It’s being called a financial “cleanup” bill, a way to rectify more than a decade of accounting errors.
It’s been more than a mere tidying up by the City Council Special Committee on Capital Improvement Projects, though. More of a deep scrub that’s reconciled $590 million and identified $50 million or so for future capital projects.
The latter being money that will better serve Downtown and all Jacksonville neighborhoods through ways like road and infrastructure improvements, said Lori Boyer, the special committee’s chair.
Other results from that account cleaning?
Closing more than 1,200 projects. Filing 15 bills. More than 40 hours of meetings, plus many more on the side.
Boyer calls the errors systemic, but not malfeasance. The discrepancies stretch back at least 15 years, she said. They represent a failure in accounting for capital revenue and expenditures —errors like transposing numbers, a decimal point that’s off or double booking items.
Boyer said she knew there were problems more than three years ago, when she saw different funding amounts attached to projects. After Mayor Alvin Brown sought to borrow $220-plus million last year, Boyer said it was time “to get our arms around this thing” and find out what’s really in the books. Why issue more debt when there might be money available, just not identified?
She’s quick to point out it’s not just an issue that’s been happening under Brown — it occurred with past administrations, too.
“We’re getting back to ground zero,” she said.
That meant issuing minimal new debt last year for only the most crucial projects.
That was followed by the elbow grease, more than 40 hours of meetings — not counting members, auditors and administration officials spent outside meetings — sifting through accounts and working to figure out what’s what.
The group isn’t at ground zero just yet, though.
Boyer will be announcing the budget-side results of the group thus far at a news conference later today, while also offering insight on what the policy direction should be so history doesn’t repeat itself. Part of that likely will be reviewing the revenue side of the equation, although she said the mayor’s administration would need to undertake that effort.
Council members, meanwhile, will need to determine what amount, if any, of deficit spending should be acceptable each year. And maybe make policies that say some funds can’t be comingled, which would make the budgetary and accounting process more transparent.
As for the more than $50 million that’s available to spend, Boyer said it could be appropriated now, but that also could be determined in the upcoming budget — a time when things are a bit cleaner.
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