by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Mayor John Peyton has released the companion piece to his first budget.
His 180-page business plan sets specific goals, measured in increments, for his administration to follow on its desired path toward a safer, more prosperous and more responsive city.
The mayor has stated repeatedly his desire to bring the best business practices to government. In addition to bringing a corporate structure to his executive staff, he culled its members almost exclusively from the private sector. The business plan establishes six mayoral priorities and provides benchmarks to measure the City’s progress toward their fulfillment.
“The plan provides a framework to push the administration’s priorities,” said Chief Operating Officer Sam Mousa. “It prioritizes how you spend money and it measures how the money is spent.”
Mousa said the plan precedes budget work. When the mayor presents his budget to the City Council the requested funds are usually targeted toward specific business-plan benchmarks. Common City practice now, Mousa said the eight-year-old business planning process changed the way the City allocated its money.
“Departments used to come to us and say, ‘This is how much we spent; we need more,’ ” said Mousa. “That’s not how you run a business. Measuring against this plan, we see how the funds were spent and what they accomplished. A quality government and good business execute this practice.”
Mousa said the plan’s priorities could be revised if the Council significantly reworks Peyton’s budget. He said the benchmarks would have to be taken down a notch or eliminated without adequate funding.
This year’s plan began to take shape nearly a year ago. Not knowing who would replace him, former mayor John Delaney crafted a general set of goals, which continued momentum in areas he considered important.
After Peyton’s mid-May election, Mousa said he scrambled with the mayor and his staff to redraft the plan to reflect Peyton’s stated commitment to early literacy and emergency preparedness.
In his first year, Peyton wants to increase economic opportunity and jobs, including City support for military jobs and minority business; increase homeland security and emergency preparedness; increase early literacy; enhance the quality of life, including transportation, planning and parks; increase infill housing; and create a streamlined government to facilitate business growth.
Peyton outlined those objectives in broad strokes during his campaign. However, the business plan provides the detail. Once the business plan and budget have been finalized, City departments will begin tracking the objectives according to specific criteria and deadlines. Peyton’s staff will then review departmental progress quarterly. The departments begin tracking Oct. 1.
One of Peyton’s first objectives will be to fend off military base closures. By September the mayor wants a to organize a cohesive fundraising and lobbying effort under the direction of the Jacksonville Economic Development Council. In doing so, Peyton hopes to protect area military bases and their $7.5 billion impact on the local economy.
Also by September, Peyton wants a viability study for the proposed $300 million expansion of the Osborn Center and an empowerment zone marketing program.
A Peyton transition team subcommittee said the City underused its Empowerment Zone designation. The federal program offers tax incentives for hiring and building within the city. The envisioned marketing program would educate 50 area businesses how to take advantage of the tax credits.
To make the city safer and more prosperous, Peyton’s plan envisions an improved Fire and Rescue Department. Peyton wants uncontrolled fires suppressed in less than 20 minutes by the end of fiscal year 2003. That time will be pared further to 19 minutes by the end of 2004. By increasing from three to four the number of firefighters per engine, Peyton hopes to improve the efficiency of all engine companies.
Peyton established those benchmarks despite a relatively modest $3 million increase to the department’s budget. A preliminary budget draft tallied a $2.7 million departmental raise compared to more than a $12 million bump to the sheriff’s budget. Departmental representatives have repeatedly complained to the transition team that Fire/Rescue is already underfunded and cannot produce the desired results without new revenues.
One of Peyton’s unique areas of focus is early childhood literacy. He requested $1 million in his budget to promote it and hopes to use those funds to train 1,000 child-care workers to teach children to read. His plan also targets increased enrollment — from 4,800 to 4,900 — in after-school programs and seeks to streamline the public school book-ordering process to provide for the purchase of more than 281,000 books.