JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Two Northeast Florida school districts that were staring down significant budget shortfalls say they have balanced their books before the first day of school.<\/p>\n
Duval County Schools was on track to fall $100 million short. St. Johns County Schools ended last year $23 million in the red. Both superintendents say those gaps are now closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we\u2019re not facing a shortfall,\u201d Duval County Schools Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said. \u201cWe\u2019ve right-sized our budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
How St. Johns County closed a $23 million gap<\/p>\n
St. Johns County Schools operates on a 1.5-billion-dollar budget. Superintendent Dr. Brennan Asplen said closing a $23 million gap required cuts at every level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the district office, I cut 8 million and eliminated 20 positions,\u201d Asplen said. \u201cWe cut many of our leases \u2014 for instance, our portables. We cut 150 portables and moved all those students into any open seats that we had in our schools, which was an excellent thing to do, I think, regardless of the budget. And then we had to cut 120, 130 instructional positions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cutting 130 teaching positions affects class sizes. Asplen said positions do open up through retirements and other departures. As of July 29, the district was actively hiring for about 60 teaching positions. Asplen said he expected that number to be closer to 20 by the time school begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a position now where we\u2019ve made all of our cuts and balanced our budget,\u201d Asplen said. \u201cWe still have openings in which we need to hire folks.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Johns County has seen rapid population growth in recent years, which had previously driven school construction. Asplen said the district is now scaling back those plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn three years we will only build one high school,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had like another K-8 and a couple of elementary schools on the docket to build, but we\u2019re gonna back off of that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
How Duval County got back on track<\/p>\n
Duval County Schools runs on a nearly 3.4-billion-dollar budget \u2014 roughly a billion dollars more than the entire city of Jacksonville\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
At one point, a projected 1.4-billion-dollar deficit made headlines, though Bernier said it was not clear where that figure originated. What was clear: if spending continued on its previous trajectory, the district would have come up $100 million short.<\/p>\n
Bernier said the district is still making structural changes to strengthen its finances, including consolidating smaller schools that cost more to operate than the funding they generate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are continuing to do the processes to put us in an even better place,\u201d Bernier said. \u201cBut we\u2019re in a pretty good place.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that two strong budget years are encouraging, but he wants to see several more before calling the district truly stable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we continue to have these years, we\u2019ll be able to grow that fund balance \u2014 and then we can make some determinations as to how we use that by putting it back in our employees\u2019 pockets,\u201d Bernier said.<\/p>\n
Clay County also navigating financial pressures<\/p>\n
News4Jax also reached out to Clay County Schools about its budget. A district spokesperson said the district remains on solid financial footing but acknowledged broader pressures facing Florida school systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are actively navigating the same challenges currently facing school systems across Florida,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cSpecifically, shifts in traditional public-school enrollment \u2014 driven by broader demographic trends like declining birth rates alongside the expansion of state voucher programs \u2014 have created new financial realities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Two Northeast Florida school districts that were staring down significant budget shortfalls say they have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[54547,9935,48092,116,118,117,108604],"class_list":["post-367032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-back-to-school","tag-budget","tag-duval-county-schools","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-st-johns-county-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367032","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=367032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}