by David Ball
Staff Writer
A request by Mayor John Peyton to use $3 million in emergency reserves to fund overtime for Jacksonville police officers passed its first hurdle yesterday, as the City Council’s Finance Committee approved the measure in a 6-0 vote.
“With the $3 million, we’ll put it out there where it’s needed the most,” said Jacksonville Under Sheriff Frank Mackesy, who added that this funding for Operation Safe Streets is “a little more than putting more police officers out there. It’s a more holistic approach.”
Mackesy said the money would put more officers into 12 identified high-crime areas, as well as place those officers in proactive community roles beyond just making arrests. The goal: to reduce Jacksonville’s violent crime and highest-in-state murder rate.
Some members of the Finance Committee asked what kind of results they should expect, and Mackesy mostly paralleled the effort with a similar $5 million anti-crime push, also called Operation Safe Streets, during the last half of 2006.
“We had a 38 percent impact on murders the last six months of the year,” he said. “Then as soon as we left, it went right back up.”
Mackesy said the Sheriff’s Office is preparing for the $3 million to last about three months, although he said the previous $5 million contribution stretched into six months and equated to about 70 additional officers on the streets each day in “tightly defined areas” of the city.
“I’d like to see more sustainability than a $3 million dollar hit,” said Committee member Richard Clark. “We want something for the long haul. What is it going to take to keep the presence?”
Mackesy said the recent audit of the Sheriff’s Office didn’t find one single “smoking gun” as the solution, although he’s been working with Council Auditor Kirk Sherman and members of the mayor’s staff to come up with a course of action based on the audit.
“We are hobbling through the process. We had our third meeting this morning,” he said. “I can tell you at the end of the day, the answer is going to be more police officers.”
The Finance Committee took up other issues on Monday, including:
• Approved a memorandum of understanding with the Clerk of the Courts clarifying access to more than $2 million in annual funds earmarked for information technology (IT) hardware, software, maintenance and repair in the Clerk of the Courts’ office.
Clerk of the Courts Jim Fuller had interpreted the State statute as giving him authority over the funds, while City administration, which has been providing IT support, argued it was owed to the City.
In the agreement, the portion of the Clerk’s budget utilized for county functions (about 20 percent) will be appropriated by the City Council, while the remainder relating to state court functions will be submitted for information only.
The City will also reimburse the Clerk for nearly $900,000 in security and storage fees paid in prior fiscal years and will work to reach a joint agreement about how to apportion those costs in the future.
The Clerk will remit filing fees to the City on a quarterly rather than an annual basis, be subject to audit by the Council Auditor of both the county- and court-related functions and provide monthly reports on revenues to and expenditures from the trust fund, among other conditions.
• Approved the establishment of new fees for services provided by the Duval County Health Department.
Council member Kevin Hyde, who is chair of the Public Health and Safety Committee, previously said the new fees would increase mainly in services provided to companies and business users and less for personal medical services.
• Approved retention of Larry Pritchard as special counsel to advise the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on criminal procedure and law.
Deputy General Counsel Steve Rohan said Pritchard had retired from the State Attorney’s Office, which was not intending to replace the position due to budget cuts. The city will retain Pritchard’s services as a consultant for $95,000 a year.