{"id":242879,"date":"2025-09-21T02:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T02:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/242879\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T02:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T02:34:10","slug":"mayor-deegan-defends-lean-budget-pushes-back-on-cfos-tax-criticism-ahead-of-budget-vote-on-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/242879\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Deegan defends lean budget, pushes back on CFO\u2019s tax criticism ahead of budget vote on Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 As Jacksonville\u2019s City Council prepares to vote on the budget on Sept. 23, Mayor Donna Deegan responded to claims from Florida\u2019s chief financial officer, Blaise Ingoglia, who alleged $200 million in unnecessary budget increases and said the city is \u201cover taxing and overspending.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>CFO says Jacksonville has overtaxed its residents by $200M. Mayor Deegan says he didn\u2019t show his work<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Deegan dismissed the claim, saying, \u201cAll of our property taxes, every bit of it goes to police and fire, everything else, you know, I mean, that is the insane part. What would we do if we cut $200 million? I don\u2019t know where that would come from. Nobody does. He didn\u2019t give one solid example.\u201d<\/p>\n

She addressed the CFO\u2019s social media posts<\/a> featuring a hologram at the airport, clarifying, <\/p>\n

This Week in Jacksonville<\/p>\n

More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I kept seeing was a picture of the hologram at the airport, which we partnered with a local Jacksonville small and emerging businesswoman. It was about $50,000, I think. And every mayor in the country welcomes people to their airport, either over a video board or over audio. And we thought, what a wonderful way to support a local business that\u2019s become just sort of a straw man for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan emphasized the city\u2019s lean budget and increased funding for public safety, including a 22% pay raise for police and fire. She urged residents to focus on real issues like insurance costs instead of unfounded claims.<\/p>\n

To watch the full interview with Congressman Fine, tune in to This Week in Jacksonville, <\/a>Sunday morning at 9 a.m.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 As Jacksonville\u2019s City Council prepares to vote on the budget on Sept. 23, Mayor Donna…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,44221,5310,10083,3188,723,7310,80,16211,80023,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-242879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-blaise-ingoglia","10":"tag-city-council","11":"tag-donna-deegan","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-this-week-in-jacksonville","17":"tag-twij","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115239955041796967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242879","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=242879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}