Mayor Lenny Curry’s goal of adding to $1.9 million to Jacksonville Journey anti-crime programs mostly made it out of the City Council Finance Committee intact Monday.
Mostly.
The committee set aside $350,000 slated for summer camp programs after Vice President Lori Boyer raised concerns about the level of funding already in place for those activities and how the new money would be used.
The city’s summer camp program is administered by the Jacksonville Children’s Commission, which has a budget this year of $2.4 million for the camps. It was boosted to that total Feb. 23 when council provided $701,000.
That money came from the commission’s fund balance to provide access for five weeks this year to another 1,870 children.
“It’s kind of exploding,” Boyer said in an interview Monday evening.
The additional Journey funding for camps was introduced last week. Boyer said if she had known more money was to be pegged for the summer camps, she would have asked for information and time to review.
Additionally, the recommendation for the Journey-related funds doesn’t exactly match what the children’s commission has in place.
The Journey summer camp money is recommended for seven-week programs that have a literacy education component included. The children’s commission camps are five weeks with no literacy aspect.
The children’s commission staff already had made the recommendation for the five-week camps, which led to Boyer saying she was uncomfortable with the extra money going toward summer camps that don’t align with the Journey’s intention.
The finance committee on Monday placed the $350,000 into a Journey contingency fund for to-be-determined alternative summer programming.
Boyer said she would like Journey and children’s commission officials to talk to see if the agency’s summer camps can incorporate the Journey recommendations.
Delaying the appropriation ended up helping council member Reggie Gaffney’s cause, too. In Monday’s meeting, he sought that not all of the extra Journey money be earmarked. He wants a little flexibility to readjust and reallocate the funds if better programs or ideas come up.
The remaining $1.5 million passed and will go to programs dealing with workforce development for teens and young adults, summer jobs and early learning centers.
The funding bill will be heard today by the council Recreation, Community Development, Public Health and Safety along with Rules committees.
Curry reorganization passes first test
Curry’s push to reorganize aspects of the city’s day-to-day operations received an OK from the Finance Committee despite a few questions.
Sam Mousa, Curry’s chief administrative officer, was on hand to explain the switches being made, many of which initially were made during one of former Mayor Alvin Brown’s shake-ups.
The changes, Mousa said, have goals aimed at cost control and organizational efficiencies — not cost savings.
The plan does so in several ways.
Mousa and Chief Financial Officer Mike Weinstein will take on more responsibilities of direct reports for a number of areas. That allows the mayor to “focus on the bigger picture,” Mousa said.
The Office of Public Parking, minus vehicle inspections, heads to the Downtown Investment Authority, a move that prompted some initial concern from Boyer. She represents the Southbank and San Marco, the latter of which isn’t Downtown but has some specialized parking enforcement.
How will parking issues outside Downtown be handled, she asked. The DIA, Mousa said, much like those issues now go to the Office of Economic Development.
“We don’t expect any of that to change,” said Mousa.
Boyer said she is generally supportive, but said OED reports to the mayor while DIA reports to its board, not an elected body. Changes it makes might impact areas outside Downtown.
“If things don’t work, we come back to you and change them,” Mousa said in response.
Outside of that, council members liked the changes. Committee Chair Bill Gulliford suggested the changes were going back to around 2007-08 when things seemed to work better.
That included a time when the Neighborhoods Department was up and operational, much like Curry plans to do with this reorganization.
The plan passed by a 6-0 vote; the Rules Committee will have a chance to review it today.
‘Project Star’ ready for council
An economic deal that would create a Jacksonville headquarters and create 100 new jobs received the go-ahead by the committee. It would be the first U.S. presence for the unnamed privately owned international company.
Code-named “Project Star,” deal details match those of Scotland-based City Refrigeration that has wanted to move to the Southside.
Kirk Wendland, city Office of Economic Development head, told the Finance Committee the project has “been around for some time,” and city leaders met with company officials during the Jacksonville Jaguars game in London.
Of the 100 jobs that would be created, 51 would be covered by $353,000 of city and state incentives.
The city’s portion would be $230,600, consisting of grants from a jobs and real estate-related programs. The state’s share would be $122,400 through the grants grant.
The jobs would be in place by the end of 2017 and the company also would invest a minimum of $5.7 million in information technology, equipment, furniture and real estate improvements.
Operations would open immediately upon incentives being approved, Wendland told the committee.
With it now out of committee, it’s set for a final vote Tuesday.
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