LIve Blog: Consolidation Task Force Committee 10/17/2013

[TheCat]

Lori, just finished going over the minutes. Everything sounded right on except their assessment of the beaches leadership. The beaches are happy about consolidation they are disgruntled about communication with Jacksonville (specifically with Alvin Brown) but it seems they were feeling as though they were paying way more in services than they were receiving and that they even had to fight for services from the city. That statement seems to have been repeated multiple times.

Hon Ronnie Fussell, is here to discuss Duval County Clerk of Courts:

[TheCat]

Hon Ronnie Fussell, is here to discuss Duval County Clerk of Courts:

*Fussell starts his presentation with a lot of "thank yous" now he's getting into his career path (construction). Fussell used to be on the council and served six years. We're really getting into southern story telling. Ronnie, for whatever reason, is telling the committee little facts about each of his family members. His son just changed his degree to political science. He learned the hard way to never to leave his mother in law out of anything.

Now, we are getting into the functions and purposes of the Clerk of Courts.

- We are kind of like a profit center.
- Most of the questions from the committee are "n/a" to the Clerks office. 80% of their budget comes from the state and 20% comes from the city.
- about 350 employees.

[TheCat]

Boyer and Fussell are discussing employee payment for retention and hiring. He's lost people because he can pay 55k but they are leaving for jobs that pay 80k; specifically, for IT type jobs.

Most of the Jax's IT charges to the Clerk of Courts (CC) is for phone services.

[TheCat]

Fussell had a large copy job quoted by central services.  The city quoted them 50% more than a firm in California. The Clerk of Courts is not required to go through central services whereas city departments are so they went with California.

[carpnter]

Fussell had a large copy job quoted by central services.  The city quoted them 50% more than a firm in California. The Clerk of Courts is not required to go through central services whereas city departments are so they went with California.

That is crazy that the city costs 50% more than a firm in California.  Sounds like a good argument to competitively bid those services instead of using the city's department.

[carpnter]

Fussell had a large copy job quoted by central services.  The city quoted them 50% more than a firm in California. The Clerk of Courts is not required to go through central services whereas city departments are so they went with California.

That is crazy that the city costs 50% more than a firm in California.  Sounds like a good argument to competitively bid those services instead of using the city's department.

Another alternative is to update the systems so that Central Services are competitive.

If they can get their pricing to within 5% of a competitive bid, I'd be all for it, but I am pessimistic that they could make that happen.

EDIT:  I don't know if you caught it yet Stephen but your last post for this thread was on the Rick Scott thread. 

[ChriswUfGator]

Fussell had a large copy job quoted by central services.  The city quoted them 50% more than a firm in California. The Clerk of Courts is not required to go through central services whereas city departments are so they went with California.

You run into this all the time with COJ's copy department, they're massively higher than anyone else in town, and OGC requires you to use them in discovery. I've gotten around it twice, once brought my own copy machine, the other time there were these huge blueprints that had to be reproduced on a plotter machine that they didn't have, so I was allowed to have a private company do the job. At least it's nice to know they don't just rip off opposing counsel in discovery, they overcharge their own departments the same way. Honestly I don't know what their deal is, it just doesn't cost that much to make a copy, if they overcharged less they'd actually make more money, because people wouldn't go to whatever extreme is necessary to avoid using them.

[TheCat]

Barbara:

"Thoughtful, long-term planning does not function in the system we have today."

[TheCat]

Gubbin:

- We have been in the black (in relationship to certain initiatives) and are able to show that we can be self-sufficient but we don't retain our revenues. If you want your departments to be more entrepreneurial they should be able to keep more revenues to reach their goals.

- Because of Centralized services we didn't receive any benefits from IT developing our services. That's what libraries are about these days.

- Department heads should get together more frequently. It's hard for us to plan with the Parks department when we don't meet on a regular basis.

- Centralized services does not work all that well.

- Advocates an "independent taxing district"

- Bounding the library to central services and budgeting has handicapped our initiatives.

- 

[TheCat]

Gubbin:

- we only manage 1/3 of our budget.

- other city departments manage the rests.

- we are obligated to use those services.

- IT is one of our primary needs. And, we are not allowed to hire IT specifically for library needs.

(IT is consistently mentioned as A PROBLEM). 

- In 2005 the library controlled 83% of their budget and now it a little over 50%. A shriking part of their budget is managed by the library.

- Centralized Services payments have literally doubled. We have to ask our selves what we are actually paying for.

- There are specialized needs that we have and the services we get do not meet our priorities and needs.

- We have no role in the planning, services provided, planning for the future...

- We have needed an easy way for fines to pay for fines and fees. IT has never been able to do that for us. We have tried since at least in 2005. We took the little money we manage and bought a product off of the shelf because IT is not doing their job.

- We have two libraries that do not have fiber connections to the internet. The cost to fix this is around 8k and IT has said that they cannot do it. It shouldn't take so long to make these things work.

- Facility maintenance is another issue. We manage 21 facilities. We don't think their is a maintenance plan and we are left in the dark about maintenance. This does not allow us to respond to customer complaints.

-

[TheCat]

Gubbin:

- We do a lot of planning but it makes it very difficult for us to execute our plans when we are not included in the plans of centralized services.

**Anyone watching Gubbin's presentation should be a little drop-jawed about our process. She has articulated not only the issues her department faces but all of our departments face but because she is the library she seems to get the worst treatment/neglect. **

[TheCat]

** this is in the insane.

Gubin:

- if we were to receive a 11.4 million dollar check from Jacksonville we would be able to manage our funds much better.

This is the irony:

The library's budget is wasted and costs are inflated by Centralized Services and IT. Essentially, COJ rips off the library then says that they (the city) do not have the budget to support, maintain and expand the library because costs are too high.

I believe the term is "kafkaesque".

[thelakelander]

Kay Ehas asked them about retaining young professionals, who want to live in vibrant urban environments, that dont require them to have cars.

Crawford tells the committee that he has a 21 year old child and that JTB is growing because of the Town Center Mall.  And we need to work on our downtown.

Was Kay's question ever answered?

[Kay]

No, not really.  He said young people were moving to the Town Center and OED is working on downtown.  The purpose for my question was to find out--what qualities/criteria are young college graduates looking for when choosing where to live based on data, surveys, etc., not anecdotal; how does Jacksonville stack up; and is our local government aware of what it takes and are they doing anything about it.

By the way, there is a task force meeting next week on Oct. 24.

[fieldafm]

how does Jacksonville stack up; and is our local government aware of what it takes and are they doing anything about it.

Maybe no answer was given because the answer is pant pulling down embarrassing