JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year are going up for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue.
The overall upcoming budget is between $1.9 and $2 billion.
For JSO, the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 is going up by about $86 million. For JFRD, that number is roughly $45 million.
It’s important to keep in mind that adjustments have been made since the last budget so that factors heavily into the numbers. Collectively, the two department budgets are less than $1 billion. In the past, they’ve been over a billion.
Sheriff T.K. Waters is requesting:
- Seven new positions, three of which would be for public records coordinators
- A real-time crime center analyst, an Information Technology Analyst, and Human Resource Specialist
- A one-time $225,000 request to go toward Florida Blue costs
“We saved some money, and we knoe the city is working on a lot of different projects so the undersheriff, the staff and I have been working really hard to make sure that we get our costs down and do everything we can to not increase in anyway and we’ve been able to successfully do that, I think it was a record. I think it was seven minutes in there with the committee,” Waters said.
Fire Chief Keith Powers is asking for a cooling center and a new position to be created to handle Neptune Beach fire inspections.
Powers also talked about how Fire Station 51 on the east side of Mandarin is being overrun with calls. He explained they had to add an extra engine and rescue at that location. Which is now working on overtime to address response times.
“The request is being made to give us the permanent staffing to build another fire station just south of 295 at Old St. Augustine Road,” Powers said. “We’re working on a public, private partnership with AT&T for the land and that engine and rescue will move down there to new Fire Station 78 once we get that built.”
There were also presentations from the CEO of JEA and the Tourist Development Council.
Tourist Development Council budget below.
