Jacksonville City Budget — Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville's annual budget is among the largest municipal budgets in the southeastern United States, a scale that reflects the city's status as Florida's only full city-county consolidation. Since October 1, 1968, the city and Duval County have operated as a single governmental unit, meaning the annual appropriations process funds services — from street maintenance and public safety to parks and libraries — across an 841-square-mile jurisdiction that encompasses urban, suburban, and rural land uses. That jurisdictional breadth, combined with a 2023 ACS population of 961,739, makes Jacksonville's budget process a matter of consequence for the most populous city in Florida.

For FY2025–26, Mayor Donna Deegan's proposed general fund totals $2.017 billion, balanced without drawing on city reserves, and is accompanied by a five-year Capital Improvement Plan. Property taxes constitute more than half of general fund revenue, a pattern rooted in the fiscal architecture established at consolidation. The budget is drafted by the executive branch under the mayor and must be adopted by the 19-member Jacksonville City Council.

Jacksonville operates under a Strong Mayor–Council form of government in which the mayor holds executive authority and the City Council serves as the legislative body, with both branches elected independently of each other. This structure has been in place since the October 1, 1968 consolidation of the City of Jacksonville and Duval County. Under this framework, the mayor proposes the annual budget and the Council appropriates funds.

The City Council consists of 19 members: 14 elected from single-member districts and 5 elected at large. During the FY2025–26 budget cycle, Mayor Donna Deegan holds the executive office and Kevin Carrico serves as City Council President, as documented by Jacksonville Today and the City of Jacksonville's official communications. Carrico presided over the special council meeting at which Mayor Deegan delivered the FY2025–26 budget address on July 14, 2025.

Four municipalities within Duval County — Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, and Baldwin — remain semi-independent. They provide most of their own municipal services and represent approximately six percent of the county's total population, according to a City of Jacksonville budget document. The consolidated city's budget does not fund the full range of municipal services for these four communities.

Mayor Deegan presented the FY2025–26 proposed budget to the Jacksonville City Council on July 14, 2025. According to the City of Jacksonville's official budget address, the proposed general fund totals $2.017 billion — a balanced budget that draws zero dollars from city reserves. The stated priorities in the address are public safety, infrastructure investment, and economic development.

The budget includes $14 million in Community Benefits Agreement funding, distributed across the city's 14 council districts. This mechanism directs a portion of general fund appropriations to neighborhood-level projects designated through each of the 14 single-member district representatives, according to the mayor's budget address.

The general fund covers the core operational expenditures of consolidated city-county government, including the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, fire and rescue services, parks and recreation, public works, and administrative departments. The scale of Jacksonville's jurisdiction — spanning 841 square miles and nearly one million residents as of the 2023 ACS — necessitates a budget that funds both dense urban services and rural infrastructure within a single appropriations framework.

Property taxes constitute more than half of Jacksonville's general fund revenue, a structural feature rooted in the city's consolidated jurisdiction. According to Jacksonville Today, property tax revenue is projected to rise from approximately $1.103 billion in FY2024–25 to $1.19 billion in FY2025–26, reflecting continued assessment growth across the consolidated city-county territory. The increase of roughly $87 million year-over-year reflects rising property values rather than a change in the millage rate, though the budget documents do not specify whether the millage rate was adjusted.

The city's economic base — anchored by military installations, healthcare, financial services, and port logistics — shapes the taxable property values that underpin this revenue stream. The City of Jacksonville's Office of Economic Development documents that the military sector alone contributes more than $6 billion annually to the Northeast Florida economy, a flow that supports private-sector employment and commercial property values citywide. Baptist Health, identified as the largest private employer in Jacksonville, anchors the healthcare sector's contribution to the city's assessed value base.

The consolidated structure means that revenues Jacksonville collects cover functions that, in most Florida counties, are split between a separate city and county government — a fiscal integration that distinguishes Jacksonville's budget from those of other large Florida municipalities such as Miami, Tampa, or Orlando, each of which operates within a separate county government framework.

Alongside the operating budget, Mayor Deegan's FY2025–26 proposal includes a Capital Improvement Plan with $687 million appropriated for fiscal year 2026 alone, as part of a five-year plan totaling $1.7 billion from 2026 through 2030. The City of Jacksonville's budget address identifies public safety facilities, infrastructure, and economic development projects as the primary categories for capital spending.

The scale of the Capital Improvement Plan reflects the infrastructure demands of a jurisdiction that encompasses 841 square miles of urban, suburban, and rural land. Roads, bridges, stormwater systems, and public facilities in areas that were rural or semi-rural at the time of the 1968 consolidation continue to require investment as residential and commercial development has expanded across the Westside, Northside, and Southside of the consolidated city. The five-year $1.7 billion commitment represents the city government's multi-year planning horizon for deferred and new capital needs.

Jacksonville's current budget architecture is inseparable from the 1968 consolidation that created the modern city. On August 8, 1967, voters approved the merger of Jacksonville city and Duval County governments; consolidation took effect on October 1, 1968, as documented by WJXT News4Jax. The reform was driven in part by a structural fiscal inequity: according to a City of Jacksonville consolidation history document, 71 percent of county homes paid no property taxes because they were assessed at or below the $5,000 homestead exemption. The new consolidated government was designed to address this condition by broadening the tax base and eliminating duplicative services between the former city and county governments.

The consolidation also came in response to a period of municipal corruption: a mid-1960s grand jury investigation resulted in the indictment of 11 public officials, and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools threatened to withdraw accreditation from the county's school system, as documented by WJXT News4Jax. These crises provided the political impetus for consolidation.

According to a City of Jacksonville City Council document, Jacksonville remains the only full city-county consolidation in Florida. This status means that unlike Miami-Dade, Broward, or Hillsborough counties — where separate municipal governments each maintain their own budgets — Jacksonville's single consolidated budget encompasses nearly all municipal and county-level services for the vast majority of Duval County residents.

Jacksonville's annual budget cycle typically begins with the mayor's proposed budget presentation in July, followed by City Council review, public hearings, and final adoption before the October 1 start of the new fiscal year. For FY2025–26, Mayor Deegan presented the proposed budget to the City Council on July 14, 2025, at a special council meeting presided over by City Council President Kevin Carrico, according to Jacksonville Today.

The $14 million in Community Benefits Agreement funding distributed across the 14 council districts represents a direct connection between the budget and neighborhood-level priorities. Each of the 14 single-member district council members receives an allocation to direct toward projects within their district, according to the City of Jacksonville's budget address. This structure gives district-level representation a tangible fiscal dimension during the annual appropriations process.

For the approximately six percent of Duval County's population residing in the four semi-independent municipalities of Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, and Baldwin, the consolidated city budget does not cover the full range of municipal services; those communities maintain their own municipal budgets for locally provided functions, as noted in a City of Jacksonville budget document. Residents of the consolidated city outside those four municipalities are served directly by the consolidated government's appropriations across public safety, infrastructure, parks, and administrative services funded through the general fund and Capital Improvement Plan.