{"id":252649,"date":"2025-09-25T03:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/252649\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T03:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:32:10","slug":"councilmembers-react-after-marathon-meeting-leads-to-passed-2b-city-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/252649\/","title":{"rendered":"Councilmembers react after marathon meeting leads to passed $2B city budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. <\/strong> \u2013 Jacksonville City Council members endured a nearly 14-hour meeting that stretched into early Wednesday morning to finalize the city\u2019s budget. <\/p>\n

The session, which began Tuesday afternoon, wrapped up around 4 a.m., marked by intense debates over a property tax reduction and a controversial budget amendment.<\/p>\n

Council President Kevin Carrico said, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a budget this contentious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilman Jimmy Peluso acknowledged the frustration but expressed relief that the council managed to complete the work. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating, but we got through it,\u201d Peluso said.<\/p>\n

The council narrowly approved a 1\/8th property tax reduction with a 10-9 vote early Tuesday evening. However, the debate extended late into the night over amendments, especially Councilman Rory Diamond\u2019s \u201cBig, Beautiful Budget Amendments.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ultimately, Councilman Will Lahnen switched his vote to exclude the amendment from the final budget.<\/p>\n

Diamond\u2019s amendment sought to prohibit city funds from being used for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, services for undocumented immigrants, and abortion-related services.<\/p>\n

Peluso opposed both the tax cut and the amendment. <\/p>\n

\u201cA budget is not supposed to be a policy document where you outline something that\u2019s highly partisan and completely unnecessary in a budget,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Council President Carrico disagreed with Peluso\u2019s characterization. \u201cThe 1\/8 reduction is not political at all. I think giving taxpayers money back and not wasting money on government spending it\u2019s not political at all,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s something that we owe our taxpayers as the fiscal agents of the city. When there\u2019s an excess of revenue, we can either tuck some away in the reserve or give it back to the citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding concerns about legislating policy through the budget, Carrico noted, \u201cWe had an opinion from the Office of General Counsel that said we can legislate those items into the budget, that we can make it a priority not to fund those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilman Rory Diamond was unavailable for an interview but issued a statement: \u201cGreat win for hard-working taxpayers in Jacksonville this morning. I wish it had been a bigger tax cut, but take the wins you can get! As for our Big Beautiful Budget Amendments, we have a super majority to pass them. I will bring them back soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carrico said he would support Diamond bringing forward individual policies related to the amendment.<\/p>\n

Mayor Donna Deegan shared a statement following the passing of the budget Wednesday morning that says in part:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed by the millage rate vote, especially given the strong sentiments from the public, the City Council has fulfilled their primary responsibility to pass a budget. I respect their decision and their work.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m especially grateful that they removed divisive and unnecessary policy amendments that should never have been included.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville City Council members endured a nearly 14-hour meeting that stretched into early Wednesday morning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":252650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,5310,8314,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-252649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-duval-county","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","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\/115262832244174519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252649","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=252649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}