Council Holds Tax Line - Sort of. Here's what Happened

[stjr]

Why I didnt realize this was a show. Maybe we can have popcorn and hot dogs also. stjr and tufsu1 are the biggest Peyton supporters on here. Oh its never his fault. Thank God this is his last term and it wasnt soon enough. Peyton has been nothing but a disaster for the COJ.

Keith, I am not a "Peyton Supporter".  I am a supporter of Jacksonville.  No one bashed Peyton more than I did over the courthouse.  Go see the MJ threads.  On this issue, I recognize the City isn't perfect - it never will be and neither will you and I - but, big picture, it's underfunded.  We have some of the lowest taxes in the U.S. for a major city and our citizens continue to want first class services and a first class city for that price.  Mostly, you get what you pay for.

The City Council knows the problems and those on the Council against the Mayor are pandering for your votes with promises they know they can't keep.  You can keep believing in fairy tales but it won't make them become reality.  Name calling and cheap shots just show you are following your emotions, not your head.  That won't fix anything.

[Clem1029]

Not saying that I approve or anything, but wow, this was a smooth political play, wasn't it? Peyton just pulled a classic "if you're at A and want to get to B, ask for C" move with the public. He gets a month of people screaming about a tax increase, puts the Council on the record for opposing the increase...and then gets 75% of what he wanted anyway, and Council can't do anything about it - or maybe won't do anything about it since they don't have the votes to override it.

So the $50 million in cuts becomes $12 million just to keep the budget where it's at today - which isn't necessarily a bad thing either because this will be what "no budget increases" actually looks like.

The question is if the mayor's office is really that smart to be able to pull off this play, if they just ineptly stumbled into it...or if it was a setup with Council all along (Mayor gets what he wants with taxes going up, services aren't as drastically cut as has been hyped, all the while the council gets to say "hey, we didn't vote to raise your taxes" - if it was a setup, it was a pretty elegant one).

[jaxnative]

It's interesting to watch the reactions of people when  they can see how they will be DIRECTLY affected by tax increases.  I guess it's easier to take when the clowns controlling the reins of federal government spending, who on a relative scale make our local spending look like pennies, promise that someone else will pay for it.  Maybe Peyton and the council members should just increase the millage rate on "the rich".  Of course, it will be interesting to see how low the designation number will be.

If the City had NOT cut taxes in prior years and instead SAVED the lost differences,

Even with the lower tax rates the city was still bringing in higher tax receipts.  There are very few exceptions in this country at any level of government where a "surplus" will not be spent as soon as it is available.  Too many votes to buy and too many demands for "free" services.

[cline]

Why I didnt realize this was a show. Maybe we can have popcorn and hot dogs also. stjr and tufsu1 are the biggest Peyton supporters on here. Oh its never his fault. Thank God this is his last term and it wasnt soon enough. Peyton has been nothing but a disaster for the COJ.

Yes, this is partially Peyton's fault but not entirely.  Blame should be placed on the previous administrations starting with Godbold then Hazouri then Austin then Delaney and now Peyton.  Each of the administrations did things to create debt for the City which helped create the cluster that we now have. 

[Steve]

Here is my issue - whenever you take over a job for someone (business or government), there are loose ends that they didn't finish up.  Delaney had loose ends that Austin didn't finish, and so on.  We should not be dealing with "loose ends" 6 years in.

[tufsu1]

It's interesting to watch the reactions of people when  they can see how they will be DIRECTLY affected by tax increases.  I guess it's easier to take when the clowns controlling the reins of federal government spending, who on a relative scale make our local spending look like pennies, promise that someone else will pay for it.  

big difference....unlike the Feds, state and local governments can't have deficits....and likewise, they can't have surpluses either.

[mtraininjax]

they can't have surpluses either

Not entirely true, Peyton did look to build a "rainy day fund" but lost a lot of it to Wall Street with some help from former JEA manager Walt Bussells. I know Peyton campaigned on a rainy day fund. Why it has not been mentioned, is beyond me, but I know the City had funds at one point during his term. I'll dig further and see if I can find them.

Wiles says Mayor John Peyton and his predecessor, John Delaney, spent several years building up an emergency "rainy day" fund. The money is sitting there, with no clear concept of how it can be spent.

It seems to us that the devastating storms last year constituted a "rainy day," both literally and figuratively. If there are similar problems this year, it would be better to tap into that fund than to borrow from other departments.

This was taken from a 2005 article about the Mayor and the storm damages from the hurricanes.