Mayor Lenny Curry returned from Tallahassee on Thursday evening, fresh off a fast-paced three days of close to 30 meetings with state lawmakers pitching Jacksonville’s pension solution.
It’ll take their support if his plan of extending a half-cent sales tax to pay down $2.7 billion in unfunded liability is to work. So far, he said, he’s not hearing they won’t.
“We were pleasantly surprised,” Curry said Thursday. “No one sat across from me and said ‘this is a bad idea, no way, no how.’”
Most liked what they heard, he said. They were encouraged by the idea “we’re doing something big and transformational.”
Not saying no isn’t exactly saying yes, though. At least not yet.
Many of those meetings, at least 16 of them, were with House and Senate members from Northeast Florida. Curry said he dedicated so much time with them because “our local delegation matters.”
He characterized the meetings with the local contingent as “solid and good.”
Several, he said, will sign on as co-sponsors of bills filed by Sens. Rob Bradley and Aaron Bean and Rep. Travis Cummings, though he declined to say who.
Others had early questions that need more research and time to answer.
Getting complete buy-in from the local legislators will be important to other lawmakers, such as Rep. Mark Pafford, the Democratic minority leader from West Palm Beach.
“I told him I would probably look at the type of support it’s receiving locally,” said Pafford, who met with Curry on Tuesday afternoon.
That support comes not just from area legislators, but also from police and fire unions that are impacted, he said.
The Police and Fire Pension Fund board of trustees met this morning for the first time since Curry announced his plan. His administration will be on hand to make a presentation and answer questions.
Pafford said he didn’t want the Jacksonville plan to end up creating problems with other pension plans across the state.
“I want to make sure this thing isn’t a cancer to the rest of the state and municipalities,” Pafford said. “We shouldn’t create a problem when there isn’t one.”
The South Florida lawmaker also asked why a millage increase wasn’t an option.
Curry said Thursday the property tax bump would be “irresponsible” and said the half-cent sales tax extension isn’t an additional burden.
Pafford said the meeting went well and he was appreciative of Curry’s time to personally meet to pitch the plan — others don’t always make such efforts — but he is maintaining a wait-and-see approach.
“That’s a win,” Curry said after learning what Pafford told the Daily Record. “I’ll take that right now.”
Sen. Jeremy Ring, a Broward County Republican, is more supportive.
His office said after making progress in most of the state’s municipal pension plans last year, Jacksonville and Miami-Dade still need solutions.
Ring has a standing belief in home rule, said his office, and wouldn’t interfere with what the local community wants.
To that end, Ring would see that the Senate version of the bill would be heard in the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee as soon as possible.
As of Friday, the bills hadn’t been placed in any committees, but Ring’s office said it would “shocked” if it wasn’t in the group led by Ring.
Still, as Cummings and Bradley said last week, getting it past the House and Senate wouldn’t be easy. The Legislature hasn’t been keen on bills for taxes. Just the opposite.
Even if it does pass, the next hurdle would be Gov. Rick Scott.
Curry met with the governor Tuesday, hours after sitting next to Scott’s wife, Ann, during the governor’s annual State of the State address.
Curry said Scott is watching the bill and how legislators treat it, but was non-committal on support.
“I just asked him to keep an open mind,” said Curry.
The mayor said he’d be back in Tallahassee again to speak with lawmakers on the issue this session, but didn’t know when.
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