JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A city financial oversight committee met for nearly three hours Monday to investigate how the Jacksonville Transportation Authority accumulated a $40 million deficit, hearing from two former chief financial officers while pressing for testimony from a third.
The Financial Audit and Oversight Committee called Greg Hayes, who served as JTA’s CFO from 2017 to 2023, and Heather Obora, who held the role on two separate occasions.
“Mr. Hayes, Greg Hayes, I think did a good job of laying out a baseline of where JTA used to be during his tenure,” said Councilman Chris Miller, who chaired the committee.
Hayes told committee members he left the agency with a surplus before being asked to leave in September 2023, with leadership citing a desire to “go in a different direction.”
Interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson faced questions about the circumstances of Hayes’ departure but said he was limited in what he could disclose due to human resources exemptions under public records law. Ferguson did confirm he was directed by the CEO at the time to terminate Hayes.
Obora testified that when she returned to the CFO role a second time, she inherited a financial mess and was working to right-size the budget. Miller said that made the missing testimony all the more critical.
“When something like that happens, you really would want to have the person who was before her come in and explain what happened and why it happened,” he said.
The committee’s most pressing focus was on Raj Srinath, who served as CFO from 2023 to 2025 — the period central to the agency’s financial decline. Committee members described his testimony as the most critical to understanding the timeline of the deficit.
Srinath did not appear Monday. Miller said he had previously spoken with Srinath, who agreed to participate, before a call from Srinath’s attorney over the weekend signaled he would not attend.
“I had a great conversation with him when I reached out to him originally,” Miller said. “He actually shared a lot about his time as CFO, and I believe we were in a good place and he was going to be willing to come in.”
The committee discussed the possibility of issuing a subpoena but said it would give Srinath additional time to come forward voluntarily. Miller said he hopes to hear from Srinath this month.
“I’d rather he just come in voluntarily,” Miller said. “We can do just like we did today with the other two CFOs — just walk through everything — and then we have the full picture from a CFO perspective.”
Miller said the investigation ultimately comes down to accountability to Jacksonville residents.
“All these dollars are taxpayer dollars,” he said. “We owe it to the taxpayers to get to the bottom of what really happened, and then we owe it to the taxpayers to work together to make sure this financial crisis that JTA is going through never happens again.”
Former CEO Nat Ford is expected to appear before the committee in January. Miller said members hope to hear from Srinath before that date so the committee has a full financial picture before questioning Ford.
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