{"id":426965,"date":"2026-10-13T21:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T21:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426965\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T21:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T21:34:08","slug":"jacksonville-city-council-to-vote-on-30m-emergency-gas-tax-plan-for-jta-amid-financial-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426965\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville City Council to vote on $30M emergency gas-tax plan for JTA amid financial crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville City Council is voting Tuesday on an emergency plan that would let the Jacksonville Transportation Authority tap up to $30 million in unspent gas-tax funds to help pay down transportation debt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Council President Nick Howland introduced the bill as a one-cycle emergency, fast-tracking the process to get financial relief to JTA. The measure needs a two-thirds vote to pass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">A committee approved releasing the funds a week before.<\/p>\n<p>JTA\u2019s $39 million budget shortfall<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The vote comes as JTA works to climb out of a deepening financial crisis. Agency leaders recently revealed a $39 million budget shortfall, pointing to a combination of underestimated sales tax revenue and higher-than-expected costs \u2014 including expenses tied to the NAVI autonomous shuttle program, the Skyway, and Connexion service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">JTA has already laid off nearly 200 workers. Officials said those cuts are expected to save about $21.9 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">RELATED | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2026\/10\/07\/city-council-approves-30m-gas-tax-to-rescue-jta-from-financial-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2026\/10\/07\/city-council-approves-30m-gas-tax-to-rescue-jta-from-financial-crisis\/\">City council approves $30M gas tax to rescue JTA from financial crisis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What the gas-tax bill does<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">If approved, the emergency measure would:<\/p>\n<p>Update the allowed uses of the five-cent local option gas tax<\/p>\n<p>Allow JTA to use up to $30 million of its unspent local gas-tax allocations<\/p>\n<p>Direct funds toward retiring outstanding JTA debt tied to transportation capital projects<\/p>\n<p>Require JTA to restore those funds no later than Sept. 30, 2037<\/p>\n<p>Council members call for answers<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The vote is happening alongside a separate investigation. City Council\u2019s Financial Audit and Oversight Committee is looking into how JTA ended up in this financial position and what safeguards should be put in place going forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Council member Ron Salem said questions remain about why the revenue shortfall wasn\u2019t reported sooner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cThe other part, and I think we\u2019re all concerned, is the sharp reduction in revenue \u2014 when it was recognized, why it wasn\u2019t brought forward,\u201d Salem said. \u201cWhich in my mind is gonna require people to come forward, or us to request people to come forward and let us ask them questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville City Council is voting Tuesday on an emergency plan that would let the Jacksonville&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,799],"class_list":["post-426965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426965","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=426965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}