{"id":239268,"date":"2025-09-19T15:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/239268\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T15:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:56:10","slug":"making-sense-of-billion-dollar-budgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/239268\/","title":{"rendered":"Making sense of billion-dollar budgets"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the\u00a0Jacksonville Today\u00a0newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

Q: <\/b>As municipalities across the state prepare to begin a new fiscal year Oct. 1, officials are throwing around a lot of numbers about their budgets.<\/p>\n

In particular, Jacksonville Today reader Ricardo F. wrote in to ask why it sounds like St. Johns County and Jacksonville have similar budgets despite the wide disparity in size and population.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is it that both St Johns and Jacksonville are discussing $2 billion budgets?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/b>When officials in each county talk about finances for the upcoming fiscal year, both Jacksonville and St. Johns County are represented as having $2 billion budgets. But those comparisons are like apples to oranges.<\/p>\n

While officials from both counties may talk about their $2 billion budgets, in reality, the portions of the budget they\u2019re comparing are very different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In St. Johns, the $1.898 billion represents\u00a0the county\u2019s entire budget<\/a>, including its general fund, the fund used to fix up buildings, roads and other structures as well as other funds.<\/p>\n

With some exceptions, the general fund \u2014 which pays for things like public safety and government operations \u2014 is the main area where taxpayer funds are used. That general fund comes to just under $500 million.<\/p>\n

In Jacksonville, the $2 billion budget is in reference to just its general fund. While the city still has to put the finishing touches on its budget, the sum total of Jacksonville\u2019s budget is in the neighborhood of about $5.009 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the City Council auditor, if budgets for the city\u2019s independent authorities and the nonprofit Downtown Vision Inc. \u2014 which is funded by a dedicated taxing source \u2014 is added to that bottom line, it\u2019s in excess of $9 billion.<\/p>\n

St. Johns County\u2019s general fund budget is about one-quarter of the general fund that the Jacksonville City Council is expected to vote on next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jacksonville\u2019s general fund, like St. Johns\u2019, includes funding for government employees and the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department and the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In both counties, most of the debate about the budget centers on the general fund because other parts included in the overall budget include funds where grant money, as well as state or federal funding, is used.<\/p>\n

Facing additional scrutiny<\/a>\u00a0from the state over the budget, Jacksonville City Council members have been in\u00a0tense negotiations<\/a>\u00a0to decide on just how much to tax local property owners.<\/p>\n

St. Johns County finalized its budget\u00a0during a hearing this week<\/a>, but the Jacksonville City Council is expected to finalize its budget when the board meets at 3 p.m. Tuesday. That meeting will be in the City Council Chamber on the first floor of the St. James building, at 117 West Duval St.<\/p>\n

The meeting will be broadcast live online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville Today\u00a0Associate Editor Mike Mendenhall contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":239269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[52136,5229,3188,723,7310,52137,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-239268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-askjaxtdy","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-together-4-jax","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115231783889494701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}