JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville City Council president Kevin Carrico blasted Mayor Donna Deegan for her comments about the recent cut to property taxes. The city’s finance committee approved a 1/8th of a mill reduction to the city’s millage rate Thursday.

Mayor Deegan called the cut “fiscally irresponsible” because it would take away money for things like road repairs and public health initiatives.

Carrico is now pushing back, calling her comments “out of touch and elitist.” In a statement released Friday, Carrico said, “Here’s nothing performative about delivering real savings – millions of dollars of tax cuts – to Jacksonville property owners who have been feeling the pinch of rising costs over the past few years.”

Deegan doubled down on her comments. In a statement also released Friday, Deegan said, “As I said in my comments yesterday, it’s my hope that we’ll have less performers and more statesmen as the budget moves to the full city council in September. Council President Carrico’s disingenuous and divisive statement today emphasizes this point.”

While city leaders continue to spar over potential cuts, Duval County Property Appraiser Joyce Morgan discussed what goes into calculating property taxes.

Right now, the city’s total millage rate sits at 17.865, which includes the millage rates of the four different taxing authorities. Morgan said millage makes up just a portion of the city’s property taxes.

“Once those entities send us their millage rate, we take that millage rate and we apply it to the assessed value of a home to receive the taxable value,” Morgan explained.

Her office is in charge of assessing market value of all properties in the county and coming up with their taxable value. “All we can do is is use the comparable values of homes and of property in that neighborhood, it’s called mass appraisal. Tat’s what we do at the Dual County Property Appraiser’s Office. By the way, all 67 counties, that’s what we do,” she said.

Morgan said the market value is not something they control, it is based off the housing market and the economy. “The market value is basically what a willing buyer is willing to pay a willing seller, but nobody is obligated to do that, that’s just what the terms that they agreed upon are, and so that’s something we don’t control. That’s controlled simply by the market, simply by those people and simply by what the economy is doing at the present time.”

The total taxable value on properties across the county increased by almost 13% in 2023 and nearly 7% in 2024. This mirrors an increase in market values of both residential and commercial properties in the county.

But local and state leaders are now waging a war against property taxes, with Florida’s Chief Financial Officer claiming Jacksonville’s property tax collections increased by more than 50% since 2020.

Morgan says the increase has to do with an increase in property values.

“It’s just our economy, it’s where our economy stands and so we have to be careful in my office not to predict markets, we follow the markets. It’s whatever they present to us that’s what we have to work with. So we don’t create anything, we don’t manufacture anything,” Morgan said.

As city council continues to look at potential cuts to property taxes, Morgan said her office is not part of those discussions nor involved in setting the millage rates.

“I think we all understand the quagmire that we’re in right now. We all get it because because guess what? A lot of us are homeowners here too, so we’re feeling the exact same pinch as the people that we serve every day. So it’s nothing different for us,” Morgan said.

Morgan added people should expect to receive their TRIM notices, or their notices of proposed property taxes, in the mail on August 16, 2025. People will be able to request a formal review of their TRIM if they believe information is incorrect.