Let’s Get Back to the Basics at JTA

[Ken_FSU]

One question I'm beginning to have: has Ford already left JTA as of now? He's not officially due to start at DART for another month but given how JTA's press release discusses the cuts, it would appear that Ferguson is already serving as interim CEO. What is Ford doing between now and the end of the month? Have there been any questions for him by city or other officials about how his leadership put everyone in this position?

Even if you're willing to give Nat Ford a pass for taking a bold swing and missing (in spectacular, predictable fashion, burning through nearly $100 million in taxpayer dollars), he's behaved like a total scumbag on the way out. To answer your question, he's still on the public payroll in Jacksonville through October.

Yet, he's disappeared from public site since 1) framing his departure in late July as a major success for the city, surely knowing that his $2 million deficit would soon be revealed to be $40 million, 2) taking zero accountability and hanging the CFO out to dry by not appearing before the City Council in August (Rory Diamond was the only City Council member willing to bash Ford for not being there in person), 3) refusing comment in Dallas on all the bad financial reporting coming out of Jacksonville.

To not be public enemy number one in the city right now, the guy must either be very charming at Epping Forest or have Epstein-levels of dirt on every council member.

[thelakelander]

https://www.keranews.org/transportation/2026-09-22/dart-ceo-leaves-prior-transportation-agency-with-32-million-budget-deficit

Reading this article, if you still hire and defend someone after learning about the excessive spending and waste of tax money at their previous place of employment, you deserve everything you'll get. Prayers up for Dallas area transit users.

[jaxlongtimer]

Anytime I see an executive leaving a bigger job for a smaller one, I wonder why.

Walking away from being the CEO of San Francisco and Atlanta, top 2 of 10 transit authorities, to come to Jacksonville should have created some pause.  Why take a "demotion" to a smaller market unless you are headed to retirement and are just interested in working at a slower pace?  I would think looking for an "up and coming" candidate would be of more interest than a "down and leaving" one.

....Ford began his stellar career at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York, where he learned every facet of the industry before he went on to become CEO of two of the 10 largest transportation authorities in the US - the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) in California, and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) in Georgia....

https://www.jtafla.com/about-us/leadership/chief-executive-officer/

[jaxlongtimer]

What's up with Ford?  Here you go... still milking the cow that he has infected with a financial disease leaving others less fortunate to suffer.  His insurance is paid for until October while those he employed and are terminated get only a few more days.  Employees in Dallas should take note.

Nat Ford will get another month of CEO-level pay amid JTA crisis

Outgoing Jacksonville Transportation Authority CEO Nat Ford will keep drawing his CEO-level paychecks for another month even as JTA deals with a financial crisis that will force up to 194 layoffs and cuts in transit services....

...Ford's pay at JTA is based on an annual $475,904 salary which translates to almost $40,000 per month. He also gets paid $1,000 per month to cover fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance and other costs for use of a personal vehicle, according to his employment agreement.

City Council member Rory Diamond, who is the council liaison to JTA, said Ford should resign from JTA sooner rather than later.

"I think it's time," Diamond said. "I think Nat should head on to Dallas and we can clean up this mess. We have to live up to whatever our contractual obligations are, but other that that, to me it's ridiculous."...

....Ford's employment agreement with JTA says that in addition to his salary and private vehicle expenses, JTA will fully pay the premiums for his insurance coverage...

...The agreement says that once Ford resigns from JTA, he will not receive any further compensation or benefits other than those required by law, such as COBRA health insurance coverage, and he "may receive accrued vacation."...

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2026/09/22/outgoing-jta-ceo-nat-ford-will-get-ceo-level-pay-another-month/91881536007/

[CityLife]

The fact that Ford didn't attend the City Council budget meeting makes it seem like he's checked out.

It's also possible that he's burning up some of his unused sick time before leaving. It's common to pay out unused vacation time when an employee leaves, but sick leave is different. Some employers don't pay it out at all, while others pay a percentage or the full balance. From what I can find, neither JTA's policies nor Ford's contract appear to provide for a payout of unused sick leave. His contract does specifically address the potential payout of accrued vacation time.

