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 layoffsand cuts in transit services.
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit board voted July 21to hire Ford as its CEO with a starting date at DART on Oct. 26. Ford meanwhile is slated to continue working for JTA through Oct. 21 in an as-needed advisory role to interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson.
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 his mess. We have to live up to whatever our contractual obligations are, but other that that, to me it's ridiculous."
![Chief Executive Officer Nat Ford, with Jacksonville Transportation Authority, spoke at the JTA ceremony marking the completion of its Autonomous Innovation Center Thursday April 17, 2025 in Jacksonville, Fla . [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2025/04/17/NFTU/83143088007-041725-jki-jta-autonomous-innovation-center-17.JPG)
The JTA board promoted Ferguson on Aug. 27 to be interim CEO and directed Ferguson to work with new Chief Financial Officer Randall Barnes on a plan the agency can execute to stabilize the agency's finances.
Ferguson announced Sept. 17 that in addition to layoffs, JTA will be reducing weekday service levels on many bus routes and indefinitely pausing the Skyway and NAVI services in downtown during the course of the 2026-27 fiscal year.
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."
JTA has been making a series of cuts to bring spending in line with a sharp drop in sales tax revenue that is the main funding source for its operating expenses.
The agency's sales tax revenue went from from $60 million in 2020 to a peak of about $111 million in 2023 before sliding back down to a projected $80 million for the upcoming fiscal year, according to figures presented at an April board workshop.
The JTA board in February cut salaries by 15% for top-ranking administrators including Ford.
JTA recently took out a line of credit to take care of millions of dollars in unpaid bills. JTA will ask City Council for emergency approval to use gas tax revenue already collected by JTA to pay down loans from the line of credit and cover severance payments JTA must pay in connection with layoffs.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Nat Ford will get another month of CEO-level pay amid JEA crisis
