Jacksonville Finance Committee makes more cuts to city budget

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Finance Committee concluded its review of Mayor Donna Deegan’s second budget Friday, cutting millions in some areas and adding to the City Council’s priorities. 

Some of the largest changes came to Deegan’s affordable housing and homelessness initiatives. The committee eliminated a $10 million affordable housing fund during the first budget hearing and cut $9 million from a $10 million planned response to the new state law that bans public camping. 

Finance Committee Chair Ron Salem told the Times-Union he welcomed the administration to come back with the requests through legislation later in the year. 

“We can go through a six-week process and get the public involved, which is important to me, and important initiatives like that should not be in the budget unless there’s a lot of work done on the front end to educate the council, which was not done,” Salem said.

Still, other funding of Deegan’s priorities remain in limbo. Items placed “below the line” can return to the council individually later in the year for allocation, but the committee voted to completely pull $90 million toward Riverfront Parks until hearing a presentation from the Downtown Investment Authority and Public Works about how the money will be spent. 

Salem wanted that presentation to be at the Sept. 4 Finance Committee meeting in order for the funds to be returned if necessary. 

Phil Perry with the mayor’s office told the Times-Union the administration fully supported both proposals.

“The dollar amount provided by the Finance Committee allows us to get started with this effort,” Perry said of the homelessness plan. “However it does not fully complete the important work of supporting our neighbors in need and building safer neighborhoods.”

He said the administration looked forward to collaborate with the City Council to improve plans for the “transformational projects” for downtown.

Some proposed changes, such as limiting the Finance Department budget by a specific amount and reducing its position cap by one employee, failed by committee vote. The committee could not specifically cut one position, but council member Rory Diamond proposed the elimination and referenced Mike Weinstein’s position as the head city negotiator on the Jaguars stadium deal.

The administration argued that Weinstein’s institutional knowledge would be necessary in upcoming talks about a sports entertainment district and with construction. 

The committee began the process two weeks ago with an intent of decreasing the $47 million from the operating reserves that Deegan proposed for one-time purposes. On Friday, the council had cut or moved the majority of that funding and allocated less than $10 million from the reserves. 

Each council member had the opportunity to propose additions to the budget. The committee passed almost all of the recommendations. Multiple council members said they were more comfortable with the smaller amount of spending from the operating reserves because it was closer to the average amount spent in previous years.

The full council will be able to propose changes to the budget, potentially overruling the committee in some cases, in the coming weeks before the final vote at the end of September.

Here are some of the largest budget additions the Finance Committee added Friday: 

The committee fulfilled Property Appraiser Joyce Morgan’s request for $1,772,717 to retain her employees with institutional knowledge when other Florida counties offer better benefits. 

Diamond proposed the addition in order to add 14 full-time and one part-time position in the department to help with care and rescue. 

Council member Terrance Freeman proposed using the funds as a starting point for the mayor’s initiative to re-start the Jacksonville Journey — now called Jax Journey Forward. 

Council member Michael Boylan, who is not part of the committee, requested $1.5 million to continue the city’s pilot program. The committee agreed to a starting point with the potential to add more over time. 

Salem additionally proposed more for the program but gave $25,000 toward the JaxCareConnect funding.

Council members Nick Howland and Ken Amaro each proposed $50,000 toward the United Way’s 2-1-1 program. The committee approved a consolidation of that request, plus Howland’s request for an additional $50,000 to Mission United.

The symphony funding had previously been put below the line, but council members pulled it back up after testimony on its importance.

This story was first published by The Florida Times-Union.