City Council her $2 billion budget is ‘not just balanced. It is urgent.’ (Courtesy of the Florida Times-Union) — Mayor Donna Deegan (pictured above) rolled out a $2 billion city budget that would boost overall spending by 7% — mainly for increases in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the fire department — while keeping the city’s current property tax rate at its current level.
The overall rise in spending would be partly paid for by a one-time $40 million contribution from JEA, the city-owned utility, as a result of an agreement for JEA to make a payment above its usual annual contribution to the city.
Deegan’s budget address on the morning of July 14 drew hundreds of people to council chambers where she presented her third budget since taking office in 2023.
In a nod to City Council President Kevin Carrico, who was seated beside her as she gave her address from the council dais, she said when Carrico took the president’s gavel he “noted that this work is for young people like his daughter, Monroe May.”
“He believes, just as I do, that the decisions we make in the present will ripple out for generations to come, and we have no time to waste,” she said. “When we delay, defer or distract, we don’t just lose days, weeks and months. We lose momentum.”
“That’s why this budget is not just balanced. It is urgent,” she said. “It is not just disciplined. It is bold.”
The biggest drivers of the city’s spending would continue to be pay raises for police and firefighters entering the second year of their three-year labor contracts, another installment of funding for the city’s $775 million share of the $1.4 billion stadium renovation, and work on a chain of downtown riverfront parks spanning Riverfront Plaza, Shipyards West and Metropolitan Park.
Deegan is asking council to approve $638 million for the Sheriff’s Office and $387 million for the Fire and Rescue Department, which together account for half of her budget.
She commended the Sheriff’s Office for cutting violent crime and said ensuring fast response by the fire department saves lives and also saves Jacksonville property-owners about $300 million a year for insurance coverage by giving the city a high rating for property insurance coverage.
“As ever, public safety remains our top priority,” she told council. “This budget continues historic investments in police and fire.”
Deegan’s proposed budget contains $12 million for programs for expanding affordable housing and reducing homelessness. A University of North Florida poll in June showed the number one concern among Jacksonville residents is the cost of housing, surpassing crime as the biggest worry.
Deegan said the city will expand pilot programs that help working families facing eviction and also assist them in the switch from rental housing to their own homes.
“We will build a city where teachers, nurses, first responders, paralegals, hospitality and childcare workers can live where they work and serve,” she said.
Property taxes also feed into the cost of home ownership. Deegan’s budget is built around the city keeping its current tax rate of $11.32 per $1,000 of taxable property value for areas excluding the three Beaches cities and Baldwin that set their own rates.
For the owner of a $150,000 home with a $50,000 homestead exemption, the city’s millage rate will result in a $1,132 tax bill from the city.
The property tax rate is one part of the calculation that determines the tax bill. The other is changes in the value of a property for tax purposes.
The Save Our Homes state law limits the annual increase in the assessed value of owner-occupied homes to 3% or the inflation rate, whichever is less, even if the market value of the home goes up at a faster pace. This year, the Save Our Homes cap is 2.9%, so that would be ceiling for how much the city’s property taxes go up for a homeowner with a homestead exemption.
However, the bottom-line amount on the bills that go out later this year will show a bigger increase than that because City Council previously voted to increase the current annual garbage fee of $151.80 for residential collection services to $324 this year.
The city collects the garbage fee by putting it on the bill that goes out each November for property taxes. This year’s bill will mark the first increase in that fee since 2010.
One of the first decisions by City Council will come July 22 when the council votes on a tentative property tax rate that the council’s Finance Committee will use for its own version of the budget.
In the past two budgets, the council has agreed with Deegan to maintain the same tax rate while the city took on the cost of renovating the football stadium to keep the Jaguars in Jacksonville.
The council’s Finance Committee then will have a series of meetings to examine the budget and make changes in it. For example, the Finance Committee last year struck $10 million for an affordable housing program and $10 million for fighting homelessness from Deegan’s proposed budget.
Deegan’s proposed budget in 2024 met opposition because she sought to use $47 million from the city’s financial reserves for items such as the affordable housing and homelessness programs. She said the city might need to tap into reserves in future years, but her proposed 2025-26 budget “takes zero dollars from reserves.”
In the area of homelessness, Deegan said the city has made progress over the past year through outreach to the homeless and expanding shelter beds “and we know there is much more to do.”
She said her budget would further add overnight shelter beds, offer transitional housing, provide “homeless prevention vouchers” and give more daytime programming to people who are homeless.
Deegan’s budget keeps $56 million for UF Health Jacksonville
For healthcare services to Jacksonville residents, Deegan’s keeps the $56 annual payment to UF Health Jacksonville for treatment of poor patients and contains $7 million for other health care programs.
“We can’t be a vibrant city is we’re not a healthy city,” she said.
In addition to the $2 billion general fund budget, Deegan gave City Council a five-year capital improvement program that has a list of $687 million in projects in the 2025-26 budget year topped by $210 million toward the city’s $775 million cost for the stadium renovations.
The list for 2025-26 also has $87 million for three downtown Northbank riverfront parks: $54.7 million for Shipyards West Park, $20.3 million for Riverfront Plaza and $12.5 million for Metropolitan Park.
She also proposes $20 million for relocating the Museum of Science and History to a site next to Shipyards West Park near the sports complex and park design for that project.
Deegan has called the string of riverfront parks an amenity that will benefit residents across the city by giving access to the St. Johns River while also spurring more people to move downtown.
The city’s capital improvement program typically has projected spending over a five-year period to keep the city moving forward with continuity over the long term. Deegan’s proposed budget does not have pencil in any spending in the fifth year which is in 2029-30.
She said Jacksonville already has a long and costly to-do list of capital improvement projects approved over the years that now totals $2.5 billion.
“If we added nothing new, it would take us up to 10 years to get it all done,” she told council.
She said the city should not add new projects that require debt to pay for them and instead limit new projects to ones the city can pay for with cash.