Published on September 19, 2025 at 3:07 pm
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Which priorities will make the final cut when the Jacksonville lawmakers convene on Tuesday to approve the city’s budget? And will the final spending plan look more like the one Mayor Donna Deegan submitted or the one that the City Council approved in a preliminary vote earlier this month?
Our number of the week is $26,749,757: the amount of money the council stripped from Deegan’s proposal to pay for a property tax cut and a change in the way the city will pay for spending in each council district, moving from debt to cash.
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$26,749,757
At least one variable, cutting the city’s millage rate by ⅛-mill and dropping city revenue by nearly $14 million, is not a sure thing. Council member Ron Salem told Jacksonville Today council is “going to have a challenge” to get the 10 votes needed to cut the city millage rate.
The proposed general-fund cuts will affect an array of projects including some of Deegan’s biggest priorities, like increased spending on city-supported health care programs for the unemployed and underemployed, homelessness initiatives and affordable housing.
It would also be the second year in a row that the Republican-controlled council has reduced Deegan’s budget by more than $10 million. Last year, council dropped her budget’s bottom line by nearly $40 million, including a $9 million cut to affordable housing funding and nearly all of Deegan’s proposed spending from city reserves.
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Jacksonville Today took a look back over the past decade at budget proposals by Deegan, a Democrat, and her Republican predecessor, Mayor Lenny Curry. A high level-look shows that in her third year in office, the council has chipped away more at Deegan’s budget than past councils did with Curry’s.
In the city budget, operational spending is budgeted separately from money for what are called Capital Improvement Plan projects. (That includes parks, roads, drainage and other infrastructure.) Despite last year’s operating-budget cuts, council bumped up the amount of capital spending from Deegan’s proposed by $73 million to $563 million.
In the majority of recent years, council has approved the same or more capital improvement spending than the mayor proposed.
Tuesday’s meeting begins at 3 p.m. at City Hall, and Council President Kevin Carrico says he expects the night to include debate and votes on budget amendments by council members on top of the deliberation over property taxes.
When the dust settles, we’ll see what the final numbers will be.
Charts by Megan Mallicoat, Jacksonville Today
