It's a circus @ the council tonight!

[uptowngirl]

400K spent on the study to move the fair from DT to the Equistrian center could of kept Brentwood library open five days a week, and restored the childrens library. Does anyone here think the moeny was better spent on this study than on supporting education for children in a depressed neighborhood? The whole second floor is blocked off and empty (this was the childrens section) and half the racks on the first floor are now empty. There are still a lot of DVDs and romance novels :-(

[Lunican]

According to the COJ budget, the millage increase represents a stable revenue from last year. So essentially the millage rate needs to go up to maintain the status quo.

Property Taxes

Property values in the city declined 7.0% from FY 09-10 to FY 10-11. The millage rate
for the FY 10-11 Proposed Budget is 10.1193 mills, an increase from the current millage
rate of 9.2727. However, the increase in the millage rate will collect, on the whole, the
same revenues from properties on the tax roll a year ago. After distributions to the tax
increment districts, property taxes are expected to produce net revenues of $489.7
million for FY 10-11, or about 49.2% of the total General Fund revenues.

[Lunican]

Expenditures

Total expenditures in the General Fund total $994.5 million for FY 10-11, an increase of
$13.0 million, or 1.3%, from the FY 09-10 Budget. There are several cost saving or
avoidance measures in the FY 10-11 Proposed Budget that total approximately $40
million, including 3% salary decreases and a 10% contribution for employee health
insurance premiums, reduced hours at five branch libraries, changes in the Fire
Department that will have a minimal impact upon service delivery, various reductions
and deferrals in the Sheriff’s Office, the elimination of positions in several civilian
departments, savings from privatization efforts and several other reductions throughout
the government.

Reductions in Positions

A total of 96 positions have been eliminated in the non-public safety departments in the
FY 10-11 Budget compared to a year ago. In addition, 20 positions in the Fire
Department will be eliminated during FY 10-11 through attrition.

[fieldafm]

If the city is so desperate why did they give 4MM back to the Jags for a Ruth Chris dinner?

B/c that money can be spent only on the stadium maintenance fund... which is mainly funded from the bed tax and actually not putting negative pressure on the overall city budget b/c revenue is actually generated from the ballpark/arena/stadium/parking lots

The people that were b!tching about Jack Del Rio and Wayne Weaver were really a little much last night.  Why don't we also blame Peter Lynch, Bill Foley, Herb Peyton, Michael Ward or Preston Haskell.  Those are also wealthy individuals that have absolutely nothing to do with the city budget... so let's blame them too!!!   Right?!?!  

400K spent on the study to move the fair from DT to the Equistrian center could of kept Brentwood library open five days a week

Don't need to worry about that, b/c they are now proposing to shut down the Equestrian Center for this upcoming fiscal year.

There were some intelligent people offering some intelligent solutions last night... and then there were people there to complain for the sake of complaining.  And some of the council members were so scared for their political careers that they were too shell shocked to make the hard, rational decisions they were elected to do.  The city council isn't a career, it's a duty.  You could clearly tell who was just scared for their hides, and who was actually thinking the process through.

[Lunican]

I liked the signs that read, "Payton [sic] we will vote you out of office!!"

Not sure how they will do that considering he's not up for re-election.

[Cliffs_Daughter]

I've got the live audio streaming, and at this moment they're discussing what sounds like a 6% payroll cut from the general fund for all departments. I think this is Joost's amendment...
Intended to cut at least 33 million from payroll and prevent layoffs, but it's asking a lot. I'm not sure if this is on top of the 2-3% already negotiated...

http://imedia.coj.net/citycouncil

[uptowngirl]

I just don't get it, look in the "real world" meaning NON govt living off of everyone elses wages, people take pay cuts, do not get raises, and are laid off. Companies cut back on travel, personal expenses, and make the cuts were they need to be made. It is not status quo as they ahve already slashed a lot of services and still keep oerspending on BS. I AM willing to pay more in property taxes as what they are asking is not going to impact my lifestyle on bit, my issue is they are not using the money I already pay responsibly so why should I pay anymore?

[fieldafm]

I liked the signs that read, "Payton [sic] we will vote you out of office!!"

Not sure how they will do that considering he's not up for re-election.

Jacksonville has spoken... Payton and Jerrard need to go!! LOL

I just don't get it, look in the "real world" meaning NON govt living off of everyone elses wages, people take pay cuts, do not get raises, and are laid off. Companies cut back on travel, personal expenses, and make the cuts were they need to be made. It is not status quo as they ahve already slashed a lot of services and still keep oerspending on BS. I AM willing to pay more in property taxes as what they are asking is not going to impact my lifestyle on bit, my issue is they are not using the money I already pay responsibly so why should I pay anymore?

I absolutely agree with your line of thought.
What do you suggest the solution is?

[CS Foltz]

I say poop on Jost's suggestion of 5%.............make it 10% for all Departments! Forget about hiking the property tax as mayor John Boy suggest......maintain the status quo! Eliminate all AMIO positions (thats $27 Million a year) shut down the Equestrian Center now! Rescind the Vescor time payment plan for the next 10 years of interest only payments due...........stop the Metropolitan Park overhaul and hold on the River Walk upgrade (both combined for a total of about $16 Million Dollars) Hold all raises and have all City employee's, middle management and above subjected to a 10% pay cut.........they can afford it, if not leave) If you crunch the numbers........totals out to $50 Million plus! What is so hard about it?

