Historic Preservation, Library Board, Etc. to be Eliminated?

[stjr]

The little historic preservation we have may be about to take another hit with possible elimination of the Historic Preservation Commission.  Looks like President Clark is slashing and dicing everywhere, even the city budget cutters who might actually help to balance the budget.  Quality of life activities don't seem to figure much into his thinking.

Will the city be reduced to nothing more than cops, firefighters, and road repair? Is that all we are?  All this over less than $100 a year average per homeowner?  Where was all that big time fat in the budget the Council said the mayor overlooked?

Note that the City Council still hasn't reduced its salaries or its aides.  And, the Council can always find money for office renovations and moves, trips, food, plaques honoring its members, pet projects, etc.  How about eliminating the cost of all those photos of the council members in their offices?  Just paste a digital on the web and be done with it. 

Any more news on the City's pensions?

....Committee members agreed with Clark that too many of the inspector general’s duties are duplicated by the Council Auditor’s Office and Ethics Commission. Clark said the Inspector General’s Office swelled from a single employee to a full department.

“It’s a perfect example of how quickly government can grow if you plant a seed,” he said.
The mayor disagreed.

Peyton said the volume of work produced by the Inspector General’s Office could not be done by the Council Auditor’s Office alone. And he said he didn’t understand the committee’s vote to eliminate a department whose mission is to reduce fraud and waste.

Inspector General Pam Markham said she and her staff of eight have saved the city about $2 million by identifying new ways of doing business more efficiently.

“This is the one function of government that has been established to save taxpayers dollars and to create more accountability and greater transparency,” Peyton said. “It is counter-intuitive that you would eliminate this function to save money.”

The mayor is hoping the full council may vote to restore the money when it approves a final budget in late September. A balanced budget must be in place by the start of the fiscal year Oct. 1.

Clark has also asked the Finance Committee to scrutinize of the long list of advisory boards and councils that exists in the city government. Of the roughly 90 that exist today, he pinpointed several that he believes could possibly be phased out.

On the target list: the Environmental Advisory Board, Historic Preservation Commission, Human Rights Commission, Art in Public Places Committee, Library Board of Trustees, Election Advisory Panel, Sports and Entertainment Board, Fire Museum Board, Council on Elder Affairs, Jacksonville Small and Emerging Business Monitoring Committee, and the Taxation, Revenue and Utilization of Expenditures Commission.

Clark also wants to explore merging the two Better Jacksonville Plan boards and whether the Cultural Council can absorb the duties of the Cultural Service Grant Committee....

Whole article at:  http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-08-20/story/jacksonville_city_council_committee_votes_to_stop_paying_for_jaguars_tic

[Charles Hunter]

The Taxation, Revenue, and Utilization of Expenditures Commission (TRUE Commission) is another group that looks at expenditures (see, its right there in the name?) and at ways to reduce them.  Makes just tons of sense to axe them. 

Well, actually it does, from the Council perspective - get rid of the watchdog agencies and departments, and the Council is free to do whatever it wants - erect statues to itself, buy emergency batting cages, whatever - with no official oversight.  Just "crackpot bloggers" (a sentiment I have heard expressed).

C'mon, Finance Committee, where's all those millions of dollars of fat in the budget?  Do these boards even cost the city any money?

[thelakelander]

There was a story in the Jax Biz Journal that said they want to eliminate the JEDC as well.

[NotNow]

"The money is all in the police pensions." - StephenDare!


Care to explan?

[NotNow]

The bulk of the budget?  Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?

[Clem1029]

Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?

I'll take "Rhetorical Questions" for $1000 Alex... ;-)

[NotNow]

No, this is where I point out that you are wrong in your statement that "the bulk of the budget goes to police pensions."  For the past few years, police & fire pension contribution by the city has been about $8M dollars.  This year, due to the combination of past years of skipping payments and the flagging stock market, the contribution was ESTIMATED to be about $30M dollars.  That will be much lower now due to the recent market recovery.  This is out of a $1B dollar budget.  

Care to restate your thoughts?

[NotNow]

Sheez, kind of grouchy tonight?  I am simply pointing out that your statement is wrong.  The recent budgets and proposed budget can be found here:

http://www.coj.net/Departments/Finance/Budget/Adopted+Annual+Budgets.htm

Leaving all of the personal attacks aside, the Jacksonville Police & Fire Pension fund is just one of the city pension commitments.  As I have pointed out before, Police & Fire pension benefits in Jax are lower than other comparable Florida cities.  The pension fund has worked with the COJ many times in the past by negotiating and the city has taken several "holidays" from pension payments.  The Pension fund outperformed most other funds over the most recent downturn, but of course still took heavy losses.  The fund is not 100% in stocks.  These are the facts, no tantrum will change that.

