‘The optics are terrible’: Stakeholders lean on Jacksonville City Council to leave millage rate flat. Will lawmakers cave?

If the Jacksonville City Council cuts property tax rates^[1] from 11.3619 mills to 11.1919 mills, they can’t say they weren’t warned of the consequences.

Florida Politics has obtained text messages to Republicans pushing for a millage cut from some of the most important people in the city, illustrating that the “red” versus “blue” dichotomies rehearsed on national and state stages don’t necessarily apply during local fiscal debates.

Those stakeholders warn of political and policy consequences if the legislative branch in fact cuts the millage rate by 1/8 mill^[2] during Tuesday’s final budget vote, which comes after tax cut proponents failed to get the cut added to the spending plan during a previous meeting.

“This rollback idea is bad fiscal policy and bad politics,” warns former Mayor John Peyton to Finance Chair Raul Arias.

“More people are paying attention than you think and recognize this move for what it is — a self-serving maneuver to secure leadership or re-election. The optics are terrible! The donor class, corporate, and not-for-profit leadership are absolutely paying attention and have long memories,” Peyton adds, suggesting Arias “take a long walk on the beach” to reconsider his position.

“The politics of this rollback are not good for your future political career,” Peyton adds, saying the decision is not “about” Mayor Donna Deegan, who Arias and other Republicans target as a big-spender who won’t give tax relief to citizens.

Peyton promises that an “alarming report” from the Civic Council about the city’s woeful fiscal position will make any tax cut “difficult to defend” in future elections.

“Police/Fire/business community collectively have a long memory,” Peyton adds.

Arias did not respond to the texts. But during the last City Council meeting, he said he “will win the next election without the Civic Council,” striking a defiant posture that could add intrigue to his 2027 campaign.

Peyton also told Terrance Freeman, a Republican who is eyeing a state House run next year, similar things, saying the “optics are terrible and will be hard to explain when the bills for our bold and necessary project(s) come in — stadium, raise for safety workers, UF campus, and jail.”

Hap Stein wrote Council VP Nick Howland similarly, urging him to “make the hard decisions in the face of political pressure” and choose “sound fiscal policy over political expediency.”

Howland, unlike the others, responded in defense of the “modest tax reduction” and accusing the “media of perpetuating a false narrative that we are cutting,” adding that the Council’s budget increases city spending 7% year over year, and that the city is still spending 91% of new revenue even with the millage haircut.

“We are spending a LOT more than in previous years,” Howland said.

State leaders, including CFO Blaise Ingoglia^[3] and state GOP Chair Evan Power^[4], have come to town to give political support to the Council.

Gov. Ron DeSantis^[5] said the city had room to cut as well, citing a promotional gimmick

“I do know they spent tens of thousands of dollars to create a hologram of the Mayor to put at Jacksonville International Airport. Do you want to pay property taxes to fund that? I mean, probably not, I think most people would say,” the Governor said in Apalachicola.

As Peyton’s comments above suggest, Jacksonville is facing some profound fiscal challenges and has limited mechanisms for meeting them.

Truth in Accounting^[6] reported a per capita debt of nearly $10,000 for every person in the city, which puts Jacksonville 60th out of 75 cities ranked, with millage identified as a key funding source to keeping the bleeding from getting worse.

“Public safety expenses, which account for 53% of total governmental costs, rose by $418.1 million adding financial strain. Property taxes, the largest revenue source, remain crucial to Jacksonville’s fiscal health.”

As Redfin^[7] notes, Jacksonville property taxes went up 60% between 2019 and 2024, roughly double the country’s overall rate of increase during the same five-year period.

Pension problems are also an issue. The Tributary notes that the Police and Fire Pension Fund^[8] is $3 billion in debt and is just 44% funded. As of 2023, the General Employees’ Pension Fund was nearly $1.4 billion in debt.

Additionally, the city is moving to put police and fire in the Florida Retirement System^[9], which could add more than $26.5 million a year to outflows starting in two years.

And then there’s stadium spending.

The Mayor and the Council agreed to devote five years of a half-cent sales tax which was slated to be repurposed to retiring that legacy defined benefit pension debt^[10], with the city pleading with Tallahassee to allow that back in 2017, to going in 50/50 with Shad Khan in renovating the Jaguars’^[11] stadium, at a cost of $775 million^[12] to taxpayers.

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