A.G. Gancarski
“The people made it clear what they wanted,” a re-elected politician said. “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and I intend to spend it.”
That politician: George W. Bush, in 2004.
Bush 43 learned about the finite power of political capital the hard way: seeing his father go from 91 percent approval ratings to out of the Oval Office in two years.
Bush, however, didn’t get to use much of that political capital in his second term. Hurricane Katrina and the stormclouds of the Great Recession bookended his term.
A lesson that future office holders, such as Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, could take from that: strike while the iron is hot.
Curry has done that.
If one analogizes that his first mayoral term is like a football game, he is at the midpoint of the first quarter. And already he’s thrown deep down the field, twice.
The EverBank Field upgrades, in which the administration convinced the entire Council that $45 million of new capital debt was a smart move, right at the time the Feds were ready to let interest rates rise again.
And now, a more audacious play.
The Monday Finance Committee meeting: highlighted by Curry’s “proposed solution for funding unfunded pension liabilities,” one he said does not involve a new tax, but an extension of the Better Jacksonville Plan half-cent sales tax until 2060 or whenever the pension unfunded liability is paid off.
Curry noted that the “investment” in public safety seen in his first budget had to continue, and to do this, the unfunded liability has to be resolved. To that end, Curry asked the Council to support an extension of the half-cent sales tax until 2060, or whenever the unfunded liability is paid off.
This would also involve new hires moving to a “defined contribution” plan.
Curry vowed to leverage relationships in Tallahassee to get this done.
“This is something we can solve if we have the political courage to do it,” Curry added.
Tommy Hazouri noted that the Better Jacksonville Plan legislation, the origination of the sales tax years ago that was passed by referendum, only extended to capital projects.
Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa noted that BJP legislation allows a change of the plan with the supermajority Curry seeks.
In the two days since, in committees, Chief Financial Officer Mike Weinstein has, quietly, dampened any irrational exuberance, framing this as an effort to “extend the half-penny sales tax beyond 2030” to tackle “the unfunded liability that has accrued over the years.” Once the pension programs are “fully funded, the half penny will go away.”
This is, Weinstein reiterated, an “extension, but not about raising taxes, since [sales tax] will stay at 7 percent.”
The plan is a complicated plan. It has many steps,” Weinstein said, discussing the Tallahassee component of the plan, and the City Council part.
Weinstein noted that the Defined Contribution plan would apply to all new employees, even as there apparently is a divergence between the Tallahassee bills regarding Defined Contribution or Defined Benefit.
He added that the challenge is to find a way to make the “defined contribution plan so attractive” that it appeals to all six Unions, including Police and Fire.
Councilman Hazouri had myriad questions for Weinstein, related to bonding additional dollars for pension obligations, the effects of the potential defined contribution piece on recruitment, and whether “positive return on investment” from the pension funds would be part of “the reduction of the unfunded liability.”
Hazouri would be the first to tell you that when he was mayor, pension was fully funded. He also would tell you that, back then, the city contribution was around 20 percent, rather than the 8 percent it is today, and that benefits were reined in.
In an October conversation with former Mayor John Delaney, who took a lot of heat around the time of the “forensic audit” of the Police and Fire Pension Fund, he was adamant that the PFPF deal he signed off on was solid.
“There wasn’t a damned thing wrong with the deal,” Delaney said. “It was right for the times” and “fully funded when I left office.”
It was in “fine shape in 2003” when Delaney left office, until City Council, just before the Great Recession, added more benefits, ignoring the threat of a veto from then-Mayor John Peyton.
“He couldn’t get seven votes to sustain a veto,” Delaney said, which points to the unique political power of the public sector unions.
For those who need an illustration of the power of the public sector unions, consider that it took a Council committee, on Tuesday, a very long time to decide to defer a piece of Cure Legislation that would clarify Council intent on $330,799 in Safety Officer salaries for Jacksonville Fire and Rescue.
What sealed it? Them being told that the Cure Legislation was not required by the settlement of the lawsuit filed by the Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County in the wake of Council members texting with the head of the fire union on Budget Night in September.
All of this is to say something very simple.
Lenny Curry invested political capital in proposing extension of the half-cent BJP sales tax. To pull this off, the Unions, Council, and Tallahassee will have to fall in line.
How lucky does the Jacksonville mayor feel?
In football terms, does he expect his receivers to take hits going across the middle? Does he expect his linemen to throw key blocks?
As his friend Blake Bortles, a gunslinger himself, would tell him: it doesn’t always work out that way.
John Peyton might tell him something similar.
