Rory Diamond ready to axe DEI from Jacksonville budget

Jacksonville City Hall.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a verboten concept for Republicans leading the state. And if a City Councilman has his way, the same will be true in Jacksonville.

Motivated by concerns about spending operational reserve money in the proposed budget from Democratic Mayor Donna Deegan, Republican Rory Diamond is ready to dump DEI from that $1.9 billion-plus spending plan, in an effort to battle what he calls “wild, liberal spending.”

Diamond “plans to introduce an amendment to this year’s budget prohibiting the use of city funding for DEI.”

“The amendment will define DEI as the following: ‘Diversity, Equity and or Inclusion’ or ‘DEI’ is any program or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification,” reads a release from his office.

The city does have a Diversity and Inclusion Director, Parvez Ahmed, whom the Council balked at paying last year. Publicly owned utility JEA has had one since 2022.

Diamond has also introduced separate legislation to reduce the Mayor’s transfer power from $500,000 to $100,000, and “balanced budget” legislation “that will not allow future budgets to spend more than 1% more of City revenue than is projected.”

“The Mayor’s budget is almost $47,000,000 over-budget and does not present the conservative values of the people of Jacksonville. These new laws will ensure a balanced budget and tight fiscal control over our City’s finances. This is the only way to protect our tax payers from this wild, liberal spending,” Diamond said.

That $47 million number represents the administration’s proposal to spend operational reserves on one-time expenses.

“Jacksonville’s general reserves are like our family savings account — there for tough budgets and unexpected circumstances. The annual budget has both used and replaced reserves 9 of the last 10 years. It’s a common practice. Even with a handful of one-time expenses covered by reserves, we still have double the amount we targeted,” Deegan contended.