The city obligation to the Police & Fire Pension fund will not approach being the "bulk" of discretionary spending.  That statement is incorrect. 

I would suggest a calm look at the budget and make the adjustments needed based on TRUE FACTS and REASON. 

What is your suggestion?

[stjr]

Once again, it's the City Council stupid!  We certainly do a good job of shooting ourselves in the foot.!!  We don't have a budget problem as much as we have a City Council problem.

If slow motion excites you, watch committee in action
By Ron Littlepage Story updated at 6:24 AM on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009

The City Council Finance Committee now has two days of budget hearings under its belt.

To say it has been ugly is an understatement.

The first full day of hearings on the proposed city budget was on Aug. 13.

Progress has been as slow as molasses on a winter day.

How slow?

The second full day of hearings was last Thursday. The committee finished the agenda - from Aug. 13. Nothing from last Thursday's agenda was taken up.

That meant a lot of high-salaried city employees sat twiddling their thumbs waiting for their departments or agencies to come up for review.

While the Finance Committee debated such critical aspects of the city's $1 billion budget as should $200 be spent on coffee and doughnuts, tens of thousands of dollars in city salaries were going down the toilet.

One reason for the slow space - besides such things as spending about an hour on whether $43,000 should be spent on Jaguar tickets - is a lot of repetitive and not so bright questions are being asked.

Let's just say you don't walk away from these hearings impressed with the committee's overall brain power.

Council President Richard Clark made a mistake by stacking the Finance Committee with rookies when veteran council members who have served as both council president and finance chair were available.

They would have added some wisdom to what right now is a runaway train.

Clark had promised a transparent budget process. That doesn't jibe with him dropping bombs like he did last Thursday in persuading the committee to vote to do away with the Inspector General's Office, set up by Mayor John Peyton to find efficiencies and to ferret out fraud.

Some committee members said they didn't know what the office did but voted to gut it anyway.

What the office has done, by the way, with its $1.1 million budget, is save $2 million.

Clark also has proposed doing away with 15 boards and commissions, such as the Environmental Protection Board and the Library Board.

While all aspects of city government should be reviewed on occasion, the short span set aside for budget hearings isn't a good time for such a discussion, especially if you want transparency.

Another department under attack from the Finance Committee is the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission.

Well, if businesses interested in relocating to Jacksonville sat in on the budget hearings, there wouldn't be a need for the JEDC.

No businesses would want to come here.

The City Council has to pass a budget by the end of September.

At the current pace, no way.

To speed things up, Finance Committee Chairman Stephen Joost has scheduled additional meetings, including a Saturday session.

Here's a better idea: Stop committee members from going on and on about trivial subjects.

Perhaps Joost should ask the Inspector General's Office how the committee could be more efficient.

From:  http://www.jacksonville.com/opinion/columnists/ron_littlepage/2009-08-25/story/if_slow_motion_excites_you_watch_committee_in_act

[stjr]

More City Council  hypocrisy in action...

Council's budget strategy: 'Cut their waste, not ours'
By Ron Littlepage Story updated at 11:28 PM on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009

City Council members were forced to try on their own tight-fitting budget cutting shoes earlier this week and immediately replaced them with pairs of comfy house slippers.

The subject before the council's Personnel Committee Tuesday afternoon was the 18 council aides, who are each being paid $55,000 a year.

Council President Richard Clark had the temerity to suggest earlier that perhaps the number of aides could be halved and council members could share an aide to save money to help balance the city's out-of-whack budget.

That subject didn't even come up Tuesday, as I'm sure Clark read the tea leaves that he would be trampled by council members protective of their personal hires.

He was right.

Tuesday's meeting turned into a praise session for the aides; excuse me, as council member Glorious Johnson, who favors a wholesale firing of other appointed employees just not hers, pointed out: executive council assistants.

Baloney. An aide by any other name is an aide, and a high-falutin title doesn't justify a big salary.

One by one, council members defended their personal aides.

They are the council members' "ambassadors." There are "here every day, all day, working hard."

Basically, council members said, city government would fall apart without them.

Somehow that doesn't jibe with what other City Hall workers say about some aides spending hours at the gym and at Starbucks drinking lattes.

For the record, the 18 assistants are costing taxpayers more than just their $55,000 annual salaries. There are also the attractive benefits.

Councilman John Crescimbeni, the only council member who doesn't have a personal aide, detailed those benefits in an e-mail.

The aides who participate in the city pension plan cost an additional 14.95 percent of salary.

They also get free health insurance for themselves.

Under one plan, that costs the taxpayer $4,686 for each employee. Under a second plan, the cost is $5,384.

The aides also get a considerable break if their families are on the health plan.

