As voters are set to decide on a major property-tax reduction on the November ballot that would decimate Jacksonville’s budget — as well as the budgets of city and county governments across Florida — the fiscal conservatives who control the City Council’s influential finance committee have made big claims about the need to cut. 

“We’re not in reality here with $200 million. There’s a lot more than would have to be cut,” Council Member Ron Salem said in August, referring to next year’s projected deficit. “I want to prepare the next council as best I can for a potential catastrophe that could occur.”

So far, the efforts of the Finance Committee have amounted to $30 million in cuts from the mayor’s $2 billion proposed general fund budget, most of which likely won’t amount to actual savings and falls many millions short of next year’s potential revenue shortfall.

Jacksonville is projected to face a $200 million hit next year and another $100 million the following fiscal year, City Council Auditor Phillip Peterson told the Trib, if the major property-tax elimination on the November ballot, known as Amendment 3, passes. 

City Council President Nick Howland told the Florida Times-Union he supports Amendment 3 to bring tax relief to homeowners in Jacksonville, advocating for trimming the city budget ahead of the potential deficit. 

But Howland’s council could only trim $30 million, or just more than 1 percent of the entire budget. Carving $200 million out of next year’s budget — nearly 10 percent — would prove far more painful and degrade for Jacksonville’s quality of life services, public safety, and infrastructure.

“Some have advocated for deeper cuts. Some are upset that we’ve cut at all. We think we’ve done the responsible thing,” Howland told the Florida Trib about the discrepancy.

More than $23 million in proposed cuts could end up partially funding public safety capital projects, according to legislation filed by the Finance Committee chair. The other $6 million — cut from grants to local nonprofits, money for the cultural council, an eviction-assistance program and telehealth services — will only be cut if the property-tax reduction is approved by 60 percent of voters.

In an interview, Council Member Jimmy Peluso, who tentatively approved the budget last week but is planning on introducing amendments on budget night, said this year’s budget does not need to reflect the potential $200 million deficit.

“I don’t think it’s necessary for us to operate under the assumption that 60 percent of the electorate are gonna do something that will impact our budget next year,” Peluso said. “I’m not here to assume things may or may not happen in the future.”

Council members who spoke to the Trib said the city’s workforce would likely be affected, by layoffs and by not increasing the police and fire workforce for years.

The controversial proposal to increase the homestead exemption, for all non-school taxes, to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 faced initial pushback in court but will ultimately remain on the ballot. The amendment has attracted bipartisan pushback from local and state officials, who fear the cuts could cut not just into quality-of-life services like parks and libraries but also public-safety budgets, including for police and fire protection.

“There’s no world in which Amendment 3 passes in the City of Jacksonville is in a good place,” Peluso said. “You’re looking at game over for a whole bunch of quality of life issues that we care a lot about, as well as public safety.”

City Council member Will Lahnen, who chairs the finance committee, filed legislation to use $23 million in savings cut from Deegan’s budget for three major public safety capital improvement projects — $14 million for tenant and leasehold improvements at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office new headquarters at the Florida Blue building, $10 million for JSO’s warehouse consolidation, and $2 million to purchase a carbon dioxide removal system for the fire department.

In all, the council approved almost all of Deegan’s budget, Lahnen said, modifying about 1 percent.

The council could pull more from that $23 million bucket to fund services already cut during committee — including restoring $4.9 million to help create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund — at next week’s city council meeting. Whatever is left will go toward the public-safety projects, and the rest will be made up from general fund operating reserves.

“We’d be hurting ourselves more financially this year if we pulled it out of reserves now rather than a designated contingency,” Lahnen explained to the committee in late August. “In effect, it’s minimizing the use of operating reserves now so we have that available as we capture dollars next year.”

The only other major reduction in the mayor’s budget the council considered was $5 million from the Kids Hope Alliance’s $57 million budget, which uses city, state, and federal grants to fund youth services and intervention programs. KHA, which doesn’t fund direct services but funds providers, would have to reduce seats by 10 percent – cutting a total of 4,310 seats across after school programs, summer camps, and juvenile justice as well as early learning, special needs, and teen and preteen programs, Interim CEO Dana Krizner said.

“And those aren’t imaginary. Those are kids in seats now,” Krizner told the finance committee.

That $5 million ultimately stayed in the $2 billion budget — 63 percent of which is public safety funding.

“They’re living in a fantasy land,” Council Member Rory Diamond said about the committee’s limited cuts to the budget this year, including keeping KHA’s full funding. “They’re living in fantasy land whether or not Amendment 3 passes because the people in Jacksonville are not gonna stand for seeing their taxes go up and up and up every year anyway.”

Molly Farrar is a Report for America corps member and The Florida Trib’s Jacksonville municipal watchdog reporter. She can be reached at molly.farrar@floridatrib.org.