A.G. Gancarski
It appears that the Florida Department of Transportation and the city of Jacksonville are in a disagreement regarding a lapsed Joint Participation Agreement and encumbrance concerning the Mayport/St Johns River Ferry Operations project and Federal Land Access Program money is at stake.
An email from Paige Johnston of the General Counsel office to Councilman John Crescimbeni lays the dispute bare.
“First notification of potential need for new JPA was September 28….Final confirmation that new JPA was needed was October 1 (see email attached); FDOT stated that the prior JPA had been closed; this is first we were advised also that JPA was “closed”; to my knowledge, we were not advised prior that a second JPA would be needed when the first JPA was executed,” Johnston wrote.
“FDOT advised on October 7 that no spending toward grant can be reimbursed until the new JPA is executed.”
Meanwhile, the “last invoice for reimbursement was submitted for period ending June 30 so that means that July, August, September and October (or later up until the new JPA would be executed) is not reimbursable if new JPA is required. This takes one quarter of the year’s reimbursement out of contention and significantly burdens the City’s ability to seek complete reimbursement of the total $450,000.”
Johnston then wrote Ali Korman Shelton of the mayor’s office.
“The FDOT is administering the funding for the feds. First, they required a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) which set forth the operative provisions for what operational expenses were reimbursable- we agreed to salaries, fuel costs and insurance premiums because we felt like these expenses could be tracked and verified most easily for reimbursement. The MOU covers both years of the subsidy (FY 14/15 & FY 15/16),” Johnston wrote.
“After we entered into the MOU,” Johnson continued “FDOT also said that we need a Joint Participation Agreement (JPA). We executed this as well. The term of the JPA states that it runs through 9/30/16 and can be amended, supplemented, etc. The key fact of the JPA however is that from a monetary standpoint, it just addressed the first $450,000 of the appropriation.”
“The City and FDOT have been handling the reimbursement of the subsidy through Tom Goldsbury and Thee Perry (FDOT). Tom submits the invoices and Thee processes or requests additional information or documentation if necessary.”
“Everything was moving along fine until recently Thee ask Tom to submit additional financial documentation for this upcoming year. In the process Tom was asking questions about the request and Thee suggested that we may need a new JPA. This was on September 28th. He said he would verify and then he confirmed on October 1. Tom deals with administrative issues and I deal with the legal issues so Tom had advised me around this time that a new JPA was necessary. Initially, we thought it would be no big deal but would need to go through the legislative process,” Johnson continued, before getting to the heart of the matter: FDOT shorting Jacksonville on its cash.
“However, once I started asking Thee questions on timing, he indicated that FDOT didn’t care when the JPA was executed BUT that City could not be reimbursed for any expenses prior to an executed JPA. The last invoices submitted under the old JPA was for the quarter ending 6/30/15, so this would mean that expenses incurred in July, August, September and October (and beyond until the JPA was approved by Council and then executed by the parties) would not be reimbursed,” Johnston wrote.
“At this point, we sought alternatives and spoke with JTA regarding the issue. Ken Holton of JTA suggested that we should be able to amend the old JPA and include the second year payment. However, when Ken and we raised this with Thee, Thee admitted that the old JPA had been closed and so they could not ‘reopen’ it,” Johnson added.
Whoops.
“During the last several days, I have had conversations with Thee and Jim Knight of FDOT to no avail. Although it is clear that they dropped the ball in many ways- they have offered no solutions other than a new JPA and loss of reimbursement for more than a quarter of the time available under the contract,” Johnson concluded.
For those who missed the ferry funding drama, well it’s back.
Operation of the ferry is under the city of Jacksonville’s watch until March 31, when Jacksonville Transportation Authority takes it over.
