Jacksonville Consolidation of 1968: How the City and Duval County Became One Government

Jacksonville and Duval County became one government on October 1, 1968, under a charter the Florida Legislature approved in 1967 (Florida House analysis, 2026).

The legal door was old. The Florida Constitution of 1885 authorized consolidation in several counties, Duval among them, and its Duval provision let the Legislature merge the county and any cities in it at any time (Florida House analysis). The 1967 charter, enacted as chapter 67-1320, Laws of Florida, used that power; the charter was readopted in 1992 as chapter 92-341 and remains in force.

The University of North Florida library holds the printed Charter of the Consolidated Government of the City of Jacksonville, dated October 1967, which describes itself as a community's struggle for self-improvement through better government (UNF Digital Commons). Historian James B. Crooks calls the October 1, 1968 merger a major turning point for this northeast Florida city (Florida Historical Quarterly, 2001).

Consolidation followed years of trouble: despite rapid growth in the metro area, the city lost population, endured racial conflict and suffered substantial environmental pollution, according to historian James Crooks (Florida Historical Quarterly, 2001).

Crooks writes that other Florida cities, Miami, Tampa and St. Petersburg, and Orlando, had begun to achieve regional, if not national, prominence with more rapid population growth, greater economic development, effective leadership and better public relations, while the glamour of the Sunbelt seemed to elude the city on the St. Johns River (Crooks, 2001).

Local Government Study Commission Chairman James Jacqueline Daniel wrote at the new government's inauguration in October 1968 that Jacksonville had experienced a political renaissance (Florida Historical Quarterly, 1998). Ten years later Mayor Hans Tanzler called consolidated government the salvation of the city, and at the 25th anniversary in 1993 Mayor Ed Austin urged Jacksonville to rekindle the spirit of the consolidation effort.

Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and the Town of Baldwin kept their own governments after 1968, even though they sit inside Duval County (City of Jacksonville Beach).

The route there was unusual. The Legislature passed a series of acts in its 1967 session that first consolidated Duval County, the City of Jacksonville, the three beach cities, the Town of Baldwin, the Duval Air Improvement Authority and two mosquito control districts into one government; later in that same session, Chapter 67-1535 restored the independent powers of the Beaches and Baldwin (Florida Attorney General).

The Florida Supreme Court sorted out the result. In Jackson v. Consolidated Government of City of Jacksonville (1969) it recognized that the former municipalities had become urban services districts, and in Albury v. City of Jacksonville Beach (1974) it held that the Beaches and Baldwin continue as quasi-municipal corporations with their pre-consolidation powers (Florida Attorney General). The Legislature then enacted Chapter 78-536 in 1978 to bring the Jacksonville charter in line with those rulings.

The charter text, as reproduced in a 2011 local bill, says the territories of the three beach cities and Baldwin were and are also consolidated into the territory of the consolidated government, while each keeps its own structure; they are Urban Services Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 (HB 1011 bill text, 2011). Jacksonville Beach residents therefore vote for the mayor of Jacksonville, the Jacksonville City Council and the Duval County School Board as well as their own mayor and council (City of Jacksonville Beach).

Consolidated Jacksonville is run by an elected mayor and a 19-member City Council that serves as the legislative body for the whole consolidated government (City of Jacksonville).

Council members serve four-year terms as part-time legislators. Jacksonville is divided into 14 districts of nearly equal population that each elect one member, and the other five members are elected at large (City Council). Each May the council elects a president and vice president for one-year terms that begin July 1. Regular council meetings fall on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, starting at 5 p.m., in the Council Chamber at City Hall, and agendas are available the Friday before from the Legislative Services Division in City Hall, Suite 430.

Nick Howland, At-Large Group 3, is council president (City Council), and Donna Deegan is mayor (City of Jacksonville). The charter also names independent agencies, among them the Duval County School Board, the Jacksonville Port Authority, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and the Jacksonville Electric Authority, and its Office of General Counsel is the chief legal officer for the consolidated government and those agencies (Florida House analysis).

Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the City of Jacksonville website.

In 2026 the Legislature changed the Jacksonville charter so the Duval County School Board may hire its own general counsel, independent of the city's Office of General Counsel (Florida House analysis).

HB 4049 passed the Florida House 108 to 5 and was approved by the Governor on June 8, 2026, as chapter 2026-206, Laws of Florida, taking effect that day (Florida House analysis). The change is narrow: the school board's own counsel remains subject to the opinions of the city's general counsel, and litigation and contract work for Duval County Public Schools still runs through the Office of General Counsel.

The Jacksonville charter generally lets the consolidated government amend the charter by ordinance without a referendum, but matters touching the Office of General Counsel must be approved by voters like a charter amendment, according to the House staff analysis (Florida House analysis), which also cites the City of Jacksonville's 2014 Blueprint for Improvement II task force report on consolidated government.

On October 1, 1968, Mayor Hans Tanzler climbed a ladder to put up a new city limit sign at consolidated Jacksonville's new border at Florida 13 and Julington Creek (Jacksonville Historical Society).

The stunt was meant to draw the press. In an article published by the Jacksonville Historical Society, Tanzler recalled that his staff brainstormed ways to capitalize on Jacksonville's new status as the largest city in land mass in the contiguous United States, and that the sign idea came from his public relations aide, Jack Newsome (Jacksonville Historical Society). The photograph from that day, which also shows actress Lee Meredith, then performing at the Alhambra Dinner Theatre, was part of the 2005 exhibit Picturing Jacksonville: 150 Years of Photography at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens.

For anyone researching the merger, the 1967 charter is online through the University of North Florida's Thomas G. Carpenter Library Special Collections (UNF Digital Commons), and the Attorney General's 1999 letter to the Census Bureau summarizes why Baldwin and the Beaches remained separate (Florida Attorney General).