{"id":346078,"date":"2026-07-20T15:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346078\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T15:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:11:10","slug":"these-are-the-bones-of-our-city-donna-deegan-rolls-out-fourth-budget-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346078\/","title":{"rendered":"‘These are the bones of our city’: Donna Deegan rolls out fourth budget proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacksonville<\/a> Mayor\u00a0Donna Deegan<\/a> will face a battle for re-election next year, but she\u2019s got what she calls a \u201cworld-class city budget<\/a>\u201d to get passed before that, one backdropped by a constitutional amendment that could put serious constraints on Duval County\u2019s property tax collections of nearly $1.3 billion starting in 2027.<\/p>\n

Deegan\u2019s fourth budget<\/a> comes in at just over $2 billion, a 1.1% increase from the current fiscal year, driven by pay raises for first responders. All told, more than $1.07 billion will be spent on police and fire.<\/p>\n

The Mayor spoke to affordability issues affecting citizens and said the same \u201cmust be true for city government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTaxpayers do not owe government the benefit of the doubt. We owe taxpayers proof. Proof that we know the money is not ours, proof that we will not spend it simply because it\u2019s available, proof that each dollar invested delivers a positive return for our citizens. In our analysis of the economic value generated by city services, each tax dollar provides nearly $3 in return,\u201d Deegan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that in mind, every spending decision is geared to make Jacksonville more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Deegan noted strong credit ratings from Fitch, S&P Global and KBRA, showing the city is \u201cfinancially strong and getting stronger.\u201d She said the ratings were \u201csavings for taxpayers\u201d that reassure investors, businesses and families.<\/p>\n

The budget includes $36 million in road resurfacing proposed for the next fiscal year, $12 million into new and repaired sidewalks, and $25 million for septic tank phaseout and stormwater projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not luxuries,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are the bones of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan also promised to continue \u201crightsizing\u201d the capital improvement plan, which is more than $586 million in the new budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will resist the temptation to pretend every good idea can be funded immediately,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Deegan is proposing $27 million of new spending for the Museum of Science and History, along with $25 million for Riverfront Park.<\/p>\n

Deegan also touted funding for other priorities, including Journey Forward, \u201cjuvenile justice diversion efforts that deliver a ten-fold return in economic value\u201d; Healthlink Jax<\/a>, which is the city\u2019s telehealth program that she argues gets nearly a 5x return on investment; and affordable housing spending, via $6.3 million for the Emergency Rental and Eviction Protection program and \u201can Affordable Housing Trust Fund that will now have more than $5.5 million in it to build more housing that\u2019s affordable for lower income levels and to assist first-time home buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan said the spending bolsters the city at large by shoring up citizens in crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot every investment is personally used by every resident. But every responsible investment should return value to the whole city. And in this budget, they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, Public Service Grants and the Cultural Council are proposed to keep funding roughly flat year over year. One might expect these to be potential flashpoints with some conservatives on Council during the budget deliberations.<\/p>\n

Deegan said she hoped \u201cto challenge the way we talk about core government\u201d and expand the definition beyond public safety and trash collection. She argued that \u201cmany programs that have been called discretionary are actually upstream core investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Council President\u00a0Nick Howland hailed a \u201cnew spirit of cooperation\u201d by way of introducing the Mayor, who expressed hope that \u201cthe next political season\u201d would not unduly cloud the process. But she went on to tweak the right flank on the Council that might \u201cconfuse inaction with conservatism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican\u00a0Matt Carlucci, a staunch ally of Deegan\u2019s, lauded the budget presentation as her best yet.<\/p>\n

Democrat\u00a0Ju\u2019Coby Pittman credited Deegan with increasing the septic tank budget to address the \u201cbroken promises\u201d of consolidation.<\/p>\n

Republican\u00a0Ken Amaro, a former colleague of Deegan\u2019s in television news, praised the Mayor for addressing deferred maintenance, saying it\u2019s \u201ccowardice\u201d to pretend those obligations can be ignored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville Mayor\u00a0Donna Deegan will face a battle for re-election next year, but she\u2019s got what she calls a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5890,116,141764,28116,118,117,1415],"class_list":["post-346078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-donna-deegan","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-budget-fy-26-27","tag-jacksonville-fire-and-rescue-department","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346078","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=346078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}