Mayor Alvin Brown’s Strategic Initiatives Transition Committee took aim at the City’s millage rate and tax structure, calling Jacksonville a “low-tax city.”
Yet it also acknowledged “that now is not the time to increase taxes or fees.”
“Compared to its peer cities, Jacksonville has avoided making such investments; indeed it has sought to reduce taxes and fees at the expense of quality of life and economic growth for its citizens,” the committee said near the end of its 40-page report.
“No other large Florida city/county, by a significant margin, has as low a tax structure as Jacksonville,” it said.
However, it said, the economic environment “precludes immediate enhancement of investment dollars for strategic initiatives,” except, it said, for “a small number of highly compelling cases.”
The report said the situation offers the City time to “consider, refine and advocate” for its recommendations.
It “strongly recommends” that Brown and his administration give the report “careful consideration and, in due course, adoption of these proposed strategic initiatives.”
Acknowledging that it was given a broad scope, the committee summarized that its charge was to interpret in its recommendations one of Brown’s campaign themes:
“We will take Jacksonville to the next level.”
It opted not to study Downtown development or education, deferring to other transition committees that studied those areas. It did focus on seven other areas that also drew attention in other reports.
Those areas were river quality and access; regional planning and growth management; the library system; arts and culture; human and social services; infrastructure and visual appearance; parks and recreation; and small business and entrepreneurial development.
“In almost each of its topic areas, the committee found that Jacksonville was doing an acceptable or satisfactory job, but not one which met the standard of a great city, or even one seeking ‘the next level,’” said the report.
“Rather, it found that inadequate financial and intangible resources have been historically committed to these topics, causing us all to fall short of having the assets necessary to achieve our objective,” it said.
Calling inadequate financial resources “unsurprising,” the committee referred to the City’s millage rate.
“The City has had a long history of reducing, for political reasons, the ad valorem millage rate which constitutes the bulk of its general fund revenues,” said the report.
According to the report, “from 1985 until the recent financial crisis and state-mandated millage reductions compounded by doubling of the homestead exemption, each mayor and City Council took action to reduce the millage rate, going from 12.5 mills to just over 9 mills,” it said.
“This fiscally unsound policy was quite popular with the majority of taxpayers, but today we find ourselves in a financial hole which has severely compromised our ability to become a great city, with the taxpayers resisting any tax increases,” it said.
The committee said the challenge is to make “such a compelling case” for each initiative that would enhance the city that elected and community leaders and citizens, “would become convinced that the benefits arising from them would clearly exceed their costs.”
The report ended with a dozen conclusions drawn from the many made throughout. Those included:
• Strengthen the 2006 St. Johns River Accord and significantly increase the pace and scope of the 2007 Downtown Jacksonville Pedestrian and Open Space Action Plan.
• Avoid the mistakes of other cities in placing industrial structures, elevated expressways and unpopulated buildings along the riverfront.
• Revise the zoning code and land development regulations to conform to the rewrite of the Comprehensive Plan and the new Mobility Plan and put the changes into effect.
• Support and influence the creation of a Regional Transportation Authority for at least the five-county area. “The City must support and contribute to construction of the Regional Transportation Center at the existing convention center, working closely with the JTA, Greyhound, Amtrak, DOT and the City Council.”
• Information and technology, staffing, earned income, capital budget and building maintenance challenges should be addressed in alignment with the Jacksonville Public Library board’s final recommendations from the “Capacity Plan” study.
• Return to the 2006-07 levels for the Cultural Council grants program from $3 million to $4.2 million.“ This increase represents slightly greater than one-tenth of 1 percent of the City’s general fund,” it said.
• Create a nonprofit network database to provide a clear understanding of the human and social service providers that exist and to prevent any abuse of their services.
• Create a more defined network and liaison between the local government and the faith-based community “for better regulation in supplying food, clothing and basic financial assistance for medicine, housing assistance” and such services to the needy.
• Support and improve the Jacksonville stormwater utility, “a major faction in reducing river pollution and the key to resolving our chronic problems with drainage and flooding.”
• Identify older, close-in neighborhoods where simultaneous reconstruction of the roadway and utilities is feasible.
• The parks department should be governed by a semiautonomous board of trustees appointed by the mayor with all appointments confirmed by City Council.
• Create an office within the office of the Mayor to focus on and respond to the needs of the City’s small business and entrepreneurs.
The committee said its charge was to identify strategic initiatives to make Jacksonville more prosperous, more desirable and characterized by an excellent quality of life and a “superior economic climate for all citizens.”
Among the separate areas:
River quality and access.
The waterfront is the city’s “visual signature.” Among other recommendations, it calls for further enhancement of the Northbank Riverwalk and its extension to Memorial Park.
Regional planning and growth management.
The committee said regional planning has “grown slowly” since the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council (now the Northeast Florida Regional Council) was created in 1977.
