The Yes for Jacksonville campaign to build support to pay down Jacksonville’s pension debt with an extended half-cent sales tax got a shot in the arm Wednesday from area homebuilders.
Following a request for support from Mayor Lenny Curry, the 1,287-member Northeast Florida Builders Association endorsed the sales tax extension and donated $10,000 to the campaign.
Jacksonville voters will decide Aug. 30 whether to extend the Better Jacksonville Plan half-cent sales tax beyond 2030 to tackle the city’s $2.8 billion in unfunded liabilities.
The tax would be extended for 30 years or until the city’s retirement plans for police and firefighters, general employees, and corrections officers are fully funded, whichever occurs first.
“Thank you. This is big,” Curry told NEFBA members following their vote. “This is how we’re going to get our message out.”
The City Council in May unanimously approved putting the pension tax on the ballot. The newly formed bipartisan Yes for Jacksonville has raised more than $500,000 to convince voters to approved the tax.
Curry said Wednesday Yes for Jacksonville will spend much of its campaign funds on television advertising and mailers.
“Money is important and get-out-to-vote is important,” the mayor said.
Curry told the builders he is approaching his job with a sense of urgency — and fixing the city’s pension problems is the most critical challenge.
As he’s done before, Curry said Wednesday the consequence of not directly paying down the city’s pension debt is to file bankruptcy as Detroit did in 2013. Detroit’s bankruptcy plan, by far the largest in U.S. history, resolved a pension crisis at a cost to retirees who thought their benefits were untouchable.
Curry told the builders the only viable alternative to paying down the pension debt with a sales tax is a property tax increase, which he staunchly opposes.
“The answer is not to tax our citizens into oblivion and pretend like we don’t have a problem,” he said. “That’s exactly what Detroit did.”
Jacksonville voters enacted the Better Jacksonville Plan half-cent sales tax in 2000 to fund road, infrastructure and public facility improvements, environmental preservation and targeted economic development.
Extending that tax in 2030 would keep the local sales tax at 7 percent.
Curry told NEFBA members extending the tax would free up funding for essential city services, ranging from hiring more police officers to mowing public rights-of-way.
He said the Liberty Street bridge in Downtown remaining in disrepair after collapsing in early 2015 is emblematic of the city government being shackled by its pension liabilities.
“It sat there without government moving to make sure it was fixed,” he said.
For the sales tax extension to take effect, new collective bargaining agreements must be negotiated.
“I am going to negotiate the best deal for the taxpayer,” Curry said.