Florida Voters Passed Amendment 3. Jacksonville Should Cut Developer Cash Grants Before Cutting Services.

John Hawley

Nov 4, 2026

The Development Divide: Part 20

Florida voters approved Amendment 3, expanding the homestead exemption. Now Jacksonville's Mayor Donna Deegan, City Council, and Downtown Development Authority have to decide what it will do with less property-tax revenue. If City Hall is looking at leaving jobs vacant, shortening library hours or putting off road repairs, it should start with a spending choice it still controls. Stop offering new cash grants to private developers.

Florida Voters Chose Property-Tax Relief

Florida Election Watch’s unofficial statewide tally showed 4,916,613 yes votes and 3,015,081 no votes for Amendment 3. With 61.99% in favor, it cleared the 60% threshold for changing Florida’s constitution. The result leaves Jacksonville with a smaller property-tax base and decisions about where to spend the money it still has.

The vote settles the tax question. For eligible homeowners, the exemption for non-school property taxes rises to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. Voters left the spending decisions to local officials, and those decisions are where Jacksonville residents should focus now.

Deegan Warned of Service Cuts. Now She Has to Show What Comes First.

In June, Mayor Donna Deegan warned that Amendment 3 would lead to deteriorating roads, closed libraries, pools and parks, and slower public-safety response times. She described those consequences as inevitable. By September, Chief Administrative Officer Mike Weinstein was discussing a possible hiring freeze. After the vote, Deegan pledged to protect public safety, affordability and quality of life. Before her administration cuts hours, delays repairs or leaves a frontline job vacant, it should show what it can save by ending new cash incentives and reducing its own overhead.

Council Called Its Budget Lean. Now Both Sides Need a Plan for Real Cuts.

When Deegan unveiled her budget in July, she told Action News Jax, “We have an entire year to respond” if voters passed Amendment 3. Republican Council President Nick Howland argued for preparing sooner, Finance Chair Will Lahnen urged the city to preserve cash, and Council member Ron Salem called for at least $100 million in cuts during that budget debate. The Finance Committee trimmed $22.91 million from the mayor’s proposal, with much of the money redirected to a public-safety capital contingency. The budget Council ultimately approved still grew by about $24 million, roughly 1%, while Howland said spending outside public safety declined.

The mayor and Council should use the time they have to publish a budget plan for both phases of the revenue loss. Show which expenses will fall in actual dollars, which savings repeat every year and which come from a one-time change. Put new subsidies, executive payroll and management overhead on the same page as any proposed service cuts. A budget that grows more slowly can help buy time, but City Hall now needs broader reductions that protect the work residents depend on.

Start With the Mayor’s Own Office

Our Mayor’s Office series found that Deegan’s FY 2026–27 proposal would grow her Executive Office budget from about $4.86 million to $5.55 million, or 14.1%, against about 1.1% for the proposed General Fund as a whole. The same analysis put proposed Executive Office growth since Curry’s final budget at roughly 34%, compared with 22% for Public Works, 13% for libraries and 11% for Parks, Recreation and Community Services. A separate comparison showed that Deegan’s incoming 18-person executive team was scheduled to earn about $590,000 more per year than Curry’s outgoing team of the same size, an increase of about 23%. The mayor should start by showing which executive positions she would combine, leave vacant or eliminate and how much that would save. Does Deegan consider paying six figures to a political appointee to take pictures of her and make her social media posts core city services? Probably not.

Council should ask the same questions across city departments and agencies where it has budget oversight. Review six-figure management jobs, appointed posts, overlapping responsibilities and positions that have repeatedly changed hands. Publish each position’s cost, duties, reporting line and appointment status before deciding what to cut. That would help separate roles that deliver or safeguard essential work from layers of management the city can consolidate.

Protect the People Who Keep Track of the Money

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority offers a warning about where cuts can backfire. Interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson told Council that former CEO Nat Ford directed him to dismiss then-CFO Greg Hayes, and Ferguson separately accused Ford of overriding financial advice. Former CFO Heather Obora testified that grant billing was behind when she returned to finance and that the estimated cost to build the NAVI project had risen from about $44 million to $67.5 million. According to her testimony roughly $3 million to operate NAVI’s maintenance facility was left out of the 2025 budget. The lesson for City Hall is to stop playing politics with scarce financial resources and protect budgeting, accounting and oversight capacity while putting costly projects and management layers through tougher scrutiny.

Put Neighborhood Services Ahead of New Cash Grants

When a grant draws on dollars the city could spend on services, the trade-off is straightforward. Every dollar Jacksonville promises to a developer is a dollar it can no longer use to keep a library open, maintain a road or fill a needed position. Ending new cash grants would cover only part of the projected revenue loss. It would still give the city room to avoid cuts that residents would otherwise feel.

How Much Cash Did Jacksonville Commit Under Deegan?

The deals already on the books show how Jacksonville got here. City Council’s 2024 bill summary details the original Gateway deal. In August 2024, during Mayor Donna Deegan’s term, Council unanimously approved nearly $39 million in completion grants and about $59.6 million in tax rebates for four Gateway Jax blocks. The Downtown Investment Authority brought the deal forward. In October 2026, Council appropriated $9.22 million for three of those blocks, drawing on money held in contingency accounts. That appropriation funds part of the earlier deal, so it belongs inside the nearly $39 million commitment when tallying the cost.

