Auditors: city budgets grew faster than standard inflation; public safety and several transfers are main drivers

Auditors presented a department-level budget comparison to the Duval DOGE Council Subcommittee showing that city budgets from fiscal 2017-18 to 2024-25 have grown beyond an auditor-constructed combined benchmark of 5.4 percent in a number of departments and citywide accounts. The auditors identified public safety, health and indigent-care funding, IT enterprise costs, insurance and self-insurance claims, and transfers out for specific programs as the primary drivers.

"What we looked at is using a CPI growth rate of 3.59% and a population combined annual growth rate of 1.75% ... that combines to 5.4 as what your combined growth each year, that would be a normal expected inflationary type of increase," Counsel Auditor Kim Taylor told the committee. The auditors then highlighted department-level amounts that exceed that combined expected growth.

Auditors reported that total departmental growth over the period was about $528 million; they said roughly $446 million of that increase was attributable to public safety…