JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – State and local leaders are holding a press conference on Tuesday to demand accountability and address concerns over what they called “wasteful spending” under Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration.
Rep. Dean Black, Jacksonville City Council members Rory Diamond and Terrance Freeman spoke.
They referenced the $1 million state reimbursement for James Weldon Johnson Park that was denied after the Office of Inspector General found grant reporting failures. They said the loss is one example of what they called a broader trend of waste, lack of transparency and failed execution by the mayor’s office.
“All the mayor’s team had to do was write one letter. One letter, and they didn’t do it,” Diamond said, criticizing city officials for not informing the public sooner about the missed reimbursement. “They didn’t even take responsibility for it.”
However, the grant was pursued and awarded under the previous administration in early 2022. In May 2023, the grant expiration date was extended to take place under Deegan’s administration.
“We don’t cease and dissolve government in between mayoral administrations,” Black said. “We believe that we’re handing it off to a competent chief executive who is going to make wise decisions and hire good people and train them.”
The contract manager assigned to the project had not received formal training in grant or contract management, the OIG said, contributing to missed deadlines, confusion about deliverables and improper submission attempts, including emailing documents after being locked out of the state portal.
Emails provided by the Parks Department show the city’s grant manager, Lauren Chappell, and state Financial Administrator Teri Abstein had an ongoing back-and-forth about final deliverables in the weeks leading up to the grant’s expiration.
In a July 15, 2024, email — just 15 days after the grant expired on June 30 — Abstein wrote to Chappell: “As long as the expenditures are paid out, we shouldn’t need to do an extension.”
City officials say the grant manager was operating under that direction. The outstanding deliverable — an executed Restrictive Covenant — required legislative approval before it could be filed with the County Clerk, a step Chappell had flagged for the state in her communications.
“I am double checking whether the restrictive covenants are going to have to go through legislation to be signed, and will let you know the timeline on that process,” Chappell wrote to Abstein on July 15, 2024.
The city says that once the legislation was approved, Chappell submitted the final deliverable. However, by that point, the grant’s reimbursement window had long passed.
Since then, the city has taken steps to improve grant oversight and reduce the risk of future financial loss.
Earlier in the month, Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia took aim at Jacksonville city government Monday, claiming the city wasted $275.7 million in taxpayer money in the 2025-26 budget — a sharp jump from the $199 million in excessive spending he claimed the previous year.