So the $55,000 annual salary becomes a $63,222 cost to taxpayers when the pension cost is added.

And it becomes $67,908 with the lower of the two health plans.

Under that scenario, the cost for the 18 aides would be $1.2 million.

The council members did reluctantly agree to cut their personal aides' salaries by 3 percent, the same reduction being proposed for all other city employees.

But the council's Finance Committee has been merrily slashing other city departments - for instance, completely dismantling the Inspector General's Office to save $1.1 million.

But cut their personal aides in half - and return to how the council operated for years - no way.

That shoe crunched their own toes.

From: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/columnists/ron_littlepage/2009-08-27/story/councils_budget_strategy_cut_their_waste_not_ours

[stjr]

Veterans, seniors, river enthusiasts, boaters.... The City Council will have peeved so many interests that it will be fun to watch who actually has the political stomach to vote for the budget they actually turn out.  I am starting to think that after all these budget fun and games, the Mayor mostly get's his way.

Council panel axes Vets Day parade, other events
By Tia Mitchell Story updated at 10:37 PM on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009

Military-minded Jacksonville without a Veterans Day Parade? The demise of Sail Jacksonville and special events for seniors?


The City Council’s Finance Committee gave those and other public events the axe Thursday during a tense budget hearing. To save $562,300, the panel agreed to eliminate funding for 19 of 26 special events planned for the next fiscal year.


Money remains for only the biggest city-sponsored events â€" those drawing crowds of at least 50,000. That means the Jacksonville Jazz Festival and World of Nations Celebration, which had been initially on the chopping block as well, survive so far.


The cuts triggered instant debate, underscoring just how difficult the road to a balanced budget has been. The City Council must slash $53 million in order to avoid a double-digit tax increase proposed by Mayor John Petyon.


Council President Richard Clark, who proposed scrapping smaller events to avoid killing off the two biggest, described the cuts as painful, with more to come.


“From this point forward they will all be,” Clark said. “It’s the nature of where we are in the budget process.”


Peyton said the committee is now seeing the truth in his warnings that the city’s $100 million budget hole shouldn’t be filled by cuts alone. Instead, he proposed cutting $40 million, making up the rest with a 12 percent property tax rate hike.


“The reality is I told them on July 13 that there would be consequences for cutting this budget more than the $40 million I recommended,” Peyton said. “They are now seeing the difficulty of the task at hand.”


Minutes after the committee meeting ended Thursday afternoon, the city’s Military Affairs and Veterans Services office began fielding calls about the loss of the Nov. 11 downtown parade.
Robert Hernandez, past commander at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post on Blanding Boulevard, said the city is sending the wrong message to veterans â€" especially during a time of war.


“That’s one of the few days we get to honor our vets. Some of the guys in this parade are Pearl Harbor survivors or Normandy survivors,” Hernandez said. “Once they’re gone, so is the history.”


“I’m a veteran, and I’m appalled we have considered not supporting those types of events,” said Councilman Reggie Brown, a former active duty soldier who serves in the Army Reserve. Brown sat in on the hearing Thursday, even though he isn’t a member of the committee.


The special events spending cut is the result of a 3 percent reduction the committee has mandated for all department budgets, including police and fire.


Roslyn Phillips , the city’s chief community officer, was tasked with trimming $1.4 million from a $46.5 million budget. That includes spending on parks, community centers, military affairs, adult services, crime victim services and special events.


Reducing staff salaries and benefits by 3 percent still left a nearly $1 million hole. To spare core services, Phillips put on the table $482,000 in funding for the Jazz Festival and World of Nations, eliminating city dollars for winter heating assistance, and reducing the United Way 211 help line budget by one-third. She said these were cuts she did not support but were her suggestion to achieve the needed threshold.


The committee initially agreed. But then some council members accused the mayor of playing politics by jeopardizing popular events that give the city an economic boost.


Clark later proposed eliminating 19 smaller events with a combined city budget equal to the two big-ticket events. His amendment passed 6-4, with some committee members and other council members sitting in on the hearing deriding the decision.


Afterward, Brown said the Finance Committee should have trusted the city staffers’ recommendation.


“They did their part, then we crossed the line to micromanaging to 3 percent,” he said.


Clark said his move to cut special events with the lowest attendance was solely based on maximizing city dollars. Besides, he said, senior citizens and veterans in need aren’t being helped at these events.


“We are not talking about the people who are vulnerable here,” he said. “These are feel-good events.”


The cuts include eliminating money set aside for Mayor’s Older Buddies, quarterly luncheons that provide information and news. Each meeting has about 750 attendees and a $4,000 budget; past topics included health care and the digital television conversion.


