by David Chapman
Staff Writer
When it comes to the City’s financial situation, J.F. Bryan IV doesn’t want history to keep repeating itself.
As chair of the latest Jacksonville Community Council Inc. — a nonpartisan civic organized geared toward improving quality of life — annual study, “Our Money, Our City: Financing Jacksonville’s Future,” Bryan showed concern when addressing the media with the study’s findings and suggestions for improvement.
“Our city is facing a long-term financial crisis,” said Bryan during the briefing. “Business as usual is not sustainable and cannot continue.”
Concerned citizen volunteers spent eight months working on the study, the first such City financial study from the organization since 1992. In the time between the two projects — and the original such study in 1979 — the gap between revenue and expenditure levels in the budget and underfunding of the City’s pension plans has continued to grow from both internal and external factors.
Local actions such as numerous capital improvement projects, an underfunding of City pension plans and the lowering of millage rates in the last 15 years, while state and federal factors such as property tax restructuring and overall tumbling of the economy have all combined to create the City’s current situation.
For Bryan and other committee members, studying the budget and generating potential solutions that could be implemented to prevent further debt was imperative. In addition, many of the problems that were looked at in the 1979 and 1992 studies remained and had grown.
“The question was, ‘What could this group do to prevent another (similar) study in 15 years?’” said Bryan.
Recommendations came in two parts. The first will require tough financial decisions by both City leaders and the community while the second materialized late in the study and makes recommendations on ways to garner public trust.
On the financial side, Bryan said suggestions included an and/or (“The ‘and’ part of it is very important,” he said) scenario of increased revenue generation through millage rate increases and looking at untapped sources — the study lists a dozen — as well as a reduction of expenditures.
“Adding debt is not an answer,” he said.
The second set of recommendations revolve around public trust, understanding and involvement within the budget process as well as generating benchmarks for performance and overall transparency of the process.
“The public’s trust and involvement has to be there for things to work,” said Bryan.
The study is being publicly released during an event today at the Main Library at 11 a.m. Following the release, JCCI staff and study members will be looking to engage with the community on its findings and recommendations for the future.
“They didn’t want to come up with a short term solution,” said Ben Warner, JCCI deputy director. “We have to start this conversation within the community.”
Despite the study’s findings, Bryan is optimistic the community and leaders will respond to the situation.
“We have seen this community respond,” he said.
To see the “Our Money, Our City: Financing Jacksonville’s Future,” study in its entirety, go to jcci.org.
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