JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Voters will get to decide on extending Duval County Schools\u2019 1-mill referendum, also known as a property tax, this November after a delay from the city council finance committee caused public outcry last week. <\/p>\n
The Jacksonville City Council voted 15 to 0 after discharging Ordinance 2026-0387 from the finance committee onto the floor during Tuesday\u2019s regular council meeting.<\/p>\n
Many council members spoke in favor of giving voters a chance to decide on extending the property tax.<\/p>\n
The finance committee deferred the ordinance last week, which delayed the decision on whether voters would get to weigh in on extending the 1-mill property tax that first passed in 2022. The school board voted 6-1 in March to send the renewal to city council.<\/p>\n
The measure needed council approval to appear on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
Some council members pointed to the proposed statewide property tax cut from state lawmakers in Tallahassee as a reason for the delay. Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan addressed the holdup at a news conference Thursday, saying she did not believe the council has grounds to stall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe role of the council, in what I\u2019ve been told, is to simply be in a ministerial and managerial role \u2014 just making that request happen,\u201d Deegan said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t think council has a role here beyond saying \u2018this is what you want, we\u2019ll put it on the ballot.\u2019 I don\u2019t really understand the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duval County Schools says the 1-mill tax will generate about $121 million a year and will fund teacher and employee pay, arts programs, and athletics. It is not a tax increase \u2014 it would maintain the current rate. For a home valued at $300,000, the tax amounts to about $300 a year.<\/p>\n
John Meeks, a teacher and first vice president of Duval Teachers United, said the delay put educators\u2019 livelihoods in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the only result of these delays could be the endangerment of our teachers\u2019 well-being,\u201d Meeks said. \u201cThere\u2019s no increase. It\u2019s just a keeping of the status quo, which has allowed our school system to have the A grade that it has today. I don\u2019t think we can afford to go backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiffany Clark, a parent and advocate with Parents Who Lead, said the holdup pulled focus away from what matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is getting tied up in a way that it shouldn\u2019t,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThis is only about teachers and that\u2019s it, and that is where the focus needs to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voters now have the final say on the renewal if the measure reaches the November ballot.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Voters will get to decide on extending Duval County Schools\u2019 1-mill referendum, also known as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[48092,116,118,117,7074,232],"class_list":["post-301888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-duval-county-schools","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-property-taxes","tag-tallahassee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}