Updated September 19, 2026

Nearly 18 months after former Jacksonville Transportation Authority board member Megan Hayward publicly questioned JTA spending, ridership reporting and financial oversight, the agency is confronting a $39 million budget shortfall, layoffs and significant reductions in transit service.

The financial crisis has also brought Hayward back into the Jacksonville spotlight.

Hayward, who served on the JTA board from 2023 until 2025, told Action News Jax that she raised concerns with Jacksonville City Council members and Mayor Donna Deegan before leaving the board. She now disputes the Mayor’s Office’s assertion that JTA’s board and the administration were previously unaware of the severity of the authority’s financial problems. 

Those claims do not establish that Hayward predicted the specific $39 million shortfall JTA disclosed in September 2026. But they make the circumstances surrounding her departure—and the questions she was raising at the time—newly relevant.

Why Is Megan Hayward Back in the Jacksonville News?

On September 17, 2026, JTA announced sweeping measures intended to address a $39 million budget shortfall.

According to JTA, expenses in the budget year ending September 30 total $178 million, while projected revenues for the new budget year beginning October 1 are $139 million. JTA announced plans to end professional-services and other contracts expected to save approximately $25 million, eliminate 44 administrative positions and potentially eliminate as many as 150 operations positions. 

Transit riders will also feel the impact.

JTA plans to pause Skyway operations November 2 and NAVI operations December 31. Most fixed-route buses will operate at reduced weekday service levels, although paratransit service is not scheduled for reductions. 

The announcement immediately raised a larger question:

How did Jacksonville’s transportation authority reach this point?

For Hayward, it also reopened questions that date to her time on the JTA board.

Who Is Megan Hayward?

Megan Hayward is a Jacksonville businesswoman and entrepreneur who was appointed to the Jacksonville Transportation Authority Board of Directors by Mayor Donna Deegan in 2023.

Hayward is founder and CEO of TempGuru, also known as Temporary Assistance Guru, an event-staffing business. According to Hayward’s company biography, the business operates in more than 300 markets across the United States and Canada. The company says it has placed more than 100,000 workers and staffed more than 2,500 events. Those figures are company-reported. 

Hayward earned a Bachelor of Science in Communication from the University of North Florida. JTA’s announcement of her appointment also identified her as part of the ownership group associated with the Jacksonville Icemen, Community First Igloo, Savannah Ghost Pirates and Allen Americans. 

Her biography lists participation in Leadership Jacksonville, Leadership Florida and the Hightower Fellowship, along with involvement in several nonprofit organizations. 

That combination of business, sports and civic involvement had already given Hayward a significant presence in Jacksonville before she became part of the JTA controversy.

What Company Does Megan Hayward Own?

Hayward founded TempGuru, a staffing company specializing in event and temporary labor.

Her company biography says she entered the staffing business at age 24 and subsequently developed TempGuru into a W-2 staffing platform serving hundreds of markets. 

That business background was part of the experience Hayward brought to the JTA board.

When JTA announced Hayward and Patricia Gillum Sams as new board members in October 2023, then-CEO Nathaniel Ford said their professional experience would make them valuable additions to the authority. 

Hayward would ultimately serve for less than two years.

Why Did Mayor Donna Deegan Appoint Megan Hayward to JTA?

Mayor Donna Deegan appointed Hayward shortly after taking office in 2023.

The JTA board consists of members appointed through state and local government, with mayoral appointments subject to Jacksonville City Council confirmation. Hayward was one of Deegan’s early appointments and was subsequently confirmed by Council. 

At the time, there was little indication that Hayward would eventually become one of the authority’s most outspoken internal critics.

By early 2025, that had changed.

Hayward was publicly asking questions about JTA financial decisions, ridership reporting and oversight.

Then Deegan moved to replace her.

What Was Megan Hayward Questioning at JTA?

The timing of Hayward’s departure became controversial because several of the issues she was raising involved financial accountability and the accuracy of information being provided to JTA’s governing board.

At the February 27, 2025 JTA board meeting, Hayward questioned discrepancies between ridership numbers being presented to board members and figures being reported externally.

According to contemporaneous reporting by the Jacksonville Daily Record and Action News Jax, the differences amounted to roughly 2,000 riders in some reporting periods. Hayward expressed concern because transit ridership statistics can factor into federal funding. 

Then-CEO Nat Ford told the board that JTA would examine Hayward’s concern and report back.

But ridership wasn't the only issue she raised.

Hayward Questioned a $60,000-Plus JAXUSA Payment

Hayward also called for an independent review of more than $60,000 in JTA sponsorship funding involving JAXUSA Partnership.

The relationship drew her attention because JTA board member Aundra Wallace was also president of JAXUSA.

Hayward argued that even if the arrangement complied with applicable legal requirements, an independent review was warranted to address potential perceptions surrounding the transaction and protect public confidence in the board. 

JTA’s attorney indicated at the meeting that the authority had a legal opinion regarding the sponsorship.

Hayward nevertheless argued that the issue extended beyond whether the transaction was technically permissible. She framed it as a question of transparency, fiduciary responsibility and public trust.

That distinction is important.

An expenditure can satisfy a legal review while still raising legitimate questions for a governing board about disclosure, oversight or appearances of conflicts.

Mayor Deegan Moves to Replace Hayward

The chronology surrounding Hayward’s replacement is notable.

Mayor Deegan filed legislation on February 25, 2025 to replace Hayward with former Neptune Beach Mayor and former Jacksonville City Council President Elaine Brown.

