JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland has formed a select committee to investigate severe budget failures at the Jacksonville Transportation Authority following the disclosure of a deficit exceeding $30 million.<\/p>\n
The committee is tasked with identifying potential financial solutions and evaluating whether to modify the local option gas tax to stabilize the transit agency\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Howland said that the primary objective of the new committee is to find solutions for the agency\u2019s swift fiscal decline, noting that the panel\u2019s findings could lead to further council investigations or recommendations for outside agencies.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd why that\u2019s so important is we need to figure out the right way to get out of it,\u201d Howland said.<\/p>\n The financial rapid decline follows months of conflicting financial assessments within the transit agency. <\/p>\n When he announced his departure from the agency on July 3, then-JTA Chief Executive Officer Nat Ford asserted that the organization was \u201coperationally strong and well-positioned for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n A review provided to the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee completed three days prior concluded the agency\u2019s upcoming budgets for the fiscal year were balanced. <\/p>\n The audit report<\/a> was officially submitted to the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee on July 22, nearly a month past its due date. <\/p>\n Just one month after that submission, Randall Barnes, the new chief financial officer for JTA, revealed that the agency\u2019s budget deficit had grown to exceed $30 million.<\/p>\n Before the select committee begins its formal investigation, JTA is scheduled to present a summary of its present financial status to all four standing City Council committees next week.<\/p>\n Howland said city leaders are focused on public transit services while examining agency leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that should give the opportunity for all of council members to ask questions. It\u2019ll also bring further transparency to Jacksonville as a whole,\u201d Howland said. <\/p>\n He added, \u201cFirst, we need the buses to roll. Jacksonville families and businesses depend on it, then we\u2019ll look at the heads.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n City Council members will also consider emergency legislation next week to allow JTA to borrow money from its share of the local option gas tax. <\/p>\n The borrowed funds would pay off a $40 million line of credit the transit agency opened earlier this year. Howland noted the select committee will examine whether JTA\u2019s share of gas tax revenue should be reworked permanently.<\/p>\n The select committee is required to submit its final report on the JTA financial investigation by Dec. 4.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan issued the following statement on the new committee\u2019s direction:<\/p>\n \u201cJTA is a regional state transportation agency with state employees, a majority of board members that are appointed by the Governor, and a budget that is reviewed and approved by the Jacksonville City Council. It\u2019s going to take all of us working together to fix this situation.<\/p>\n \u201cI support President Howland directing the Financial Audit and Oversight Select Committee to get more answers on how we got here and make recommendations that improve JTA\u2019s financial standing over the long term. My administration stands ready to work with committee members on identifying constructive solutions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that customers and employees are facing significant disruption right now. Every action we take must improve the lives of our citizens and the services they rely on every day, while delivering more transparency, accountability, and protection of taxpayer dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland has formed a select committee to investigate severe budget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,104543,347,28,348,116,4040,351,118,117,17707,14217,349,40784,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-415159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-budget-deficit","tag-cbs47","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-transportation-authority","tag-nick-howland","tag-northeast-florida","tag-select-committee","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415159","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=415159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}