[tufsu1]

that's the saddest part...our city is barely surviving on a shoestring budget...and folks want it cut further

check this out...the City of Tampa (with less than 1/2 the pop. of Jax.) has a budget that is 80% the size of ours.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/sep/28/281817/tampa-council-approves-787-million-budget/news-breaking/

and Tallahassee's budget is also over $700 million....given that does include utilities (our JEA), but please...the City has less than 200,000 residents!

[tufsu1]

If the city is so desperate why did they give 4MM back to the Jags for a Ruth Chris dinner?

best guess without doing that, there would have been no deal...and the City wouldn't have seen $ anyway

btw...it seems like some people don't make the connection regarding government $ finding its way back into the economy....so let me make this simple....

5% pay cuts for city employees (local citizens) means they spend 5% less in the community....which in turn leads to more businesses (retail and services primarily) closing....which leads to less tax revenue generated....which leads to more cuts....

how does this accomplish anything good?

[CS Foltz]

Darn it man..........I hate to say it tufsu...........but I have to agree with you! Lordy, never thought I would say that.....but your correct as to the Jaguars situation! However, cuts need to be made, kinda obvious and there is no simple panecea! Bite the bullet now, regroup and attack from a different direction! Governement should be no different from the taxpayers...........operate within your budget and thats it! Overruns either put you in the barred motel or like we have..........gotta have a property tax increase to make ends meet! Did you forget about all of the "Fee's" we have been blessed with? Cost overruns within the City structure have taken place over many years, just not this one! Time to pay the piper, suck it up and regroup!

[fieldafm]

best guess without doing that, there would have been no deal...and the City wouldn't have seen $ anyway

Good point!

I also found it humerous while everyone else was debating how much to reduce the city's contingency fund... Mrs Lee tried repeadetly to use nearly all of the contingency fund to hire back the firefighters.
My cousin was one of the demotions so I do have a personal connection and this is no comment as to my agreement/disagreement about the firefighter situation... but I found it quite humerous while most were focused on what cuts should be made, she was repeadetly trying to spend. 

[simms3]

Cuts need to be made.  Every city and every government can trim some fat.  Our city has a lot of fat, but still looks pretty lean when compared to our federal government or many other cities.

However, I agree with Tufsu and CS, our budget is so small to begin with.  This is for two reasons: our extremely low millage rate that does not go to schools (~9) and a low fair market value given to many properties in Jacksonville.  For instance, the city thinks that the largest houses on the river in Ortega and San Marco would sell on the open market for $2-3.5 million at most.  The largest houses.  They could bump that value up easily to $5 mil + for several of the houses, even in this market, and get away with it.  It seems they have values either right or even a little high when you get below houses that would sell for $1.5 mil in the open market or less.

So essentially, since I know a lot of people would prefer to just tax the richest 1-2% (I wouldn't but...), the city could levy higher property taxes on the rich only by bumping up that value.

Also, if the city had given a damn about our downtown for longer, our vacancies downtown would probably not be as high, meaning the buildings would be worth more than they currently are, meaning the city could be collecting higher taxes on the most valuable buildings in the whole city.  So much of tax revenue comes from downtown anyway, their own foresight, care, and planning could be bringing in the higher taxes they need.  Instead we have let so many companies move to the burbs, and even those hardly worth a penny buildings relative to the 15-42 floor office towers are suffering from high vacancy and lowered values.

Heck, I am thinking about interviewing with Deutsche Bank (they are looking at 5 schools for their 2011 class and mine is one) and they are bringing the entire class to their global sales division down in Jacksonville (15 people on top of 70 already there), and their "big" relocation to jax last year was straight to gate Parkway, but they could be in offices downtown like they would be in almost any other city.

Eventually our city will get smart and impose total impact fees on developers trying to build PUD's in the suburbs by making developers cover complete costs of all infrastructure, schools, libraries, fire and police, etc instead of levying localized impact fees and even incentives.  All the money that we were spending in the burbs will be focused on core inner areas.  Eventually our core inner areas will be so desirable and so expensive that they will easily collect their current tax revenue just from the inner neighborhoods.  People might be priced out, but hey, we'll be getting what we want here on MetroJax...vibrant, extremely nice, walkable urban neighbrohoods, and a freaking awesome downtown.

Jax politicians are probably worried that if they make it hard for companies and developers to come into our suburbs, we won't experience the growth we have been in the past.  Well, that's probably true because people only move here by default because we are in Florida.  If we created something different, like reinvesting all the tax money in our urban neighborhoods and downtown, then yea the suburbs will suffer and growth might slow, but after 5 years or so we will have created something different from other Florida cities and young educated professionals and companies may decide to start moving to Jax again to be in the urban core.  Companies only move here because our suburbs are cheaper than Orlando's suburbs and Tampa's suburbs and certainly Miami's suburbs and we have a large port and good weather.  The port and weather staying the same, we have nothing on the other cities because everyone has good suburbs.  We differentiate by focusing more on the core, eventually the core will be self financed through higher values and higher taxes, and we will have something on the other cities and an environment that young educated upwardly mobile professionals actually like.

OK extremely long rant over...

[CS Foltz]

simms3..........think its hard now.........what do you think will happen if Amendment 4 is passed?