Jacksonville Council Committees Clear $30 Million Gas Tax Loan to Rescue JTA Ahead of Oct. 13 Final Vote

A $30 million rescue for the Jacksonville Transportation Authority cleared its last Jacksonville City Council committee on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, setting up a final vote by the full council on Oct. 13. The measure would let the cash-strapped transit agency borrow up to $30 million, interest free, from unspent local option gas tax money to pay down a line of credit it opened this summer to cover unpaid bills. JTA would have until Sept. 30, 2037, to put the money back.

The loan is the city's biggest step yet in a crisis that has already cost nearly 200 JTA jobs, will shut down the downtown Skyway next month and has drawn a criminal subpoena from the Florida Attorney General's office. The council's Finance Committee advanced the bill unanimously, and the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee also approved it, and supporters say it is the only way to keep buses running without raising taxes.

How the loan would work

The money comes from Jacksonville's local option gas tax, the per-gallon tax motorists already pay at the pump that funds roads, buses and other transportation work. Unspent gas tax dollars have built up to roughly $47 million, according to Action News Jax. The bill would release up to $30 million of that balance to JTA.

• Amount: up to $30 million
• Interest: none
• Purpose: paying down JTA's line of credit, which had accumulated about $20 million in debt
• Repayment deadline: Sept. 30, 2037
• New taxes: none

JTA opened the credit line in July to cover more than $22 million in unpaid bills, Action News Jax reported, after the agency struggled to make vendor payments and payroll over the summer. JTA's board approved the city agreement on Sept. 23.

Council President Nick Howland has framed the deal as a loan rather than a gift. "We don't want them to use that LOGT as a bailout. So we structured it as a no-interest loan that has to be paid back," he said, according to Action News Jax.

Some JTA board members were uneasy about leaning on gas tax money at all. "What we can't do is go to the citizen and say you paid all this gas tax and we can't manage ourselves, so we're going to take the money and have you fix the problem," board member Daniel Vallencourt said at the Sept. 23 meeting, according to Action News Jax.

Council member Rory Diamond, the council's liaison to JTA, warned of deeper cuts if the measure fails. "If they don't do that, they're going to have to fire more people, close more lines, and fewer people are going to be able to get to school and to work," he said, according to Action News Jax.

How JTA got here

JTA's fiscal 2027 budget fell to $139 million from $178 million the year before, a $39 million drop. The agency has blamed the hole on several overlapping problems that surfaced during council committee hearings this week, as reported by News4JAX:

• Sales tax revenue was overestimated by about $19 million across two years.
• Costs for the NAVI autonomous shuttle and the Skyway ran above projections.
• The Connexion paratransit service for riders with disabilities was improperly budgeted.

"Even though the budget amendment addressed the expected revenue shortfall, the plan to cut expenses was really not sufficient to address the full cost to provide services," said Randall Barnes, the chief financial officer JTA hired in August, according to News4JAX.

The crisis also coincided with a leadership change. Nathaniel Ford, JTA's chief executive for 13 years and the driving force behind NAVI, left to run Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The board named Cleveland Ferguson III interim CEO on Aug. 27.

Layoffs and service cuts

JTA has laid off nearly 200 employees, following earlier layoffs in December and February and furloughs that affected 87 senior employees. The agency expects about $21.9 million in savings from the job cuts and $24.9 million from reduced contractual services. "These decisions carry a real human cost," Ferguson told the board in September, adding that he takes responsibility for carrying them out in a way that is disciplined, fair and respectful.

Riders will feel the cuts starting Nov. 2:

Lower-ridership routes will also shift from weekday schedules to Saturday-level service. Separately, the Clay County Commission voted to end its funding agreement with JTA, removing another source of regional service revenue.

Council probe and state investigation

Howland has said he will charge a select committee with examining what went wrong at the agency, but he has stressed that the effort will be corrective rather than punitive. "We're going to focus, not on punitive work. We're gonna focus on corrective work to make sure the resident of Jacksonville have optimal transportation," he said, according to Action News Jax. He has also suggested JTA's priorities will shift, saying he expects the agency to optimize fixed-route buses and paratransit and scale down projects such as NAVI and the Skyway.

The state is taking a harder line. The Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution subpoenaed JTA in late September, seeking records on contracts and policies. News4JAX reported that the inquiry covers spending on massages, murals, NAVI ridership and scholarships as part of a criminal probe. Mayor Donna Deegan was separately subpoenaed for her notes from a March 3, 2025, meeting with former JTA board member Megan Hayward about concerns over NAVI spending, with a compliance deadline of Oct. 20. No one has been charged. JTA said it remains committed to transparency and will provide information as requested.

Diamond has argued that the council should hear from longtime board members publicly instead of waiting on the state. "If the AG's Office investigates, they typically don't publish anything, so we'll never know," he said, according to Action News Jax.

Deegan orders oversight training

Deegan, whose office points out that JTA is an independent state-created agency whose board majority is appointed by the governor, issued an executive order on Oct. 6 aimed at financial oversight across Jacksonville's independent authorities. It encourages board members to take financial training, and she has proposed legislation to make that training mandatory. "Taxpayers deserve confidence that people overseeing their money understand the budgets, audits, and ethics rules," she said.

Not everyone on the council welcomed the move. Finance Chair Will Lahnen countered, "We should be appointing board members that don't need financial training," according to Action News Jax. Lahnen did voice cautious optimism that JTA's new finance chief could help the agency rebuild reserves it drained during the deficits.

What's next

The full City Council takes up the gas tax loan at its Oct. 13 meeting. If it passes, JTA can begin drawing on the money to retire its credit line debt while the Nov. 2 service changes take effect. Ferguson has said the agency's restructuring will continue through Nov. 1, and his stated priorities are safety, reliability, debt reduction and financial discipline.

Deegan's response to the state subpoena is due Oct. 20. For the Duval County residents who rely on JTA to reach jobs, schools and medical appointments, the bigger question is whether the loan buys time for a stable budget or simply delays harder choices about which routes the city can afford to keep.