JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – You may be feeling the effects of the huge gas price increase but it is also having an impact on something you may not have considered -- the money it takes to keep city cars and trucks operating.
Jacksonville’s motor pool is responsible for thousands of cars, trucks and heavy equipment, such as bulldozers. This budget year the city has set aside $13.1 million to keep them fueled with gas. That’s over $2 million from the previous year and that has nothing to do with the current fuel crisis.
The city buys its fuel in advance. There are contracts in place, so right now there is no immediate impact on tax dollars, but it’s expected down the line. We might have to shell out more once those contracts expire
News4JAX reached out to the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. It actually supplies most of the diesel fuel to the entire city fleet. A spokesman says the current surge in price does not impact them at this point because JTA also has contracts in place to protect them from skyrocketing cost.
JTA’s fuel budget is $4.6 million. Despite higher prices, a JTA spokesman says they are $600,000 under budget for fuel.
JTA approved that contract in 2018 and it’s in place for the next two years.
We also asked Clay County about high gas prices. They sent us this statement:
As of the end of the second quarter, Clay County is on budget for fuel expenses and monitoring the increases in fuel prices. When we set the budget last year, we anticipated fuel prices would rise, so we did allocate extra funds at that time. We are looking at fuel saving methods and will monitor budget needs for the remainder of the fiscal year.
We are waiting to hear back from St. Johns County and Nassau County about how gas prices are affecting those counties.