JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — After much infighting and political posturing, Jacksonville City Council passed its budget this week. On her show This Week in the 904, Emily Turner sat down with Raul Arias, the chair of the Finance Committee, to talk about the rocky road to getting it across the finish line.
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The budget passed by a razor-thin margin — ten to nine — and after thirteen hours of public comment and debate. Arias says there were two big sticking points — property tax cuts and a proposed ban on spending on DEI, abortion, and illegal immigrants.
“That is one of the reasons why it took such a long time for us to complete our session,” Arias says. “The millage cut was one of biggest proponent, but this piece of legislation… Rory Diamond’s amendment, that was the one that had a lot of debate."
“The problem is that we had enough votes to pass those amendments… but it had three components wrapped into one. While those amendments did pass, when it came down to voting on the final budget, we needed enough votes for the final budgeting, and we didn’t have that, because a lot of council members didn’t want to support those amendments, and so we couldn’t pass that, and that’s really what took the longest.”
He goes on to talk about the financial future of the city, what line items did and didn’t made the cut, and more. You can catch the whole conversation on This Week in the 904 this Sunday morning on Action News Jax.
Watch previous episodes here.
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