Jacksonville City Council Standing Committees

Most of the real work on a Jacksonville bill happens in committee, not on the second and fourth Tuesday nights when the full council votes. According to the City of Jacksonville, every bill is assigned to one or more of five standing committees, which make recommendations to the full council, and the Council President assigns members after taking office each July 1. The five are Finance; Land Use and Zoning, known around City Hall as LUZ; Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety, shortened to NCSPHS; Rules; and Transportation, Energy and Utilities, or TEU.

The standing committees page says the committees meet in the first and third weeks of each month in the Council Chamber on the 1st floor of City Hall at St. James, 117 West Duval Street. The 2026 to 2027 schedule puts Rules on Monday mornings at 9 a.m., NCSPHS on Monday afternoons at 1 p.m., TEU on Tuesday mornings at 9 a.m., Finance on Tuesday afternoons at 1 p.m. and LUZ on Tuesday evenings at 5 p.m., after a 4:30 p.m. agenda meeting. Each committee's turf is written into Council Rule 2.102, which the city quotes on each committee's page.

Money. Under Council Rule 2.102(2), the Finance Committee takes appropriations, budgets, transfers, taxes, fees, bonds, economic development incentives, pensions, JEA financial issues, audits of the city and its independent agencies, and the conveyance of city property. As of October 2026 it is chaired by Will Lahnen of District 3, with At-Large Group 5 member Chris Miller as vice chair and Rory Diamond, Michael Boylan, Mike Gay, Rahman Johnson and Randy White as members.

Its recent record shows the range. On October 6, 2026 the committee voted 6 to 1, with Diamond opposed, to recommend a 10-year, 75 percent Recapture Enhanced Value grant worth up to $475,000 for a battery technology company code-named Project Apollo, which would move its headquarters to an economically distressed area of Northwest Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported. A few weeks earlier the full council kept the property tax rate at 11.1919 mills and adopted a budget of nearly $2.03 billion for fiscal 2027, the first under a state law requiring a two-thirds vote for that rate. Lahnen told the Daily Record that the law could make modest rate cuts harder, noting that a one-eighth mill reduction had passed 10 to 9 in 2025.

LUZ is where Jacksonville's growth fights land. Council Rule 2.102(1), quoted on the LUZ page, gives it zoning, historic preservation, conservation, building codes, comprehensive planning, growth management, school concurrency, the Planning and Development Department and appeals from Planning Commission decisions. It also reviews every text amendment and Future Land Use Map amendment to Jacksonville's Comprehensive Plan. Joe Carlucci of District 5, the council vice president, chairs it, with Rory Diamond as vice chair and Raul Arias, Kevin Carrico, Reggie Gaffney Jr., Rahman Johnson and Randy White as members. Carrico chaired LUZ from 2022 to 2025, according to his city biography.

A typical case: on October 6, 2026 the committee voted 7 to 0 to recommend Ordinance 2026-0557, which would rezone three buildings in the Liberty Business Park on AC Skinner Parkway from Industrial Business Park to a Planned Unit Development for a billiards hall, restaurants and retail, the Daily Record reported. A Planned Unit Development allows uses, regulations and standards tailored to one property, so the LUZ vote is effectively a vote on that specific site plan for the Liberty Business Park.

The Rules Committee handles the machinery of government: confirmation of nominations by the council, the mayor and the sheriff, council rules, charter revision, governmental reorganization, City Council and School Board redistricting, elections, and J-Bills and other legislation before the Florida Legislature, plus all unclassified subjects. Mike Gay of District 2 chairs it and Ken Amaro of District 1 is vice chair. In January 2025, under then chair Nick Howland, Rules took up and deferred Ordinance 2024-0871, a bill to tighten decorum rules for public commenters at City Hall, Jacksonville Today reported.

The Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee covers the city's physical systems: roads and streets, mobility fees, transit, railroads, JEA's water, sewer and power operations, the Public Works Department, refuse collection, stormwater and drainage, septic tank phase-outs, the Environmental Protection Board, and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, Jacksonville Aviation Authority and Jacksonville Port Authority. Ken Amaro chairs TEU, with Ju'Coby Pittman as vice chair and Raul Arias, Matt Carlucci, Moné Holder, Reggie Gaffney Jr. and Jimmy Peluso as members.

NCSPHS has the longest list. Council Rule 2.102(4), as posted on the committee page, gives it parks and recreation, the Jacksonville Public Library, the zoo, public and affordable housing, historic property tax exemptions, the Waterways Commission, schools and the Duval County School Board, the Kids Hope Alliance, homelessness, public service grants, the Sheriff's Office, the Fire and Rescue Department, emergency preparedness and the military bases, from NAS Jacksonville to Mayport. Chris Miller of At-Large Group 5 chairs it, with Tyrona Clark-Murray of District 9 as vice chair and Moné Holder, Matt Carlucci, Kevin Carrico, Jimmy Peluso and Ron Salem as members.

Beyond the five, the council keeps special committees that come and go. The city lists a Personnel Committee, convened by the Council President under Section 11.122 of the Ordinance Code for council staff matters and chaired by President Nick Howland, along with special committees on the Future of Downtown, Duval DOGE and Youth Empowerment, and one reviewing the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's primary facilities.

A bill that touches several subjects goes through several committees. Ordinance 2026-0480, which lets the Jacksonville Transportation Authority borrow $30 million from its own six-cent local option gas tax funds to pay off $25 million in debt, passed the Rules, NCSPHS, TEU and Finance committees with unanimous votes on October 5 and 6, 2026, according to the Daily Record. Lahnen called it a Band-Aid measure, and Diamond, the council's JTA liaison, argued it was the only path that avoided deeper cuts to bus service. Committee votes are recommendations; the bill then returns to the full council.

The JTA case shows why four committees were involved. The gas tax money comes from a 2021 agreement under which the authority takes $494.84 million in gas tax revenue for 17 projects in its Mobility Works 2.0 program, among them the Emerald Trail, the Ultimate Urban Circulator, the Downtown Skyway and a new St. Johns River ferry, the Daily Record reported. Transit and the Skyway sit with TEU, borrowing and debt with Finance, community services with NCSPHS, and Rules, which takes unclassified subjects, voted on it too, so the same ordinance collected four separate committee votes in two days before reaching the full council in the Council Chamber.

The rules on who sits where have been tuned over time. At an October 15, 2018 Rules Subcommittee meeting, members noted the rules allowed standing committees of 5 to 9 members and agreed to recommend that every council member serve on at least one standing committee and that committees have at least 7 members. Each of the five standing committees has 7 members as posted in October 2026. Staff support comes from the Legislative Services Division in Suite 430 of City Hall, (904) 255-5122. Last verified: October 9, 2026, on the City of Jacksonville website.