While Mayor Lenny Curry spent time Tuesday afternoon preparing Jacksonville for Tropical Storm Colin, his senior staff was hunkered down talking about a brewing storm of a different kind.
It’s hurricane season. It’s also budget season, a time when the mayor’s team starts sifting through line items, department requests and the like as it puts together a spending plan for City Council to review this summer.
That plan will have more than $280 million going toward pension obligations after sapping more than $260 million this year.
The rise will wipe out a projected $22 million increase in expected property tax revenues. It’s not enough to fill in the gaps for other expected increases, such as insurance.
“We’re facing a financial crisis,” Curry said Tuesday afternoon.
The budget his team is assembling likely will reflect that.
At the head of the table are City Hall veterans Sam Mousa, Curry’s chief administrative officer, and Mike Weinstein, chief financial officer.
On Tuesday, the committee began an overview of the budget, with the two questioning line items.
The local business tax is down more than $500,000. Mousa wants to know why.
Tax deed purchases went up $50,000. Why?
There were a lot of those inquiries in what’s considered the early part of the team’s efforts.
While there are still a lot of numbers and unknowns to sift through, there are some early priorities.
Curry wants to set aside $5 million owed as an additional pension payment for next year in this year’s budget. That’s on top of the $5 million extra owed this year.
“It would be irresponsible to deny that money,” said Curry. “You don’t spend everything you have.”
While the set-aside is extra, the extras for city departments will be limited. A short, short-list.
Mousa said departments have been counseled about this year’s budget for a “long time.”
“They know what to come with,” he said. “They know what not to come with.”
One example: The city’s ethics office went before the board Tuesday asking for a few enhancements.
Carla Miller, the city’s ethics officer, explained how most departments in cities the size of Jacksonville have five to 10 people. Hers is fewer than two, as it consists of one full-time and one part-time employee. The request was to bump the part-timer to full-time and bring on a part-time administrative assistant.
The best the office received was to put it on that short list. It’s likely the treatment other departments will receive in the coming weeks.
“It’s going to be a really, really short list,” said Curry.
Public service grants, funding for alcohol rehabilitation and other issues will be revisited at the end of the process to find out what’s left to allocate, the group decided.
Curry said his team “may have to push boundaries” to get the right spending plan. Whether that meant dipping into reserves or cutting employees hasn’t been discussed, he said, and it’s much too early in the process to consider.
Department heads will appear before the committees in the coming weeks. After that, Curry will review the plan before presenting it to council July 18.
If the early going is any indication, the weather might not be the only thing tumultuous this summer.
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