A.G. Gancarski
Thursday morning’s Jacksonville Finance Committee budget hearing is set to include a potpourri of departments.
The first big talker was the budget for the Talent Management program, related to a tuition reimbursement program of $125,000 for Jacksonville Fire and Rescue promotional requirements. That led Councilman John Crescimbeni to ask whether it was part of collective bargaining for JFRD. It is not.
“A Memorandum of Agreement in 2007 is going to [affect] something in 2016?”
“I thought our tuition reimbursement programs have come to an end,” except for collective bargaining agreements, Crescimbeni said.
“I thought this body signed off on collective bargaining agreements,” the councilman continued. “Maybe it was different in 2007; I wasn’t here.”
A representative of the Fire and Rescue Department came up to explain the training requirements for open captain positions, which include being a paramedic and having a college degree. Crescimbeni was not finished.
“How does that make me responsible for paying for their college degree?”
Crescimbeni continued: “Once again, we have this inequity in city government.”
Sam Mousa offered to provide that information, guessing that these were “policies that were administration driven to improve the caliber of captain rank positions.”
Bill Gulliford questioned the connection between a college degree and the ability to do that job. Mousa then repeated his contention that he would “chase down” the information, to which Gulliford mentioned that a technical certification might be a better qualification than an “English degree.”
Matt Schellenberg and Lori Boyer chimed in with similar concerns about tuition reimbursement, and it became clear that the Finance Committee smelled, if not blood, a source of red ink.
Gulliford likewise had qualms about employees not staying after they derived the educational benefit.
