Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's office issued a subpoena Sept. 28 to the Jacksonville Transportation Authority seeking records in a probe lead by his Office of Statewide Prosecution.
JTA says it will fulfill the subpoena's request.
"The Jacksonville Transportation Authority has received a subpoena from the State Attorney General’s Office and is prepared to fully cooperate," JTA said in a Sept. 29 statement. "The JTA remains committed to transparency and accountability and will provide information as requested throughout this process."
The subpoena comes as JTA is in the midst of a financial crisis that is causing deep layoffs and cuts in transit services.
JTA interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson sent a memo Sept. 28 to the JTA board about the subpoena.
Ferguson told the JTA board the Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution issued the subpoena that requests documents "primarily from the period of Oct. 1, 2023 through Oct. 21, 2025."
Ferguson wrote in his memo the subpoena "also requests the authority's tuition reimbursement policy, certain contracts, through 2026, with one of our organizational development firms; and specified communications involving the former CEO, his spouse, and the owner of that firm, as well as communications between me and my executive assistant relating to scholarships and tuition."
City Council member Rory Diamond, who obtained a copy of Ferguson's memo after hearing about the subpoena, said an investigation by the attorney general would be one way to get some explanations about what caused the financial upheaval at JTA.
"I think our taxpayers and all of the JTA employees who were fired last week deserve answers," Diamond said. "Whether it comes from the state attorney general or the (JTA) board leading an investigation or City Council, we need to get to the bottom of what happened, and ultimately, it goes to accountability."
Diamond, who is City Council's liaison to JTA, said he believes the JTA board "has an appetite" to drill down on what went wrong.
Diamond said rather than "drive the bus themselves" with a staff-lead investigation, he recommends the board bring in an outside firm for an independent investigation that can "get to the bottom of this so it doesn't happen again and hold those accountable" who were at fault.
Ferguson wrote in the memo he referred the subpoena to the authority's general counsel for handling compliance with it.
"Because the request included my own communications, I have asked the Internal Auditor to direct the collection and production of records," Ferguson wrote. "We are preserving all potentially responsive records."
"I will keep the board informed of any material developments," Ferguson wrote.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida attorney general launches probe of JTA amid financial crisis