Two days later, at the February 27 JTA meeting, Hayward publicly raised the ridership and JAXUSA issues.

News4JAX reported at the time that the proposed change surprised some City Council members. Council member Rahman Johnson, who served as a Council liaison to JTA, said he contacted the Mayor’s Office seeking an explanation. 

Deegan publicly praised both women.

She described Hayward as an innovative leader and said she looked forward to Hayward continuing to serve Jacksonville in another capacity.

The mayor said Brown brought extensive transportation experience and explained that making the transition at that time would allow several new JTA board members to get up to speed simultaneously. 

Hayward offered a different perspective.

She said she was disappointed to be leaving the board while important questions she had raised remained unanswered. 

At that point, there was no publicly disclosed $39 million JTA budget crisis.

That would come later.

Did Hayward’s Removal Have Anything to Do With Her JTA Questions?

There is an important distinction between chronology and causation.

Deegan’s legislation to replace Hayward was filed before Hayward's highly publicized February 27 board comments concerning ridership and JAXUSA.

The Mayor’s Office said the decision was about aligning board membership with experience and city priorities and bringing Brown and other incoming board members aboard at approximately the same time. 

Hayward now offers a different interpretation.

In September 2026, she told Action News Jax that she believes her removal was connected to her opposition to JTA’s Ultimate Urban Circulator, or U2C, project. 

That is Hayward’s allegation. Publicly available evidence cited here does not independently establish that her position on U2C caused Deegan to replace her.

What can be established is the sequence of events—and what Hayward was saying before she left.

What Megan Hayward Says She Warned Jacksonville Officials About

The September 2026 JTA crisis has added an important new dimension to the original controversy.

Hayward told Action News Jax that she contacted members of Jacksonville City Council and Mayor Deegan about problems she believed existed at JTA.

She also said she warned Deegan before leaving the board that unresolved problems at JTA could eventually become a controversy comparable to Jacksonville’s previous JEA scandal. 

Hayward is now calling for state and federal investigations into JTA’s former leadership and the authority’s financial oversight.

Again, those are Hayward’s claims and requests—not findings that criminal conduct occurred.

The Mayor’s Office has presented a substantially different account of when the severity of JTA’s financial condition became known.

According to Action News Jax, the administration said JTA’s board “was not previously aware of the dire nature” of the financial situation and that the Mayor’s Office learned about the severity when the board did. 

Hayward disputes that characterization.

That disagreement creates a question extending well beyond the circumstances of one board member’s departure.

How Did JTA Go From Budget Concerns to a $39 Million Shortfall?

The financial deterioration did not appear publicly all at once.

An August 2026 Jacksonville City Council auditor report showed JTA’s projected deficit had increased to approximately $31.8 million from a $2.25 million projected deficit only three months earlier. 

By September, the number had grown again.

JTA announced that it was addressing a $39 million shortfall based on $178 million in expenses against $139 million in projected revenue for the coming budget year. 

Interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson III said the cuts were necessary to restore JTA’s financial stability.

The consequences are substantial: potentially nearly 200 eliminated positions, reduced bus service, suspended Skyway operations, suspended NAVI service and approximately $25 million in reductions to professional-services and other contracts. 

Ferguson has rejected characterizing the situation as financial mismanagement and has said JTA must structurally change how it budgets. 

Those developments make understanding the preceding years increasingly important.

The Question Is No Longer Just Why Megan Hayward Left JTA

When this article was originally published in 2025, the central issue was Hayward’s departure from the JTA board while she was asking questions about the agency’s operations.

The events of September 2026 broaden that issue considerably.

The question is no longer simply why Megan Hayward was replaced.

It is what JTA’s governing board, executive leadership, Jacksonville City Council and the Mayor’s Office knew about the authority’s financial trajectory—and when they knew it.

Hayward says she sounded alarms before her departure. The Mayor’s Office disputes her characterization of what officials knew about the severity of the financial situation. JTA’s current leadership is now dealing with the consequences of a $39 million shortfall. 

Determining precisely what was known will require more than retrospective statements from either side.

It requires examining budgets, financial reports, board packets, meeting minutes, communications, audit findings and the chronology of decisions made as JTA’s financial position deteriorated.

Questions Raised in 2025 Take on New Significance in 2026

Hayward’s concerns in early 2025 and JTA’s $39 million budget crisis in 2026 should not automatically be treated as proof of the same underlying problem.

But neither should the earlier controversy be viewed in isolation from what followed.

A board member was publicly questioning ridership reporting, spending and oversight. The mayor who appointed her subsequently replaced her. Hayward now says she also raised broader concerns privately with elected officials. The Mayor’s Office disputes her account of what officials understood about JTA’s financial condition.

Now Jacksonville taxpayers and transit riders are confronting the consequences of an authority attempting to close a $39 million financial gap.

That makes the most important questions increasingly specific:

What did JTA executives know about the authority’s deteriorating finances?

What information was provided to JTA board members?

What did the Mayor’s Office know, and when was it informed?

What did members of Jacksonville City Council know?

Were earlier warning signs visible in JTA’s financial reports and budgets before the crisis reached $39 million?

And perhaps most importantly:

Could earlier intervention have reduced the eventual impact on JTA employees, transit riders and Jacksonville taxpayers?

Those questions go beyond Megan Hayward.

They are now questions about the governance and financial oversight of one of Jacksonville’s most important independent public agencies.

THE JTA AT A CROSSROADS SERIES!