A.G. Gancarski
The Jacksonville City Council’s Finance Committee began its eighth and theoretically final day of budget review on Wednesday morning.
To that end, Finance Committee Chair Bill Gulliford cautioned against “pontification,” threatening to “invoke Council rules” to rein discursiveness in.
Here are the morning highlights:
— A discussion of three wellness and safety positions being removed from the Fire Department revolved around Workers Comp issues.
Sam Mousa of the Mayor’s Office spoke up. “Our involvement is zilch in this matter,” yet he recalled a meeting with Council members where the question of firefighter promotions came up.
“Our budget contained funding for the structure,” including “all the district chiefs.”
“We did not know that these promotions were done in Feburary, and were done for ‘other reasons,” Mousa said, not specifying what those reasons were.
They reverted nine chiefs to captains, and kept three district chiefs in a rescue unit.
“Our position today is it’s in the committee’s bosom… we felt we owed the committee a resolution.”
Gulliford dropped the hammer, saying he was going to move this to the end of the agenda.
“I don’t want to extend this out, because we have a lot to do.”
— A discussion of the Development Services Fee from the Building Inspection department, which would make the department self-funded and also lead to General Fund contributions, occurred.
The proposal is to collect a fee for reviewing building permits, sign permits, et al, which takes considerable time and $1.4 million dollars per annum.
Building permit fees would be reduced by roughly 25% as part of the proposal.
This was described as a win/win/win, in terms of better service and a $1.14 million improvement to the General Fund.
Five more full time employees will be added to improve services as part of this change of the fee mixture.
This met with Finance approval.
— Community Redevelopment Areas were also a talker, specifically cash-carryover, which Councilwoman Lori Boyer contended couldn’t happen with funds left over year to year in past years.
“I don’t want us to get in the practice of having to spend the CRA every year… on frivolous projects,” said Councilman Reggie Brown.
District 7 Councilman Reggie Gaffney was surprised money from previous years was still in these budgets.
“In District 7,” Gaffney said, “there are lots of needs” and he has a “bucket list” of “needs to tackle” in his district.
The debt service, said Boyer, dates back as far as 2008. And her position is that nothing would be taken away from whatever’s funded by her proposal.
— Stormwater fees were also a talker.
“My biggest concern is that we have imposed this fee on the residents of Jacksonville, and we’re not keeping up with the needs,” said Councilman Brown, who urged that money be spent on neglected projects.
Gulliford pointed out that’s what Lori Boyer’s Capital Improvement Projects committee has been working on.
“Everybody’s on board with that, sir.”
— Pottsburg Creek dredging project issues, a topic the other day, recurred.
Councilman John Crescimbeni observed that the ordinance code clearly stated that Council be consulted prior to the submission of the application for Florida Inland Navigation District grant money.
“We’re now at the point where we’re going to move forward with the project,” Crescimbeni said, asking if there were required materials from the engineering firm.
FIND expects a 20 year guarantee for the dredging.
Crescimbeni pressed, for some minutes, Chief of Waterfront Management Programming Tera Meeks, for details.
The dredge would remove enough material to deepen the channel to 6.5 feet on average.
“We’re in a quandary because we’ve already invested money in a design,” yet Crescimbeni’s qualms with this project, for a variety of reasons, including a lack of guarantee of meaningful life expectancy of the project, stood.
He repeated his concerns with the application being sent to FIND outside of Council’s purview also.
“I think the language [in the resolution] is pretty clear,” Crescimbeni said, describing the problem as a “personnel issue.”
If the funding is not provided this year for construction, the deal is off.
Boyer proposed that a “private contribution” match of some part of the $480,000 city match could make the deal more favorable to the city.
$122,000 has already been spent, and would have to be reimbursed if “we do nothing.”
Former FIND Commissioner and current councilman Aaron Bowman pointed out that these funds come from ad valorem taxes, and that there are consequences for scuttling the project.
Stopping the project would be a “waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Mousa, meanwhile, said that “warranty” in the ordinance was not a reasonable expectation from an engineering process.
“You’re not going to get a warranty,” the city’s Chief Administrative Officer said. You will get a reasonable opinion, he added, based in engineering best practices.
Crescimbeni then pointed out a dredging project talked about for years on the Ribault River, questioning its delay.
“We have a lot of projects that need to be dredged,” said Meeks, who added that Pottsburg Creek was a priority because it was proximate to the mouth of the St. Johns River.
Crescimbeni, who was by now just a touch irked, then objected to the process being subverted by the Parks Department just doing what it wants to do.
Crescimbeni’s motion was withdrawn.
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