Herb Helsel, executive director for the Jacksonville Council on Elder Affairs, said he understands the city is strapped for cash but cutting senior programs seemed a bit much. He said events for seniors help elders obtain information to live healthier lives.


“We hope this gets revisited,” Helsel said.


There is a chance the city could scrounge up funding to keep these events alive, either by obtaining sponsorships or finding additional money in the budget. Some of them may have enough outside support to stay afloat, no matter what.


Even without city funding, the Captain’s Club of Jacksonville vows to hold the 2010 Blessing of the Fleet on Palm Sunday, continuing a tradition the club started almost three decades ago.


“We started it without any support from the city,” said Bob Gipson, a past commodore and agent for the club. “They came in and wanted part of it, and rightfully so.”


The fleet blessing has been held since the mid-1980s, Gipson said. City funding helped with advertising the event and provided some public address equipment, Gipson said, issues the Captain’s Club will be able to handle.


“It’s important to the boaters and to highlight the city of Jacksonville and what the river means to us,” Gipson said.


Another axed event, Sail Jacksonville, was used by nonprofit groups such as the St. Johns Riverkeeper as a public outreach tool.


“It’s one more opportunity lost,” said Jimmy Orth, executive director of the Riverkeeper organization. He said his group valued it as a tool for making residents more familiar with the river.

See:  http://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-08-27/story/council_panel_axes_vets_day_parade_other_events

[stjr]

Well, after pissing off almost everyone in the City, the City Council finance committee failed to avoid a tax increase (for many, not a real dollar increase since the increased millage rate will be offset by a valuation reduction, which was the reason for the millage increase to begin with) AND managed to cut the City's quality of life factor by eliminating police and fire, cutting libraries, cutting into parks and cultural events and organizations, eliminating cost cutters and the ethics commission that might keep them honest, etc.  No doubt they found some valid dollars to cut, but it was immaterial to the effort involved.  And, they threw the baby out with the bath water.

BUT, they did apparently agree to continue to pay themselves and keep all their aides.  Cuts for the common people only with virtually all the savings from a theoretical 3% cut of city salaries that isn't even real since much of it requires the unions to agree to it, an unlikely prospect, and if they did, it would be so late in the budget year as to wipe out much of the alledged savings.  And, police and fire pensions weren't even touched.

What happens next year when the hole reappears again?

Property tax increase likely for Jacksonville
Council panel fails to make enough budget cuts to avoid tax hike
By Tia Mitchell Story updated at 9:33 PM on Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2009

Even after laying off police personnel, reducing library branch hours and stripping funding for the Veterans Day Parade, the Jacksonville still has a big budget hole.

The City Council Finance Committee did not meet its target of finding $53 million to cut from the mayor's proposed budget to avoid a property tax rate increase to balance the budget. The panel held its final hearing Wednesday.

The full council must pass a balanced budget before the fiscal year begins Oct. 1. It will hold a special meeting next week to review the committee recommendations.

The Council Auditor’s Office is expected to give an official accounting of all the Finance Committee recommendations in the next couple of days, but the cuts will likely add up to about $30 million.

Mayor John Peyton had proposed a budget that included a 12 percent property tax increase to 9.5 mills. He said that, along with $40 million in cuts he wanted, would solve a roughly $100 million shortfall.

The City Council, however, didn’t support raising the millage rate and vowed to find $53 million needed to keep the rate at 8.48 mills.

As it currently stands, the tax rate can go no higher than 9.27 mills, which is the rollback rate that would keep revenue consistent. Usually the rollback rate is lower than the previous year, but because of declining property values it is higher.

The Finance Committee had to chop $12 million from the mayor’s proposed balanced budget just to meet the rollback rate.

Council President Richard Clark said he is proud of the city’s efforts to cut the proposed budget, even though it still doesn’t include enough revenue to cover all of the city’s extra spending.

Pointing out that together the mayor and council have cut $70 million from planned spending for the next fiscal year, he said praise is deserved.

“In my opinion, I think that’s a phenomenal story,” he said.

Clark said he will give each council member a chance to weigh in on the new ­budget during a special meeting next week. Vice President Jack Webb said he doesn’t think additional cuts will be proposed, so a property tax increase will be necessary.

“I think there is a great deal of confidence in the Finance Committee,” Webb said,  “that we looked under the rocks for all those savings.”

From: http://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-09-09/story/property_tax_increase_likely_for_jacksonville

[fsu813]

i hope all the idiots that bought into the hype that we could just cut out waste and avoid any tax increase feel stupid.

told ya so. =P

[sandyshoes]

Mayor Chicken Little has struck again, with his mentality that's spreading.  (If anyone remembers the words to the Superchicken Cartoon theme song, this would be a good time to sing it).  (...."caaaaaaaaaAAAALLL! for superchicken (squawk squawk)"