everyone good afternoon time is four o'clock uh we're going to start this notice meeting uh we have the room for just one hour this time and i think we want to make sure that we walk out of here with a piece of legislation um and kind of kind of move forward we're trying to make the wednesday uh deadline so that's kind of why we're i want us to just go right to business um we're going to start with uh introductions starting from our left go right ahead britney norris mayor's office shannon mcgillis office of general counsel jimmy palusa district seven reginald gaffney jr district eight charles morland jea thank you very much yeah if you got red that means you can talk different than the other room which is different than another room whatever and so none of our systems make sense um thank you all for being here today uh thank you uh to to my my co-chair um councilmember gaffney uh do you have anything before we kind of start that you kind want to dive into we'll jump straight into it i think the fact remains the same that we need some utility relief you know we're still getting calls up until this day you know um hopefully after this meeting we can try to have some type of solution you know so at the last um week meeting i have gotten calls from all types of groups all types of individuals um seeking utility so hopefully after the day we can have some type of resolution thank you understood thank you very much and i believe we might have another council member here to join us would you like to introduce yourself ma'am council member paluso good afternoon everyone i'm tyrona clout murray district nine thank you for joining us today um and and we truly appreciate uh your efforts in this again i think we've all kind of gotten these phone calls um and heard about needs for for assistance um i want to kind of go back to where we were last meeting right we talked to a number of providers got a good kind of understanding about what programs exist now i know that i've tried to become in the span of a couple days more of a of a try to learn more about how these non-profits operate and help with utility assistance um that i knew before there's a lot of non-profits that are providing assistance um including the city of jacksonville right through our parks rec and community services division but every program has something a little bit different the one the two things that the city of jacksonville and correct me if i'm wrong anyone the two the two programs that the city of jacksonville has one of which is under parks rec and community services and that's a utility assistance program that we've internally created so dollars come out of the budget go to parks rec community services and they're able to spend those dollars uh you're able to get assistance once every 18 months in that program and that's under daryl joseph shop and then under the neighbor to neighbor program which was codified in law in 1987 by city council that is a jea program where households and families and rate payers can put can can voluntarily put dollars aside put into a pot of money and jea is able to distribute those dollars to go into utility assistance via the united way in in the in the code it specifically says the united way is going to administer the program and correct me if i'm wrong uh charles please so that's correct it's the neighbor to neighbor program you described it appropriately um the funds are distributed through um two-on-one then it gets to catholic charities catholic charities then takes care of it from that point moving forward it's it's my understanding that so in in the law or in the in the bill it's codified as united way as the administrator i think since 1987 catholic charities has been the one via the 211 program that actually administers the dollars so 211 still continues to be this pre-screening uh operator and then can send it off to one of a number of providers however it's catholic charities that does the neighbor to neighbor program right so a lot of other assistance is given through different operators jewish um family services desk um elder source uses uh eheap dollars um nefka uses liheap dollars both of those are federal programs so there's a lot of stuff that exists it's just a matter of what does the city of jacksonville kind of have the most direct engagement on and that's kind of the parks and rec and then this neighbor to neighbor program and even then it's not city dollars that go into neighbor to neighbor it just happens to be codified so that's that's everything that i've kind of learned in the past uh in the past week um and lord knows i'm probably forgetting some other incredible organization that's out there supporting families right now but all that to say as we are trying to i think get a bill out by wednesday i want to make sure that we sort of saw okay where does this two last time i said 2.3 million um was what i want to uh ask my colleagues if we we feel confident going for 2.3 million from reserves to to go into some kind of utility assistance program so the first question i think we all asked ourselves was all right well if we got parks and rec administering dollars why not give them all the money to which i think parks and rec and any other organization would say you give me that kind of money i gotta hire more staff i need more people to administer and so it was a matter of okay well we don't want to overburden a city department and especially have them hire more staff if they're not going to be able to continue that staff in future years i don't think our colleagues would be on board with that they've kind of told us that in different iterations but how much can they take on and so parks and rec oh do you have a do you want to jump in go ahead yeah i was just gonna say i think parks and rec um from what i understand they could take on about an extra 200 000 without hiring additional staff and they can readdress their program so it's not just once every 18 months but go ahead uh councilwoman first of all um sorry for being a little tardy but um what i i want to say if we if we're if we have the funding to do what we need to do one of the things i want to make sure is that access um you know 211 and other organizations they only have a certain amount of time and a lot of time people are getting cut off and so we need to look at the big picture um of how they can access these funds that would be my major concern because sometimes we don't know if they get so overwhelmed the staff they may not have the capacity to distribute the funds the way it needs to be distributed now i know organizations like even jea had a program the neighbor to neighbor program and then they were even collecting funds from different businesses by um asking individuals or companies to donate it and if they're and i don't know if jea could do this or not but we need access like immediate access when people either have a day before they cut off or it might be today so whatever we're doing i think we need to to align and be a um be an asset to those organizations not the ones that are already doing like