It said the Jacksonville Transportation Planning Organization has expanded from Duval County to most of Clay and St. Johns counties, becoming the North Florida TPO, and will soon be expanded to all of St. Johns, Clay and Baker counties and most of Nassau County.
In 2010, the Northeast Florida Regional Transportation Study Commission was created to report by 2012 to the state Legislature about a 50-year vision for transportation in the area, including a regional transportation authority.
The committee also noted that the 2011 Legislature abolished the Department of Community Affairs, which had controlled and enforced comprehensive plans in local governments since 1985, and moved it to the new Department of Economic Opportunity with a 50 percent cut in staff and funding and “stripped … of any power to enforce the law or local comprehensive plans,” except for sewers, solid waste, drainage and potable water.
That, it said, left “local governments to determine whether to require concurrency for transportation, schools and parks and recreation – the most expensive results of new development.”
Among its recommendations are to work with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to reorganize transportation funding so that new projects can be financed in the wake of the Better Jacksonville Plan, which encumbered JTA’s principal source of resources temporarily.
“JTA suggests that the half-cent sales tax revenue ($66 million) pledge to BJP roads be restored to JTA, in return for the 6-cent gas tax ($23 million) going back to the City, and JTA retaining responsibility for its 1997 bonds, which will cost about $38 million in 2011-12, and about $8 million each year thereafter until 2023,” it said.
Library system.
Noting that libraries around the world are facing budget cuts while experiencing higher usage, the committee said the Jacksonville Public Library has completed a “Library Capacity Plan” that reviews the systems, past, present and future.
It reported that for every tax dollar received, public libraries provide $8.32 in value. It said the capacity plan found four key areas of importance to the local economy: libraries level the intellectual playing field; support children’s education; level the technology playing field; and help residents achieve economic success.
The report said the library is facing challenges, outlined in a March study by Godfrey’s Associates Inc.
Arts and culture.
The report said the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville estimated that in one year, the arts and culture industry supports 873 jobs, provides 231,000 free tickets, hosts 689,000 people at events and serves 340,000 students.
The overall economic impact to the area is about $69 million, it said.
According to the report, public support through City funding of cultural services grants has “sharply” decreased from 2006-07 to 2010-11.
It said that support fell from $3.75 million to $3 million, a 20 percent decrease, and a larger decrease when adjusted for inflation.
Human and social services.
The committee urged review of Mayor John Peyton’s “Blueprint for Prosperity” and cited several of its recommendations.
It also said that many nonprofit agencies that serve the people in need are affected by inflation
and the recession as demand for services increased and donations and government support de-creased.
It cited a Jessie Ball duPont Fund survey that found more than 42 percent of nonprofits were operating at a loss in 2008, which the committee said “is surely higher at this hour” as the recession has become “even more deeply entrenched over the last three years.”
It also said “there has to be care for the transients and homeless,” noting that panhandlers and streetwalkers “are a problem and eyesore to any community.”
The committee recommends that a main goal should be “a homeless and hunger free city” that needs the support of all the agencies involved in the care of the needy.
Infrastructure and visual appearance.
The committee said infrastructure refers to power, water, sewer and related services, but that there is no coordination “where different parts of the City have different levels of infrastructure needs.”
It urged the City to continue addressing the health of the St. Johns River and other waterways.
It also suggested Brown appoint a commission “to study the best use of resources in order to strengthen the infrastructure and regional transportation for our City.”
Parks and recreation.
The committee found that the Jacksonville park system includes more than 80,000 acres, including 9,000 for active recreation; that more than 100,000 people participate in athletic leagues using 440 fields; that five gyms were used by more than 1,500 people and received more than 90,000 visits each year; that there are 33 swimming pools and 53 community centers; and that there are 21,000 acres of preservation land for walking, biking and similar uses.
Small business and entrepreneurship.
At least 40 organizations support small businesses throughout Northeast Florida, including chambers of commerce, state colleges, technical assistance programs and networking groups that help business owners operate more effectively, said the report.
However, the committee said there is no central point of focus.
The committee recommends creation of an “Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship.”
The report said that firms employing fewer than 100 people make up 98 percent of all Northeast Florida companies and that 70-80 percent of a community’s new jobs are created by small businesses.
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Strategic Initiatives Transition Committee
Co-Chairs: Preston Haskell and Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin
Members: Ali Korman, Bandele Onasanya, Deborah Pass-Durham, Matt Rapp, Jim Rinaman, Elton Rivas
In transition
Mayor Alvin Brown and his staff are reviewing reports submitted Aug. 8 by 18 transition policy committees. The committees consisted of 217 people and another 125 subject area experts and staff. More than 110 meetings were held over a month. The Daily Record will summarize one report daily and include the names of the committee co-chairs and members. Today’s summary covers the Strategic Initiatives Transition Committee.