by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
As the City Council continues its efforts to broker a parking rate compromise to satisfy federal, state and City employees who use the City’s downtown garages, Finance Committee chairman Daniel Davis said rate discounts shouldn’t come strictly out of the City’s pocket.
Many of those users who draw a paycheck from the state or federal government were upset by the City’s plans to raise rates at City-owned facilities and to give City employees subsidies to deal with the higher costs.
Not fair say employers like the State Attorney’s Office and Duval County’s courts, whose employees are required to work in City-owned buildings but miss out on discounts offered to City workers.
The Council will debate over the next two weeks the size of the subsidies as well as who will receive them as it puts together a bill ahead of the new rates’ Dec. 1 implementation. At that point, monthly rates at the City’s Water Street and Yates garages and county courthouse lot will jump to $80 from current rates ranging from $25 to $50.
To give state and federal employees discounts comparable to those proposed for their City counterparts would cost the City $132,000 next year, according to the mayor’s office. The burden of that cost will likely have to be spread among the City, state and federal offices if additional discounts are going to be offered, Davis said.
Various state agencies have protested that there’s no money in their tight budgets to help defray the costs, but Davis said the City has its own budget problems to deal with.
“I know people say they’re facing an ugly budget, but the City of Jacksonville’s budget isn’t looking too good either. Everybody has to pitch in,” he said. “We’re all a little short now. To put it all on the City’s back isn’t fair.”
Duval County’s court system is one group being asked to pitch in. Davis asked Court Administrator Britt Beasley during Monday’s Finance Committee meeting if the courts could help offset the price of discounts for its employees by dipping into a $100,000 operating account under the purview of Chief Judge Donald Moran.
Subsidizing the court employees would cost $44,000, nearly half of what Moran has available for a fiscal year extending to Sept. 2006, noted Beasley. Davis assured Beasley that the courts wouldn’t be asked to pay all the costs. But, after his comments to the committee, Beasley said paying even one quarter of the cost would put a tremendous strain on an account slated to cover another 10 months.
Beasley said he would work with the Council to find a compromise. He said he would present cost sharing options to Moran, who will have the final say on how the money in his account will be spent.
Several Council members spoke in favor of some sort of discount for state and federal employees. Pat Lockett-Felder said she has constituents who draw subsistence-level federal paychecks and who cannot afford to pay full price.
Council member Gwen Yates worried that higher parking rates might discourage employers from coming downtown while potentially chasing current downtown tenants to suburban office parks.
“Government employees downtown is something we’ve always said we wanted,” Yates said. “We need to make sure we’re not impeding what we’re trying to do downtown.”
Some on the Council have suggested getting rid of subsidies all together. What’s good for the private sector should be good enough for the public sector they reason. But Davis said he didn’t see a problem with an employer subsidizing its employees.
“If Wachovia owned a garage, my assumption would be that their employees would get a discount while everybody else pays the market rate,” he said. “I don’t see a problem with us doing the same thing.”
The mayor’s office is encouraging current users of City parking to take a look around for alternatives. Adam Hollingsworth, the mayor’s chief of strategic initiatives, distributed catalogs of private and public lots downtown. There are alternatives to the $80-a-month City lots, he said, in most cases within walking distance. Hollingsworth said downtown parkers should start looking more seriously at spaces in JTA’s Skyway lots, which rent for $33 monthly, including the cost of Skyway access. Hollingsworth said federal employees can receive subsidies to pay for mass transit parking.
Council member Lad Daniels said the City should use the current debate to discuss the role of public transit in the City’s transportation policies.
“We should think about how we’re going to treat mass transit,” Daniels said. “Moving forward, we should think about what we want downtown. Do we want to have cheap, subsidized parking or do we want to encourage mass transit?”