So if he has a substantial sick-leave balance that disappears when he leaves, there would obviously be an incentive to use some of it before October 21.

The fact that he's starting at DART just five days after leaving JTA also suggests he isn't planning on needing much downtime between the two jobs. That's a quick turnaround after nearly 14 years running JTA, especially given everything going on there right now. Most people I know who switch between stressful jobs try to give themselves at least a couple of weeks off in between, if not longer. And at his income level, it's hard to imagine that taking a few unpaid weeks between jobs would be a financial issue. That tells me he is expecting to be well rested when he starts at DART.

Would anyone expect it any other way?

[Ken_FSU]

The fact that Ford didn't attend the City Council budget meeting makes it seem like he's checked out. It's also possible that he's burning up some of his unused sick time before leaving.

In all fairness to Nat Ford's 10 week disappearance, maybe he just decided to take the NAVI to Dallas?

[tufsu1]

Also btw... Curry inherited Ford too... and who blew up the Emerald Trail & under which admin?

What do you mean? Are you talking about the federal grant?

If so, that was successfully applied for and awarded in part because of Mayor Deegan's team - and the grant was rescinded by the Trump administration, which has significant ties to former Mayor Curry's team 

[Ken_FSU]

Also btw... Curry inherited Ford too... and who blew up the Emerald Trail & under which admin?

What do you mean? Are you talking about the federal grant?

If so, that was successfully applied for and awarded in part because of Mayor Deegan's team - and the grant was rescinded by the Trump administration, which has significant ties to former Mayor Curry's team 

I put 100% of the blame for Jacksonville losing the largest grant in city history - a transformational ~$150 million toward the Emerald Trail - on Nat Ford. We sat on the grant agreement for sixteen months without executing it. And to me, that comes down to priorities. Ford was preoccupied with Navi, endless domestic and international travel, and his own job search (not well known, but he was angling for a job with the UAE long before Dallas), when we should have been prioritizing locking in the Emerald Trail grant, knowing that a new administration might shut down the program. It was not the city's responsibility to execute this grant agreement.

[CityLife]

^ To that point, JTA should have been working overtime to finalize the agreement the second that Trump won the election.

The $147 million award was announced in March 2024. Trump won on November 5, 2024. The funding wasn't rescinded until July 2025. So not only did they not execute the grant agreement in 16 months, about 8 months of that was after Trump won the election. It wasn't like the Trump administration came in and immediately pulled the rug out from under Jacksonville.

Had the grant been fully executed and the funds obligated before the July 2025 rescission, those funds would not have been part of the unobligated funding that Congress rescinded.

The big unanswered question is why a $147 million grant, the largest one-time federal grant award in Jacksonville's history, remained unexecuted for 16 months. I don't think JTA has ever explained what happened. Now that Ford is leaving, maybe we will finally find out.

[Jax_Developer]

Also btw... Curry inherited Ford too... and who blew up the Emerald Trail & under which admin?

What do you mean? Are you talking about the federal grant?

If so, that was successfully applied for and awarded in part because of Mayor Deegan's team - and the grant was rescinded by the Trump administration, which has significant ties to former Mayor Curry's team 

Yeah as Ken & CityLife said... there's a lot to this story that even people who have been paying attention aren't able to see. Hard to look the other direction with all the pieces in play.

[Ken_FSU]

I don't think JTA has ever explained what happened.

Action News Jax reached out to ask this very question.

To the surprise of no one, they declined comment.

[thelakelander]

^ To that point, JTA should have been working overtime to finalize the agreement the second that Trump won the election.

The $147 million award was announced in March 2024. Trump won on November 5, 2024. The funding wasn't rescinded until July 2025. So not only did they not execute the grant agreement in 16 months, about 8 months of that was after Trump won the election. It wasn't like the Trump administration came in and immediately pulled the rug out from under Jacksonville.

Had the grant been fully executed and the funds obligated before the July 2025 rescission, those funds would not have been part of the unobligated funding that Congress rescinded.