the regular stuff because you they open the lines up at eight o'clock they open it up by eight o'clock they're probably going to have 20 people on the already and then those dollars are just written off and of course yeah you have united way as well but we want to make sure that whatever dollars that we do we need to be able to have it done immediately councilman i think your frustration and your for one you probably you two both know more about non-profit work than i certainly do and you hit the nail on the head we we talked about that a little bit in the last meeting yeah these dollars can't just be can't just get written and we say goodbye you got to get more staff to be able to administer those dollars and it's got to be fast because if if the public sees and we cut a two million dollar check they're going to expect that they get those access to those dollars immediately as opposed to having to wait three four or five months no question um you know as i kind of talk with our auditors and our and our attorneys i thought some dollars can go into parks and rec immediately where they can spend dollars we already have staff to do that and you're right you got to call like on a tuesday to make sure you get the assistance and then two one one united way told us they can they can handle the rest of the dollars and get an additional staff member to through their network and make sure those dollars go out a lot faster and i want to call i called correct up here i kind of brought her up here and credit pay you can introduce yourself and just kind of maybe go over a little bit more about sort of what we discussed oh yeah my apologies we're going to recognize uh councilwoman clark murray real real quick so um through the chair to council member pittman i i think i just want just some clarification so i think what you're saying is not so much about the the funding that we are that we're proposing but access through those programs that there's no delay i think that's what you're trying to emphasize right yes a little of both to be honest because i don't think one program could handle all we need right the complaints that i hear about is that they can't get in to talk to someone or it might be a senior that don't know the process of how to maneuver to get the money you know what i mean so i don't know if we can have an organization or a couple of organizations that if your lights are going to be turned off less than three days or two days i i'm just saying it out loud i don't really know but the most immediate because a lot of the organizations have allocated dollars even um our social services have that but at least they may have a little time let's say if if if they're two months behind right they they make an appointment with social services or we call they try to help them within a certain period right but if you have somebody like a 211 or ja again that works with these organizations to keep those lights on to keep them from being cut off because a lot of the families are already stressed out and struggling right and and and even if they live in low-income housing if you don't have any lights then they they cancel or terminate your your your um housing so we got to make sure whatever we do it's going to be something that's immediate so then with that being said i think that there should be look at each program and see how the dollars are distributed immediately in terms of each program like she's going to talk about united way so what the turnaround time is for them actually receiving service and i'm i'm assuming that when there is a program that's who jea that it's a little more immediate than other programs if you understand the point that i'm making all right thank you if you may uh one of the questions that was asked to me um last week after the meeting how did we come up with or how did you come up with two million dollars um 2.3 you know one of the organizations that reached out to me they asked hey can we can we use the non-profit you know how did we come up with this 2.3 million dollars so if you want to elaborate on that that would be great thank you i mean it is it is a little bit arbitrary you know i i i chose i wanted two million dollars an actual dollars to go out and hit the street um i i felt like when we looked at i think it was an average of about 650 dollars per household um we've been told that a lot of a lot of the services that we provide get drained by the middle of the year or maybe eight months into the year and right now with with the rate increase and with the economy as it is i i thought two million dollars made sense i thought it was a good round number and then the extra 300k was for additional ftes and folks to be able to hire staff to be able to administer those dollars because to the point of what we're all concerned about we don't want we don't want these dollars just sit in a bank account for four months before dollars get out right so so that it it frankly is a little arbitrary it is so if if anyone thought there was a magic reason why it was that number it was two million because i thought it was a nice round number 300k for for uh help for if to fts the the my other question another person also brought it to my attention what about veterans can we set aside maybe a hundred thousand and this to the whole committee can we set a hundred side a hundred thousand two hundred thousand aside for veterans you know so i just want to put that on the table as well as we you know conversate this next 50 minutes about veterans as well because it's a lot of veterans that need utility relief as well so i just for one as far as i'm concerned you're you're my you're my co-introducer on this where your head is at is where where i want this to go but also i think it's it's for anyone who's having a tough time right now veterans are a part of that equation no no question and i don't know if we want to bifurcate too much and confuse some of our colleagues but if that's that's what you want to do as a veteran myself i certainly know the the struggle that a lot of households have um especially when they got a bunch of kids and they're living on off-base housing i mean it's real so if that's if that's what you're looking to do i'm listen i'll support whatever you want so a lot of programs i don't want to segregate anything the populations that are being served right because a lot of like i know that our veteran services they do have a lot of programs um and or they know how to get funding from other organizations but at the end of the day i thought we were talking about people who are in need and i don't want to segregate anybody is anybody that need help you know if it's one or two days before them lights are cut off we need to make sure you can call this number and it may be because it's you know that's not a whole lot i'm gonna be honest with you that's not a whole lot of money if we have a whole lot of people who need help people are being laid off right now it's not just poor people you know it's people that have jobs either their hours are being cut and they're just not making