JTA interim chief says ‘buck stopped with CEO’ in agency’s financial crisis

Jacksonville Transportation Authority Interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson III made it clear Wednesday whom he holds responsible for the decisions that led to JTA’s $39 million budget shortfall. “Chapter 349 of the Florida statute has one employee in the statute the executive director. And everyone else works for the executive director. And the only employee of the board is the executive director, Ferguson said during the JTA board meeting. So God bless me. I’m accountable for everything that has happened on my watch from Aug. 27, 2026. But God bless us all, from December of 2012, the buck stopped with the CEO of this agency. All the way through to Aug. 27, 2026.” During a 23-minute oration Ferguson called “off script,” he didn t name his former JTA CEO, Nat Ford. But Ferguson tried to answer some questions about how the decisions made over the last two to three years led to the agency’s financial decline. Ferguson painted a picture of a rush to put JTA’s autonomous vehicle pr