by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
While Mayor John Peyton’s proposed budget endures City Council Finance Committee scrutiny, Council president Lad Daniels said while some changes are possible, the priorities the Council outlined last June haven’t — and likely — won’t be affected.
Daniels cited workforce preparation and a bolstered commitment to education as the top priorities before Peyton took office.
“It’s important to realize that the goals of the Council are all long term,” said Daniels. “Nothing will change as far as what we want to focus on. We’ll always be mindful of the budget. The Better Jacksonville Plan ties directly into that. There won’t be a shift there. The biggest argument is the investment strategy and revenue sources that we may adopt. That will bring about some changes for us.”
Citing Peyton’s matched book strategy — the controversial financial plan with the potential to yield upwards of $15 million for the City barring no complications — Daniels said it may be “too aggressive in its revenue projections.”
“This won’t be our only tight year,” he said. “We need to start preparing ourselves for that instead of counting on a slam dunk at the end of this fiscal year. I’m already concerned about next year’s budget and where that money come from. That concern will probably further manifest itself in our grant writing process in the future.”
According to Daniels, more scrutiny may be placed on organizations who come to the City with requests for financial assistance.
“A money line is forming, and we’re probably going to be below it,” he said. “As we move forward with our budget for the City, we’ll have to continue to ask ourselves, ‘Do we exercise more caution for this program or that program? Do we need to force more discipline and discretion on the people we have writing grants for the City? Do we have to look more closely to figure out who gets assistance?’ We probably will.
“We can’t afford to allocate money now and ask these kinds of questions later. We just can’t. I have no doubt that all of the programs want to accomplish good things, but the playing field is going to have to be leveled.”