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:
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: TheCat on October 17, 2013, 09:58:49 AM
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.
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 10:14:21 AM
Quote from: carpnter on October 17, 2013, 10:11:11 AM
Quote from: TheCat on October 17, 2013, 09:58:49 AM
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.
Quote from: TheCat on October 17, 2013, 09:58:49 AM
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.
Barbara:
"Thoughtful, long-term planning does not function in the system we have today."
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.
-
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.
-
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. **
** 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".
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 12:17:43 PM
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?
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.
Quotehow 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 :)
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 09:41:10 AM
Also he is related to the young blonde Dan Davis, who just stepped into the role of the Chamber after serving in the Legislature.
correction...Mr. Davis is still in the Legislature...he seems to think he can do both jobs at the same time
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 11:30:21 AM
Both of them are claiming that incentives are not the biggest reason someone relocates, but instead trained work forces.
So many implications here - like moving costs to relocate or attract employees from higher cost areas where skilled labor tends to congregate. You can't easily "downgrade" someone's pay in the name of COL (so many people realize their net worth from a move from high cost city to low cost city by retaining a higher percentage of their salary than necessary with the lower COL as companies find it difficult to pay employees making $150K in one location a "meager" $85K in another: probably induces even more sticker shock than someone making $45K in Jax and paying $900 for rent moving to NYC and all of a sudden making $95K and paying $2500 in rent).
All of this of course would be solved if Jax could homegrow the same skilled labor force that companies need, which is where highly educated university-helmed cities such as Atlanta, Nashville, NC cities, New Orleans, and others have a leg up on Jax since they can attract talent before said talent needs to be paid, and then retain this talent, thereby attracting companies who hire these homegrown graduates and paying "market" for the area rather than having to pay "above market" because the company has to import all of its employees.
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 11:49:12 AM
Kay Ehas
Could you list the top five things in order of priority that companies are looking for?
John Haley answers. from some list he was given this morning.
1. Labor Cost
2. Highway Accessibility
3. Availability of Skilled Labor
4. Availability of IT Services
5. Occupancy/construction costs
I think #1 = relative to the level of skill you're going to receive. Sure your local labor force could be cheap, but that doesn't mean that COL is comparatively cheap (creating an imbalance and hindering demand for attracting the right labor force), nor does it mean that your local labor force is appropriately educated/skilled to your needs, despite the fact they may be cheap.
Going back to my comment above, "market pay" occurs when you can attract and retain the appropriately skilled talent for your needs locally. If you're relocating a sophisticated division requiring a much higher degree of knowledge and skill and so you must shop other cities that are likely more expensive (often considerably), then you're going to have to pay "above market", thus actually increasing your labor costs.
So I don't see why #3 isn't shifted up to #1 since it is the precedent to the #1 in the above list.
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 11:35:03 AM
the other incentive is the QTI Program:
Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund Program (QTI) – Designed to encourage the creation of high-skill jobs and encourage the growth of corporate headquarters and other targeted industries. QTI provides a tax refund of $3,000 per new job created in Florida through the expansion of existing Florida businesses or the location of new ones. (This increases to $6,000 per job within an Enterprise Zone or Rural County). A business is eligible for a $1,000 per job bonus if it pays over 150% average wage in the area, and a $2,000 per job bonus if over 200%. Projects must be supported by their community to the amount of 20% of the incentive.
I can't possibly imagine that being effective at all. It's not really an incentive to hire a higher-waged skilled-labor workforce.
Quote from: stephendare on October 17, 2013, 08:20:46 PM
Quote from: fieldafm on October 17, 2013, 07:38:08 PM
Quotehow does Jacksonville stack up; and is our local government aware of what it takes and are they doing anything about it.
Maybe nNo answer was given because the answer is pant pulling down embarrassing :)
Yeah, I don't think we have a clue, which is kind of disconcerting since the data is out there. As for SJTC, most cities have multiple lifestyle centers like that in their suburban areas. I really don't understand why we continue to attempt to compare a shopping center with the urban core. They are two different animals altogether. The quicker we accept that, the better off economically we'll be.
Good information. Thanks for the updates.
Quote from: stephendare on October 18, 2013, 12:27:02 AM
To be honest, simms, the comments from the economic development portion of todays meeting were just jaw dropping.
Could you elaborate more? Jaw dropping in what way?