In Part I of our series, we found an interesting contradiction inside Jacksonville City Hall. Mayor Donna Deegan is proposing no increase in non-public-safety staffing for the second consecutive year, something her administration points to as evidence of fiscal restraint. And the numbers largely support the idea that most civilian departments have been operating with relatively modest staffing growth.

The Mayor's Office has been a notable exception.

Now we're looking at the next question: Where are Jacksonville's salary dollars concentrated?

And that's where the Mayor's Office stands out even more.

A $161,000-Per-Position Office

Deegan's proposed FY2026-27 budget contains roughly $3.7 million in salaries for 23 authorized positions in the Executive Office of the Mayor. Divide one by the other and you get approximately $161,000 in budgeted salary per authorized position.

That is not the average salary actually received by employees. It's a measurement we're using throughout this analysis: salary appropriation divided by authorized positions. Think of it as salary density.

When the same calculation is applied across Jacksonville government, the difference is striking.

The precise figures can vary depending upon which City funding schedules and employee-cap definitions are used, so they shouldn't be interpreted as employee average salaries. But the pattern is difficult to miss.

The Mayor's Office salary density is roughly 30% higher than General Counsel, 58% higher than Technology, 68% higher than Finance, 81% higher than Planning and more than three times Public Works.

That's What a Top-Heavy Salary Pyramid Looks Like

Some of this is perfectly logical. Public Works isn't supposed to look like the Mayor's Office. Neither is Parks. Large operating departments employ people performing vastly different jobs at vastly different levels of responsibility.

A department might have a director making close to $200,000. Underneath that director are deputy directors, division chiefs and managers, followed by engineers, planners, inspectors, analysts, technicians, administrative personnel, customer-service workers and field employees.

That's an organizational pyramid: relatively few people at the top and progressively more people as you move downward.

The Mayor's Office has comparatively little bottom to its pyramid.

With only 23 authorized positions and approximately $3.7 million allocated to salaries, its compensation is concentrated heavily toward the upper end of Jacksonville's pay scale. That helps explain the extraordinary $161,000 salary-density number.

It Isn't Just the Mayor's Top Executives

There is nothing particularly surprising about Jacksonville paying its most senior executives substantial salaries. This is a consolidated city and county government with a proposed $2.027 billion General Fund and another $586 million in proposed capital spending for FY2026-27.

The more interesting question begins farther down the organizational chart.

Based upon the latest salary information we've been able to verify, the Mayor's staff includes a remarkable concentration of compensation at the upper end:

Darnell Smith — approximately $277,000

Michael Weinstein — approximately $272,000-$277,000

Kelli O'Leary — approximately $211,000

Charles Griggs — approximately $201,000

Joe Inderhees — approximately $195,000

Phil Perry — approximately $195,000

Melissa Ross — approximately $195,000

Parvez Ahmed — approximately $195,000

Tracye Polson — approximately $174,000

Garrett Dennis — approximately $158,000

Lynn Sherman — approximately $158,000

Brittany Norris — approximately $127,000

Those twelve positions alone represent roughly $2.35 million in annual salaries.

That's what makes the structure noteworthy. The compensation doesn't fall very quickly after you move beyond the City's very top executives.

Compare That With the Departments Doing Much of the City's Everyday Work

Public Works is perhaps the most dramatic contrast. The department is responsible for roads, drainage, engineering, construction, public buildings, traffic operations, mowing and landscaping and other infrastructure functions. Yet the salary density of the Public Works operating schedule we've examined is approximately $50,000 per position.

Parks is roughly $79,000. Planning is approximately $89,000. Finance is approximately $96,000. Technology is approximately $102,000.

The Mayor's Office: $161,000.

That doesn't mean an employee repairing City infrastructure should necessarily make what a mayoral policy adviser makes, nor does it mean everyone should be paid equally. It means Jacksonville has chosen to concentrate substantially more salary dollars per position inside the small operation surrounding the Mayor than it does across the workforces of most major City departments.

And Part I showed the other side of that equation: many of those departments have experienced comparatively little growth in the number of people actually doing the work.

This Didn't Begin With Annual Raises

It would be tempting to assume the Mayor's Office became so salary-heavy because Deegan's appointees received unusually large raises. The evidence we've examined doesn't support that as the primary explanation.

The structure was expensive from the beginning.

When Deegan took office in 2023, published salary records showed her initial 18-member executive team scheduled to receive approximately $3.18 million. Curry's departing 18-member team received approximately $2.59 million.

Same number of people. Approximately $590,000 more in annual salaries — a 23% increase.