ends meet insurance for the cars they're being increased you know and so at the end of the day you want to make sure you got a roof over your head and you got some lights in the house so if we can look at i mean i'm really glad that we're talking about this because you really can't have one without the other if you lost some income right my comment is that i don't know how we can disaggregate the people who need help i think that would be difficult unless you're talking about that pot of money the 100 000 to specifically to veteran services so that way it could be done you know it would go specifically to help veterans so i don't know how you could disaggregate like we just like councilmember pitman said the fact that you know everyone needs help so i think the whole pot should be distributed among those programs that are existing rather than disaggregate yeah all right thank you and personally i would love to see additional support for rental assistance for housing assistance for all these things it's just i i feel like sometimes you got to get the the city zeitgeist you got to get our colleagues on the same page and i think sometimes there's a bridge too far for some of our colleagues i think utility assistance is something we all we all feel we all know we all recognize as an issue at this very moment that that you know that i think everyone can get behind which is why i'm going down this avenue but i think if we help people with utility assistance it's it still helps them with those other things right now they don't need to worry about rent to the same degree for that month i would like to hear from jea in terms of the number of people that are either being cut off or pending and or if you work with the different organizations that this money potentially may go to how do we put it on a fast track is there um let miss hill speak first but renee if there's any way that we can look at oh i'm sorry i'm i'm sorry i thought you know i keep forgetting you you know over you but thank you can can you help us out i can so did you want coretta to speak first yeah well whichever since she's been standing up there a little bit can you help us out let her go and then if you would speak to the chair um thank you again um the question was kind of what we discussed previously my name is coretta hill my address is on file and i want to just kind of go back to kind of the foundation of how 211 works because i know that has been a little bit of confusion about we are the net the the epicenter or the the hub if you will where the majority of good more tens of thousands of calls come in every week for all sorts of emergency assistance needs as you mentioned housing which is actually housing stability is actually at the top of that list right behind housing is utility assistance right behind that are food and transportation needs our team is seven days a week 24 7 so we answer those calls seven days a week 24 7 the majority as you would imagine of the calls come in during the day and our daytime team is 7 a.m to 7 p.m with multiple shifts i also mentioned last week that that daytime team includes seven people total assuming no one's on vacation or out sick or with issues but on a full day we have seven total people available to take calls the the way that our network works in general 90 of the calls that we get are referred out to organizations in our database we have a database of thousands of organizations including the city of jacksonville and we do make referrals to the city of jacksonville along with a list of others in addition to that we have a network it's a community navigation network which is that closed loop model the reason why it's a closed loop model and the difference is when we make a referral to for example the city of jacksonville those individuals make the call based on the you know the number we give them but we don't know what happens on the other side so we don't know when they reach that particular organization if they receive the help that they need it because the system is clogged right we give them referral but we can't tell you what happens now we do surveys and we do follow-up calls but we can't follow up and survey every single caller the community navigation network are a list of very defined partners that we've been working with for many years we are expanding that partnership but right now it includes catholic charities who's here today eileen sutter's here as well as jewish family and community services i don't know if mary maryland darius is here but she was planning to join and desk um it led by tina worth now if you've seen that announcement those three organizations have partnered with united way to pre-screen their their calls meaning they send all of the call their callers to us we in individuals looking for emergency assistance our team of seven pre-screens those calls to indicate specifically for eligibility requirements because as you all know very different funding sources have different eligibility requirements united way in addition to the funding sources that each three each of these three organizations receive majority of them receive some pg p sg dollars they also receive dollars from united way and other private and government funding sources all vary so depending on the funding source and the availability of the week they give us the set number of appointments on a monday so that on tuesday what we consider a lot of people know that as a direct referral or a community and the way that we navigate that is by providing that direct appointment to the individual organization so those individuals who get pre-screened and an appointment they know when they show up it is likely they're going to get served and we also know on the back end whether they got served because they these organizations enter all of the data into a shared database and system that we we each use that is the difference between the regular kind of information and referral network of getting information out and the ability to close the loop with that network of partners where we have the information and we also meet regularly to to to share and understand what's happening common themes etc with the purpose of improving the system and that network of partners is committed to doing that so that is the difference in the two and what we discussed is initially catholic charities obviously already being the neighbor to neighbor partner i will say since our conversation um councilman peluso you encouraged me to reach out to the other partners to see because if there are more to your uh you mentioned councilman um jacobi uh councilman pitman you are very right in that the more partners that could expand the dollars the the better um opportunity for the dollars to be distributed and each of them have said they would be able to do that i have also asked specifically what can you do um at a minimum with the current infrastructure that we currently have and i have some numbers from each of them to be able to help you all come to a good number um based on what i was shared with the three and um and that