by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
A bill that would codify the City’s take home and vehicle allowance bill that took months to craft sparked more questions than answers from the City Council Finance Committee Monday. So many, in fact, the committee opted to defer the bill one legislative cycle while the Council Auditor’s Office and the mayor’s office ironed out the details.
The policy will be used as a guide to determine if a City employee is eligible for a take home vehicle or if it would be more fiscally responsible to pay the employee a monthly vehicle allowance. At issue for Finance was two items in the Council Auditor’s analysis of the bill. In one instance, the City’s five Constitutional Officers — Sheriff, Property Appraiser, Tax Collector, Clerk of the Courts and Supervisor of Elections — are excluded from the bill. In another instance, the auto allowances of the Property Appraiser, Tax Collector and Clerk of the Courts would go up from $250 a month to $500.
“My preference is to defer this one cycle,” said Finance Chair Michael Corrigan. “It (the bill) makes more sense to me now than it did earlier, but I still have some questions.”
Corrigan said he thinks the concept of a vehicle allowance is better than having so many City-owned take home vehicles on the road.
“I think we should continue to work toward fewer take home vehicles and go to more car allowances,” he said. “I’d like the Constitutional Officers to work with us.”
Finance member Stephen Joost said he doesn’t understand why the vehicles of the Constitutional officers is in the legislation to begin with since they all have their own budgets.
According to the analysis of the Council Auditor’s Office, the policy will have an impact on the budget through savings realized by a combination of eliminating some take home vehicles while granting vehicle allowances. For instance, the fuel savings alone could be $89,322 annually.
In other news from the Finance meeting:
• By a 6-1 vote, the committee approved a redevelopment agreement between the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission and Cedar Grove Corporation, which plans to construct a commercial truck washing facility through the use of Northwest Jacksonville Economic Development Funds. The company will get a $125,000 loan and a grant worth $75,000. The company will retain 12 employees and hire another 18 within 36 months.
Finance member Daniel Davis voted for the project, however he would like for it to be the last approved project that grants incentives before there’s proof the developer has made good on their promises.
“I’m OK with this, but I told Mrs. Greger (Wight, director of the City’s Housing and Neighborhoods Department) I will not support anymore projects like this unless they are performance based,” said Davis.
• The committee also approved legislation that will allow a private developer to use $27.5 million in housing bonds to renovate eight multifamily apartment buildings in Council Dist. 7. According to Greger, the units are, and will be, rented to low income families. She also said there are currently enough vacant units the developer can move families around while rehabilitating the complexes.
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