A separate deal put another $39 million cash commitment on the books for the former River City Brewing Company site. The ordinance for the former River City Brewery site shows Council approved an agreement involving the city and DIA that called for the city to set that money aside in escrow for later payment. Together, the original Gateway grants and the River City Brewery grant represent nearly $78 million in cash commitments approved during Deegan’s term. DIA helped bring those agreements forward, Council approved them and the mayor’s administration has had to account for them in the budget.

The funding history in The Development Divide, Part 15 raises a basic question. How much has actually gone out the door? Our Development Divide coverage found $130.56 million in the payments column of the Council Auditor’s Oct. 2 schedule, which also showed $33.96 million designated for future funding and $96.60 million still requiring funding. The schedule covers several kinds of assistance, including UF campus payments and development loans, so it does not establish how much Jacksonville has disbursed solely in developer completion grants since Deegan took office. The mayor’s office should release that number with a project-by-project ledger showing who approved each deal, when the money went out and what remains due.

One Year of Road Resurfacing Costs Less Than Some of These Grants

Jacksonville Today reported that Deegan’s proposed FY 2026–27 budget included about $36 million to resurface roads across Duval County, roughly $13 million more than the prior year’s level of about $23 million. Either of the roughly $39 million cash commitments described above is larger than that proposed annual paving budget. Even Gateway’s pending $28.25 million cash request for the Publix block is about $5.5 million larger than the prior year’s resurfacing figure. And in March, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported that the city expected $44.61 million in downtown completion grants to come due in FY 2026–27, about $8.7 million more than Deegan later proposed for a full year of paving.

Those figures compare the scale of the choices. The $44.61 million was a forecast, the resurfacing figure was a budget proposal and individual grant payments can fall across several years or come from restricted funds. Our Mayor’s Office series has already examined how the administration talks about fiscal restraint. The next budget should apply that scrutiny to development deals and show residents which flexible dollars could pay for paving, libraries or other services before officials promise them to another developer.

Start With Gateway Jax’s $28.25 Million Cash Request

Jacksonville already has a proposal it can put through that test, as we detailed in The Development Divide, Part 16. Gateway Jax’s Publix-anchored Block N7 package includes a $28.25 million cash completion grant and about $21.41 million in tax rebates known as REV grants. The Council Finance Committee deferred the package in October. Before it comes back, the mayor’s office should say where the cash would come from, when it would be due and how much of that money Jacksonville could use elsewhere.

The funding source matters because some dollars may be legally restricted to certain uses. Show those restrictions in plain English, then show what the flexible dollars could buy. And give residents a separate list of grants Jacksonville already owes under signed agreements, payments that depend on construction milestones and proposals officials can still decline. That would show where City Hall can make a choice today.

Gateway’s Publix block is only one piece of what could come before Council. In February, the Downtown Investment Authority estimated that 10 projects, including that block, could generate $145.6 million to $224.7 million in completion-grant requests over three to five years, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported. The list put the proposed riverfront Hard Rock Hotel at $37.5 million to $75 million in possible cash grants, the former JEA headquarters conversion at up to $19 million and the Laura Street Trio at up to $15 million. Separately, Council authorized negotiations for up to $35 million in capital and workforce incentives for the Culinary Institute of America’s proposed campus, which would share a Bay Street development with a hotel and conference center. The $35 million negotiating authority covers the campus, and the DIA figures were a February forecast that included both requests and projects that might come forward. Before advancing another deal, the DIA and City Hall should publish an updated list showing how much cash each project could require, when it could come due and which city accounts would pay for it.

Tax Rebates Deserve a Harder Look, Too

A REV grant gives a developer back some of the eligible new property taxes its project generates. Under the N7 proposal, Gateway would receive 75% of those eligible tax collections for 17 years, subject to the agreement’s terms. The cash grant would require the city to find money for a payment when the project meets its terms. The rebate would limit how much of the new tax revenue the city keeps in the years that follow.

Gateway told the Business Journal after the election that Amendment 3 strengthens the case for N7 and cited a projection of more than $500 million in tax revenue over 30 years. If the Downtown Investment Authority relies on that number, it should show which properties it covers, how much Jacksonville would keep after the rebates and how they impact core services. It should also explain how the forecast accounts for the new 5% cap on annual assessment increases for non-homestead properties. The same questions should apply to every incentive package the DIA advances and that council and the mayor's office consider.

Make City Hall Put Both Choices on the Same Page

The mayor should show proposed incentive payments alongside any service cuts in her budget. The DIA should disclose what each proposed award would cost the city. This is no longer an issue of paying forward what they want, but what they can afford without increasing other taxes, fee increases, and cuts to city frontline workers.

How Jacksonville Handles the Cuts Could Change Voters’ Minds

In Duval County, 193,085 voters backed Amendment 3 and 148,416 opposed it, according to Florida Election Watch’s unofficial returns. That’s 56.54% in favor, a local majority that would have fallen short if Duval alone had needed to clear the statewide 60% threshold. Florida passed it anyway. Now the mayor’s office, City Council and the DIA can shape how those voters feel about the result by showing what they choose to protect.

Imagine the city delays road resurfacing or cuts library hours while approving another multimillion-dollar cash grant from money it could have used for those services. Some voters who opposed Amendment 3 might come to see more reason to support the tax cut. They might also think twice about reelecting a mayor or Council member who backed the grant. The DIA can recommend a deal, and voters can hold the elected officials who advance or approve it to account.

Jacksonville’s leaders can make a different choice. End new cash grants to developers, protect the core services those dollars can legally fund and show residents the numbers before the next vote. If elected officials choose to keep awarding those grants while cutting services, they should expect to defend that decision the next time their own names are on the ballot.

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