A.G. Gancarski
Parking downtown may get more expensive for Jacksonville’s city employees in the upcoming fiscal year, if a 2014 ordinance is allowed to sunset.
In an email to CAO Sam Mousa, OED head Kirk Wendland notes that “Ordinance 2014-438-E gave all City employees who are monthly parkers at municipal owned parking garages operated by Public Parking a 50% discount. The rate only lasts for 2 years (expires 10/1/16). As budget preparation nears, Public Parking will need some guidance on what rate to factor in when estimating revenues. The estimate provided by Public Parking is a $275,000 annual impact, that is obviously not included in the FY 15/16 budget.”
The two options: “a request for an extension of the discount or if it will sunset when putting together the FY ’17 budget.”
The city could use the money, as it relates to parking.
“The on-street parking subfund is projected to incur an unfavorable budget variance of ($126,504) due to projected revenue shortfalls. Daily parking fees and parking fines are both projected to underperform budget. The balance sheet for Subfund 411 shows a negative cash balance of ($312,393) and current liabilities of $105,886,” says the Council Auditor’s quarterly report. “Additionally, if revenues and expenditures for the remainder of the fiscal year materialize as projected in the Finance Director’s report, this subfund will still be in a negative cash position at fiscal year-end.”
The on-street parking enterprise fund’s $312,393 negative cash balance is offset, somewhat, by off-street parking “revenues … projected to outperform budget by $114,730, primarily due to favorable variances in monthly parking fees ($78,000) and daily parking fees ($19,438).”
Still, when one looks at parking as a whole, Jacksonville is in the red. That wasn’t helped recently by reports of broken parking meters, nor was it helped by an apparent practice of service vehicles hogging paid parking spaces.
Perhaps the solution is to give every city employee a JEA truck to drive to work.