The big unanswered question is why a $147 million grant, the largest one-time federal grant award in Jacksonville's history, remained unexecuted for 16 months. I don't think JTA has ever explained what happened. Now that Ford is leaving, maybe we will finally find out.

The answer is simple and can be summed up in one word.....incompetence!

[Ken_FSU]

There it is.

JTA asking to divert $30 million from the Local Option Gas Tax to pay for their $25 million emergency line of credit and severance packages for their staff.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2026/09/23/jta-board-approves-30-million-gas-tax-agreement-amid-39-million-budget-shortfall/

Rory Diamond is now on the record as wanting to kill the Emerald Trail.

""We've got to stop the NAVI. We've gotta end the Emerald Trail. We've got to save JTA," said Diamond.

Not a dime should be taken from the Emerald Trail's bucket, especially not when all that money was allocated for NAVI.

Dallas, if they are smart, will rescind their offer.

[marcuscnelson]

The big unanswered question is why a $147 million grant, the largest one-time federal grant award in Jacksonville's history, remained unexecuted for 16 months. I don't think JTA has ever explained what happened. Now that Ford is leaving, maybe we will finally find out.

The answer is simple and can be summed up in one word.....incompetence!

JTA seems to be historically poor at handling discretionary grants. Look at how they handled expanding the Skyway in the 90s, or how long the First Coast Flyer took to build out, or its implementation (basically none of the features you get even without crazy elevated busways on other BRT systems), or the way the BUILD grant (allegedly) tied their hands with getting the Ford vans instead of the shuttles they really wanted. And of course the Emerald Trail.

Ford talked a big game about having won federal grants, but historically I'm not sure there's too much to say about how he's actually handled delivering on them. MARTA didn't expand at all when he was there, Muni didn't start building their most recent expansion project until he'd already left. Technically he's expanded JTA but in practice will probably end his tenure running less service for fewer people than when he took over. The problem might be larger than him, but he was given a lot of credibility by a lot of people for... what, exactly?

[marcuscnelson]

There it is.

JTA asking to divert $30 million from the Local Option Gas Tax to pay for their $25 million emergency line of credit and severance packages for their staff.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2026/09/23/jta-board-approves-30-million-gas-tax-agreement-amid-39-million-budget-shortfall/

Rory Diamond is now on the record as wanting to kill the Emerald Trail.

""We've got to stop the NAVI. We've gotta end the Emerald Trail. We've got to save JTA," said Diamond.

Not a dime should be taken from the Emerald Trail's bucket, especially not when all that money was allocated for NAVI.

Dallas, if they are smart, will rescind their offer.

For starters, I think it's important for everyone serious to keep in mind that Rory Diamond is not serious about "saving JTA." Let's make sure to have some long-term memory about how he feels about mass transit.

That in mind, it seems fairly clear to everyone who didn't tie themselves to this for no reason that NAVI and U2C was a misstep on the part of a generation of Jacksonville's officials, and it's time to move on and clean house to that end. Including, eventually, Ferguson & all the Ford-era JTA executive team.

The Emerald Trail, on the other hand, would be suicide to throw away. There's simply no such thing as a great American city built on the premise that everyone will simply drive everywhere for every trip, and that includes the idea that people will use Uber or Waymo and the like for every trip. We need to be able to move people, especially across a city the size of Jacksonville, at scale. Trail systems are not the only way to do that, but can be especially helpful for making mass transit work. Cuts to funding it ought to be a nonstarter, even if how we build it might need to adjust in the meantime.

I don't think this use of the LOGT is a terrible idea but it does mean more liabilities on JTA's books, and of course it means that we're spending money that was supposed to be for infrastructure to pay for the crap choices JTA made. Now what really worries me is this, from that article:

The Clay County Board of County Commissioners also voted Wednesday to terminate a funding agreement with JTA. The decision could affect Clay County's community transportation program, a public shuttle bus service.

If Nat Ford's leadership has been so poor, despite such praise by officials here, that it shatters the prospect of regional mass transit, after the state went and gave all the suburban counties seats on the board, then many more heads need to roll.