A.G. Gancarski
On Ash Wednesday, the Florida House moved one step closer to allowing Jacksonville to pay its public pension penance, via the State Affairs Committee reporting favorably on a bill to allow a referendum authorizing an extension of the current half-cent sales tax used for Better Jacksonville Plan projects.
This was the second and final House committee to be cleared; the “discretionary sales surtax” bill has already cleared two of three Senate committees.
The bill passed committee after an hour of spirited debate, which included bill sponsor Travis Cummings making repeated references to how “embarrassing” it was that Jacksonville was in this position because of the “awful decisions of the past” regarding its “tremendous pension liability.” And which included Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, in selling a bill that he described as “the best in a series of bad options,” talking about the “dire” situation in Jacksonville, related to “bad decisions…” made “way before my time.”
Curry reprised his commitment to being “willing to spend all [his] political capital” on this issue, saying (again) that “the other avenue is to travel down the road Detroit went down.”
Curry estimated Jacksonville’s annual burden as “almost $300 million in unfunded liability.”
“I didn’t create this problem,” Curry said, “but I own this problem.”
Curry, acknowledging the June pension deal and giving Bill Gulliford (and not Alvin Brown) credit for it, said that issues remain nonetheless despite “concessions” having been made. A “series of years without raises,” Curry said, had created a “morale problem” among public safety workers.
As well, Curry noted that the “really bad Plan B is not pretty,” should the referendum not clear, and “no one in the state of Florida will want to see the road we’d have to travel.”
While the bill cleared committee, there was pushback.
Irv Slosberg, a Delray Beach Democrat who voted for the bill in the end, kept hammering away at the contention that the bill was in fact a “local option.”
Republican Michael Bileca, meanwhile, said that “this is the window to look at benefit levels” and the obligation “shouldn’t only be on the back of the taxpayer.”
His contention, and he wasn’t alone, was that the estimated $60 million in annual tax proceeds wouldn’t make a big enough dent in the $300 million burden.
Dwayne Taylor, ranking committee Democrat, cited “major, major, major concerns” with closing the defined benefit plan, which he described as “turning off the water faucet.”
Taylor likened this bill to the “shell game they played with the Florida Lottery,” regarding claims that proceeds would go to education funding.
For Curry, a win is a win. The unions and the business community back his play. However, expect the State Affairs Committee arguments against the bill to resurface.
