A.G. Gancarski
The frolic and frivolity of the Jacksonville Mayor’s Budget Review committee continued Wednesday afternoon with a romp through the Public Works budget.
Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa and CFO Mike Weinstein, as ever, presided.
Below, just a few of the highlights:
- JEA LED streetlight conversions got kind words from Mousa, who liked them in high-crime areas. They will be phased in over a five-year program. “It’s a bit capital-investment heavy,” said Mousa, at $11 million over five years, but savings on power and public safety were met favorably by Mousa and the committee more generally.
- Mousa had spoken favorably of LED streetlight conversion previously also, during the JEA Agreement talks.
- Concerns about fluctuations in building allocations weighed heavily on Mousa, who said last year he’d been assured that costs would level out, but haven’t.
- As with other city departments, there seems to be a trend toward defined contribution pension plans, which is easing the burden on pension costs.
- Despite there being more employees in stormwater than other sectors in this division, there is a smaller workers comp allocation proportionally to stormwater. Part of the explanation is that employees switch in and out of stormwater, so unless 100 percent of the employee’s time is stormwater, he is housed in general fund.
- “A person could get hurt whose position is in general fund,” and “even if he’s doing stormwater work, the general fund gets hit. That’s not a good situation,” said Mousa.
- No radio refresh next year for this group, apparently.
- Mousa bemoans “damaged fencing” and “front-end alignments” for vehicles. There is a belief some claims imposed on this department are not the responsibility of the department.
- “Issues related to contract mowers tearing up mailboxes” concern Mousa, and the claims resulting from them. Some are, apparently, false claims.
- Grass being too high is also a concern on FDOT medians. Neither FDOT or the city is particularly interested in handling the lawn mowing.
- Issues with Comcast and road closures related to Project Rex are mentioned. In a closed right of way, said Mousa, there “sure as hell was a buried Comcast fiber-optic line,” which created an impact.
- Beach erosion replenishment costs for the county are about $3.8 million over five years. The fund has largely been depleted. Like the sands themselves, it will have to be replenished. Federal and state funding also applies.
- On to Solid Waste Disposal. “This is where the fun starts,” says Mousa.
- Timber product revenue, derived from landfill expansion, is out of the budget. $655,000 total.
- The sub-fund is down $4.8 million as a whole for solid waste disposal revenues.
- Overtime is a pressure for solid waste hauling also. Higher than ever before.
- A lot of vehicle replacement needs: 2016, 2017 lists. Big ticket items.
- A rate review is pending for hauler costs. Will be flat year over year this budget.
- Talk about not exempting nonprofits from the stormwater fee was brought up again. Right now, that exemption is a $1.5 million hit on the general fund. Council may move on this. “They discharge just as much pollutants from their facility as a Wal-Mart does,” Mousa said, adding that “most other communities with a stormwater enterprise fund do not waive nonprofits, because they discharge stormwater like everyone else.”
- Discussion of First Baptist Church enterprises related to stormwater exemption means that this is really a serious budget issue.
- A discussion of capital projects. Mousa wants to put as much money as possible toward projects. Lower Eastside is high on the priority list, but with “contamination issues, they tend to go on forever … we need to put our money to work,” said Mousa.
- “We want to focus in the core,” Mousa said, but it’s hard given the issues that obstruct progress.
- “Our signal review crews are stretched,” said Mousa. “They’ve got to get some help in traffic engineering. To that end, Mousa wants to put a quarter-million dollars on the “short list,” to be allocated as needed. As well, the advice is to “scrape up some cash” for one-time casts like monitor testers and other issues needed from elsewhere in public works.