But there's an important detail. The 11 positions that substantially carried over from Curry to Deegan collectively cost about the same under the two administrations. Much of the difference was attributable to seven additional roles Deegan added to the executive structure, projected to cost another $1.08 million annually.

That's an important distinction. Deegan didn't simply inherit the old Mayor's Office and give everybody enormous raises. She redesigned it. And she placed significant value on the additional functions she created.

The Current Salary Budget Is Higher Still

There's also an important distinction between that 18-to-18 executive-team comparison and the City's complete Mayor's Office budget. They aren't the same dataset and shouldn't be mixed.

The 18-person comparison tells us something very specific: Deegan entered office willing to spend about 23% more for the same number of executive-team members.

The broader departmental budget tells us what the Executive Office itself costs. The City's official budget comparison put Curry's final FY2022-23 Mayor's Office salary budget at approximately $2.81 million and Deegan's first at approximately $3.43 million.

That's roughly $617,000 more, or about 22%, in her first budget alone. The proposed FY2026-27 salary appropriation has now reached roughly $3.7 million.

Whichever measurement we use, the direction is similar: Jacksonville has devoted substantially more salary resources to the operation immediately surrounding the Mayor.

But Maybe a Small, Expensive Staff Is More Efficient

There is a legitimate counterargument. Salary density alone doesn't prove waste.

Imagine two organizations performing the same work. One employs 40 people averaging $90,000. The other employs 23 highly capable people averaging considerably more but accomplishes the same work—or more. The second organization could actually be cheaper.

Technology matters too. Software, automation and increasingly artificial intelligence can eliminate administrative work that once required additional employees. A highly skilled analytics employee who identifies millions of dollars in savings could easily justify a $195,000 salary. An advocacy employee who secures tens of millions in federal or state funding could produce an extraordinary return.

High compensation isn't necessarily inefficient compensation. But it should produce high-value work.

Where Is the Lower-Paid Support Layer?

That leads to another consequence of Jacksonville's unusual salary pyramid. Every organization produces ordinary administrative work: meetings must be scheduled, correspondence handled, calls and constituent requests routed, documents prepared, records maintained, research assembled and calendars coordinated.

In Public Works or Parks, those functions can be distributed through an organizational structure containing employees at numerous compensation levels. But if the Mayor's Office contains relatively few lower-paid employees, there are several possibilities.

Highly compensated employees may perform more routine work themselves. Technology may have eliminated much of it. Some functions may be shared with employees elsewhere in City government. Or contractors and other personnel may provide support that isn't obvious from the 23-position salary calculation. We don't yet have enough evidence to say which explanation predominates. But it produces a useful efficiency question: Is Jacksonville consistently using $150,000-to-$200,000 talent to perform $150,000-to-$200,000 work?

We'll return to that later in this series.

Deegan Has Given Us a Standard for Measuring It

Interestingly, the Mayor herself has articulated the appropriate test. Deegan has said taxpayers don't owe government the benefit of the doubt—government owes taxpayers proof—and that spending decisions should deliver a positive return to Jacksonville residents.

That's a useful standard for evaluating the Mayor's own operation. The question isn't whether a Chief of Analytics sounds valuable. It's what the analytics function has produced. The question isn't whether strategic initiatives are important. It's what initiatives were delivered. The question isn't whether state and federal advocacy matters. It's what Jacksonville received from that advocacy.

If these positions are producing returns many times greater than their compensation, the Mayor's salary structure may be an excellent investment. But the high salary density makes demonstrating that return more important.

Where Jacksonville Has Chosen to Put Its Money

Part I of this series showed that most of Jacksonville's civilian workforce has grown comparatively slowly while the Mayor's Office expanded considerably faster.

Part II reveals another layer.

The Mayor's Office isn't merely a small operation containing a few highly compensated executives. It contains an unusually dense concentration of highly compensated positions.

Approximately $3.7 million in salary appropriations spread across just 23 authorized positions produces salary density of roughly $161,000 per position—well above the major departments responsible for much of Jacksonville's everyday work.

That doesn't prove the Mayor's staff is overpaid. It doesn't establish that any individual position is unnecessary. And it doesn't tell us whether Jacksonville receives a good return from the investment.

But it does tell us something important about priorities: Jacksonville has chosen to concentrate some of its highest compensation in one of the smallest operations in City government.

The next question is where it gets even more interesting. Because averages don't manage departments.

People do.

The Mayors Office Part IX

The Mayors Office Part VIII

The Mayors Office Part VII

The Mayors Office Part VI

Donna The Mayors Office Part V

The Mayors Office Part IV

The Mayors Office Part III

The Mayors Office Part II

The Mayor's Office Part I