A.G. Gancarski
A red-hot Friday session of the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee budget review included an conversation about Jacksonville Transit Authority revenue that got to the heart of the fractious relationship between City Council and Jacksonville’s independent authorities.
Councilwoman Lori Boyer held forth with an extended address about the local option gas tax as part of a larger harangue about the JTA budget.
Finance Chairman Bill Gulliford, playing peacemaker, opined that the budget should be passed, with the idea of being able to amend it if needed, then setting up a notice meeting to resolve longstanding issues with the JTA board.
Councilman Tommy Hazouri then brought up the issue of pay raises for the JTA, which Gulliford sought to bundle in to a “much bigger conversation about that topic as a whole.”
Counsel for JTA asserted that the agency has the right to sales tax money, and the “discretion” to use funding within accepted parameters.
Boyer stood her ground, saying that “final appropriation and budgeting” were the bailiwick of council.
“In our mind, the city is just a conduit for collecting” funding, continued the JTA rep. “We disagree that we have to come back and get Council approval” for the use of the money. They interpret such as having been the arrangement since 1988.
The city is “just a pass-through.”
Councilman John Crescimbeni then held forth, asking JTA if that was the case, why does JTA have to come before Council and get its budget reviewed and approved.
“This is JTA’s position. Unlike your other independent authorities, JTA is an entity of the state,” the JTA rep said.
“Our position is that JTA is an agent of the state and not a local entity … as a state agency, JTA has the right to submit a request for funding each year” and those funds are “subject to audit.”
JTA’s CEO Nat Ford tried to play peacemaker after Crescimbeni asked the lawyer whether the budget process for JTA was just a “courtesy,” citing the “symbiotic relationship” between the JEA and the COJ, striking a differentiation between the “legal world” and his position of “working for the Board and working for you … there’s just two worlds.”
“It goes without saying that we have to work together,” Ford said.
Gross sales tax proceeds are a bit over $80 million.
“What we have in front of us is a budget predicated … on sales tax dollars collected by the city and flowing into JTA,” Crescimbeni said.
“The thing that we have here is that we have to be careful that the actual intent of our statute is not pierced,” Ford replied.
“We look at our selves as partners with the city,” said Ford, saying that any extra money is swept into capital needs.
A sticking point: JTA can’t anticipate all needs in a time frame that jibes with the COJ budget process.
Crescimbeni proposed an amendment to the budget that anything above the $80 million would occasion a dialogue. Ford cautioned that “the amendment would not be binding in any way.”
“What JTA is amenable to,” said the legal counsel, is agreeing to a future discussion.
Then Councilman Matt Schellenberg observed that “we were moving along until the lawyers got involved” and that JTA needs to agree to the “friendly amendment” and move on.
Boyer then mentioned that her interpretation of relevant statute predicated revenue appropriation to be “whatever the county commission deems appropriate.”
As sidebar conversations proceeded throughout the room (Sam Mousa and Mike Weinstein; Schellenberg and people in the audience), Anna Brosche observed that the debate is about “regular communication about what is happening” and wondered “why we have to approve [spending] after the fact.”
The root of the problem, as is so often the case: the city charter.
“We’re not going to solve this today,” Crescimbeni quipped. “We’d miss all the football games.”
The amendment carried.
• In other JTA news, the budget was tweaked to accord with the terms of the proposed March 31 Mayport Ferry takeover.
What would have seemed to be a simple matter was again complicated by the siloed communication between the JTA Board and the City Council.
• The Skyway also came up; specifically, the prospects of “decommissioning” the albatross.
Such an action would take three to five years, given that there are other projects that take precedence.
“The Skyway does not stand by itself,” said Ford, referring to it as part of a “network of transportation in Downtown Jacksonville.”
About $4 million will be spent on Skyway repairs.
“That’s a lot of money to be putting into a system that may be closing down,” Boyer said.
“It’s very difficult to repair the people mover as it is … to replace the cars that don’t exist. There’s going to be $5 million spent every year … on the operation of the Skyway,” Hazouri said.
Aaron Bowman wanted to know at what point fares might be charged to ride the Skyway, given that it apparently has a dedicated following.
“There will be a year long study of fares at the JTA,” said Ford, who makes $300,000 a year before performance bonuses kick in. After that study, a proposal to charge to ride may be introduced.
• From there, an extended discussion of contingency funds mirrored earlier discussions. Council members pressed for oversight, while CEO Ford wants more flexibility to use money as needed.
“Within each division, they already have flexibility,” said Boyer, to “move around items” within the larger budget.
At issue: a “larger unallocated amount” that council lacks oversight over.
• Fear not, the budget was approved.
