Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan speaks on Sept. 22 about JTA and other topics. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today
Published on October 6, 2026 at 9:30 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Mayor Donna Deegan has been subpoenaed in the State Attorney General’s investigation into the Jacksonville Transportation Authority amid the regional agency’s $39 million budget shortfall.
The criminal subpoena addressed to Deegan is narrowly tailored and appears to focus on documents and notes related to March 2025 meeting between Deegan and then-JTA board member Megan Hayward.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Hayward recently went public in news interviews about that meeting, which happened less than a month before the mayor replaced her on the JTA board. Hayward claims to have warned Deegan about the transportation agency’s dire financial state. Deegan denies Hayward warned her, and told reporters last month that her personal notes from that day prove otherwise.
“There was nothing that would indicate that the organization was going off a cliff,” Deegan said at City Hall on Sept. 22.
In the subpoena, statewide prosecutor asks for documents that include Deegan’s handwritten notes, emails, text messages and meeting recordings created between March 1 and March 10, 2025, which would include the March 3 meeting that included Deegan and Hayward.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Deegan is being summoned to appear before the prosecutor on Oct. 20, which is also the deadline to produce the documents.
The mayor mentioned the existence of the handwritten notes during the Sept. 22 press conference following the City Council’s approval of the city budget.
Jacksonville Today submitted a public records request for the meeting notes on Sept. 24. In a response to that request, on Tuesday, Deegan’s Director of Strategic Initiatives and Press Liaison Melissa Ross said those notes were determined to not be public records, according legal guidance.
But she added that the mayor’s office will produce the records after they are reviewed by the city’s Office of General Counsel and delivered to the Office of Statewide Prosecution.
Ross also said Deegan’s Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Inderhees was not present in the meeting, as stated in the subpoena.
“We can confirm that a request has been received for notes from Mayor Deegan’s meeting with Megan Hayward,” Ross wrote in an email. “The legal guidance we were provided is that these personal notes never shared with another person are not public records. However, we are fully cooperating with the Office of Statewide Prosecution.”
“To clear up any confusion on the former board member’s part, the owner of the notes and staff member who joined is Chief Communications Officer Phil Perry. Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Inderhees did not attend the meeting and has never met Mrs. Hayward,” Ross wrote.
JTA and Megan Hawyard
Hayward, appointed by Deegan, served on the JTA Board of Directors from October 2023 through March 2025. The mayor then nominated current board member Elaine Brown to replace her.
During her time on the board, Hayward questioned ridership numbers JTA provided to the board compared to what was reported to the federal government.
Oversight of JTA is shared between the state, city of Jacksonville and federal regulators. Four of JTA’s seven board members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Florida Senate. The Jacksonville mayor appoints the other three with council confirmation.
Since JTA’s financial issues came to light in September, the Deegan administration has stressed that JTA is a state agency.
JTA’s fiscal crisis
The transportation agency laid off 194 employees in September and plans to reduce many bus route frequencies and halt Skyway and NAVI autonomous shuttle services Downtown to reduce costs and try to close its $39 million budget gap.
It’s also asking the city to loan the authority $30 million in local option gas tax revenue at no interest to pay off debt.
Four city council committees have voted unanimously to recommend approving Ordinance 2026-0780 to approve the gas tax loan. Randel Barnes, who was named JTA’s chief financial officer in August, told council committees this week that JTA’s budget issues came from incorrect revenue projections, reduced ridership and fares that have not been increased since 2019.
The budget shortfall, the state attorney general probe and a separate city council audit of JTA emerged weeks after former JTA CEO Nat Ford Sr. left after 13 years to lead the Dallas Area Rapid Transit System.
The state subpoena to JTA, addressed to interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson, also demands agency documents like contracts with vendors, including one related to wellness and massage services, and communications involving Ford and his wife.
Other contracts named in the probe are related to work performed by Mason Nye Murals, Dreambuilders Consulting — among others — and communications between Ferguson and JTA special advisor Angela Hamilton related to scholarships or tuition.
The subpoena also requests ridership numbers that JTA reported to the American Public Transport Association for its Downtown autonomous vehicle shuttle service, NAVI.
