NUMBER OF THE WEEK | Jacksonville's purchasing power

With a nod to Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan’s proposed budget for the city’s coming fiscal year, our Number of the Week is the amount of money that the city’s procurement division has paid for this year’s bills so far: almost $400 million.

$394.4 million

And that money flowing out is far from finished. According to the city’s Procurement Dashboard, the River City has received 12,709 purchase orders this fiscal year, representing a total of nearly $710 million in authorized spending.

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The Public Works Department, the “primary caretaker of all city-owned properties and infrastructure,” accounts for the biggest piece of the purchasing pie: $177.5 million. The Office of Ethics, in contrast, has encumbered a mere $338 (and judging by the vendors, most of the money went to water and office supplies).

Over the last three years, the Procurement Division has paid out about $2 billion in purchase orders. And a lion’s share of that money went toward construction and trash services. J.B. Coxwell Contracting and Meridian Waste were the city’s top vendors — each taking almost $100 million. Trail Ridge Landfill and WastePro of Florida are close behind. The city has also paid about $21.5 million to Jacksonville Baseball, the entity more commonly known as the Jumbo Shrimp.