For the ROAM edition of this article with relevant budget items, click here.
Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan presented her proposed 2024-25 budget during a special address held July 15 in city council chambers.
The proposed budget includes $1.92 billion for the general fund – a $165 million increase from the previous fiscal year. The five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) proposed budget for 2025-2029 is $1.95 billion, with $489 million allotted for 2025.
The city council must approve the budget proposal before it goes into effect Oct. 1.
“This balanced budget creates generational investments in our key priorities, infrastructure, health, economic development and public safety,” Deegan said in her address. “Our budget proposal confronts the unexpected reality of ad valorem revenue increases that are significantly lower than projected.”
Jacksonville saw exponential population growth last year, welcoming an additional 70,000 new residents – making it the fourth largest population growth nationwide. This population increase, Deegan said, necessitates allocating virtually all of the city’s ad valorem taxes for “critical public safety needs.”
Other factors, such as increased insurance rates and commercial property vacancies to the rebalance of the residential rental market, resulted in the city receiving $62 million less in property tax revenue than anticipated.
“We already knew it was going to be a year that was going to be lower than last year,” Deegan said.
A list of budget highlights, provided by the mayor’s office, includes renovations for city venues like the Ritz Theater, 121 Financial Ballpark, VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena and Performing Arts Center ($25.1 million in 2025); infrastructure updates to the downtown riverfront, including the Northbank Riverwalk and bulkhead and the Northbank Marina ($15 million in 2025/$115 million total) and two docks and riverwalk development for the Southbank Riverwalk ($13.2 million in 2025). For a full list of the budget highlights, please visit residentnews.net.
“Now is not the time to withdraw from our bold vision,” Deegan said. “It’s thinking small that has kept us mired in mediocrity, a city with more potential than progress. We were elected to do hard things; we have to be smart, and we have to lean in.”
Capital Improvement Plan – District 5
Deegan said the proposed $1.95 billion five-year CIP budget has been combed through to remove inactive projects that never went beyond the conceptual phase, the inclusion of which posed a threat to the city’s financial strength and credit rating.
“Today our CIP is leaner, more responsible and more representative of reality,” she said.
District 5 City Councilmember Joe Carlucci said this year, the city has to “sharpen its pencils a little bit.”
“Sometimes we have to prioritize what’s vital over what’s important,” he said.
District 5 has several projects in the proposed CIP. Among the most anticipated for Carlucci are the St. Johns River Park construction with an allotted $3.8 million to be released in the upcoming fiscal year; and the Fuller Warren Bridge Park, with $2 million allotted in 2025 for design and an additional $8 million for construction allocated for the following year.
The Resident Community News previously reported on Carlucci’s plans for the park, which will be located in the open space beneath the Fuller Warren Bridge on the San Marco side of the river. Early mock-ups for the park include areas for rock climbing walls, ninja warrior courses, playground equipment and food truck courts, as well as access for public fishing and flat, green spaces for yoga or general workouts.
With an allotted $50 million over three years in the CIP to move the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) to its new Northbank location, Carlucci said the city will begin considering what will take its place on the Southbank.
“That could look like a public-private partnership thing, or it could look like just a public-only type of concept,” he said. “So, we’re going to start having to really think through what we want to see there.”
