The City Council committee charged with evaluating the proposal for JEA to make a $120 million contribution to help pay down the unfunded pension liability learned Wednesday there is a long history of the utility making payments to the city over and above what is required.
Council member Lori Boyer said when she was reviewing documents associated with the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, she found a 1993 ordinance that established a supplemental contribution from JEA. The money was used to secure, at least in part, in bonds issued for the River City Renaissance program.
The program, enacted during former Mayor Ed Austin’s administration, was a $235 million urban renewal plan centered on the LaVilla area west of Downtown.
Other elements were the purchase and refurbishment of the St. James Building (now City Hall) and improvements to the Civic Auditorium and Gator Bowl stadium.
Boyer said what got her attention was the transfer of $1.9 million from the city to JEA that was not specifically addressed by council.
She said the 22-year-old ordinance is “complicated” and will require further review, but it appears the transfer may have been made under the terms of the ordinance when JEA’s supplemental contribution for the debt service was in excess of the utility’s obligation.
The point, Boyer said, is that JEA’s annual contribution to the city budget has in the past gone beyond the traditional assessment based on utility sales.
“It was never really just 5 mills,” she said.
The bonds were to be retired in 2018, but Paul McElroy, JEA’s CEO, said he believes the bonds were “extinguished” in 2003.
“I knew JEA was intimately involved in River City Renaissance financing,” he said.
Council member Greg Anderson said he’s aware of legislation enacted in 2007 that addressed JEA’s annual contribution and “I’d like to get all of the relevant legislation in one book.”
The Special Committee on the JEA Agreement is next scheduled to convene at 2 p.m. April 14 at City Hall.
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