JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — As the Jacksonville Transportation Authority prepares to lay off nearly 200 employees, reduce bus routes and suspend services like the NAVI and Skyway to address a nearly $40 million budget deficit, one of the agency’s former board members is calling for accountability.
Mayor Donna Deegan’s office claims the JTA board was not previously aware of the dire nature of the agency’s financial crisis, and that the administration only learned about it when the board was brought up to speed.
But Megan Hayward, who served on the board from 2023 to 2025, claims that’s not true.
She told Action News Jax she went to members of the City Council and to Deegan sounding the alarm - just before she was ousted from her seat by the mayor and council.
“And when I left, I told her [Deegan] if this didn’t get dealt with this was going to be her JEA scandal. I looked her straight in the eyes and I said this is going to be your JEA and then I was kicked off the board,” said Hayward.
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Now, Hayward is calling for accountability in the form of state and federal investigations into JTA’s former CEO Nat Ford, and those who oversaw JTA’s finances.
“There’s a fiduciary duty the board has and that is why I felt the need to say all of this a year and a half ago because I’m not going to prison for anybody,” said Hayward.
Of JTA’s current board members, five have served on the board for a year or less.
But board Chair Aundra Wallace and Vice Chair Patricia Gillum Sams have served since 2022.
That’s the same year JTA first began collecting its share of the local option gas tax, which funds some of JTA’s most controversial projects like the Ultimate Urban Circulator (U2C), the Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation (NAVI) program and Skyway renovation.
Both of those members are appointed by the mayor.
We asked Mayor Deegan’s office whether she believes it’s time to replace those two members in light of the agency’s financial crisis.
A spokesperson simply replied, “no”.
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Meanwhile, City Council President Nick Howland (R-Group 3 At-Large) plans to convene a select committee to look into how to rework the gas tax to stabilize the JTA’s budget.
When asked whether that committee would include an investigatory element, Howland said the goal is to be “corrective, not punitive”.
“But we do need to understand how we got to this position,” said Howland.
Action News Jax also reached out to the Governor’s Office asking whether the situation at JTA is on their radar, given Governor Ron DeSantis appointed four of the board members that came online at the start of this year.
We have not heard back.
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