does not include of course what you shared because the city of jacksonville is not part of that network so that's a separate entity but in in completion the sum total um is around 750 000 that that is without any anything obviously everyone has indicated that still will put a strain on the team but with understandable understandably so we recognize um the the dynamics of that with an additional you know percentage that could be lower than what we initially discussed last week they could accommodate even more so that is an update for you today and i'll take any questions but i wanted to make sure you understood the 211 process we are more than a connector it is connecting while also vetting while also quite frankly our team is trained to not just listen for the utility need but to ask questions because to the point most times the utility need means there's a food need or transportation need so oftentimes a caller can call in about one thing but when they leave or when they get off the call they're giving resources for multiple multiple resources and that's the difference a couple questions one i'd like to know once you all screen the individuals how what's the percentage of those individuals coming to the appointments that um are assigned because then it becomes a transportation issue so if you can talk a little bit about that um and of course they're not going to tell you i got transportation issues because they they they trying to get that bill paid can you can you give me an idea what percentage of them make the appointment opposed to them not making their appointment to the chair yes um the majority and i don't have the exact percentage um and i'm i certainly if any of my my partners here can answer that specifically but because we do closed loop we do excuse me we know that the majority of those that get an appointment also get served and if there is a transportation transportation issue we identify that as well on the call united way does provide transportation assistance also limited funding but available for individuals who are in need of a ride to work to a health care non-emergency health care appointment as well as access for food and so if there is a transportation need specifically to emergency financial assistance that is also um or any basic need we can address that on the call as well and is that also a partnership with jta i know they have a ready ride program or is that totally different to the chair our this is a specific program it's called ride united it's in partnership with lift and through private dollars we're able to provide those those um rides for um those specific basic needs i indicated earlier okay thank you well i know that we also discussed that this these dollars would be potentially used over the course of two years but going over the course of two years it would have been two years of ftes um i think we kind of had a conversation about maybe only doing one year um and trying to get these dollars out uh during the one year period is that something that's still that you guys are comfortable with doing and then also how much would you do you think is available do you think is appropriate for uh for admin and ftes yes to the chair um based on my conversations with the other partner networks and again um the we discussed that uh we could absolutely dispense the dollars with now with recognition of all of us working together on this um rather than um putting the burden on one partner and uh we agreed that an average of 10 to 15 would allow still some of the like again just back in administrative things because as you can imagine more checks have to be cut to jea or just things that most people don't think about it's not just you know getting dollars out the door there's a process to that but an average 10 to 15 would be um very uh very much possible and um would allow for us to to expand that within the year so if i'm if i'm doing kind of quick math that's you know we can get to around 200 000 of the one so i initially said 2.3 2.3 was the number 400 000 will go to parks and rec and community services to 200 for this year 200 for next year so at least there's some additional for next year that's just under parks because that way we don't need to do term sheets or any of that then the remaining 1.9 now 200 000 would be taken out for admin support and then the rest would be used for services so about 1.7 million for services in one year during a one-year time term go ahead no i just want to make sure um heard miss hill correct but she said i think the partner organizations you guys could take 750 000 uh this so i just want to make sure you said 1.9 yes 1.9 for for two years no for a one-year time period and we should call this like the city to neighbor program it'll be administered just like neighbor neighbor but with a different funding source so you said 1.9 and i and i think i heard you say like y'all could take i mean y'all feel comfortable taking 750 000 correct yes just to be clear to for clarity that 750 was without any administrative support that is basically absorbing the um current capacity so the the partner said they would be able to um administer without any additional support anything over that that we would need at least that 10 or 15 percent if that makes sense okay okay um i'm sure y'all have some type of software where you talk with each other and um a family could only apply one time in a certain amount of time six months once a year what does that look like so i can kind of take that one under this city to neighbor program it would be uh a thousand dollars that a household can can get within a year so they could potentially come one or two different times if they needed to and keep in mind that's just under this program so you could still go to parks and rec and community services potentially for some other assistance and then maybe there's another program out there that somebody could take advantage of if they need to but it would be a maximum of a thousand dollars during the term of the city to neighbor program um and to the chair also i would we would we would all recommend you know obviously the more flexibility you provide the easier the more opportunity is to get dollars out the door as well i know my partner jewish family community services indicated that even the average 650 utility bill can sometimes be a thousand dollars or because if individuals are um you know maybe um they they had a payment plan that did not they didn't complete then there's an additional fee and so sometimes there's a cutoff service plus maybe an additional fee to even just get their their lights turned back on and to help them remain stable so even some flexibility there would help because some of these bills may actually be considerably more than the average utility bill because it includes late fees and um you know shut off uh reinstatement all of the above and and under neighbor to neighbor there is means testing i think it's eighty percent ami so so at the very least they're still it's helping the households that need it does that number not make you feel comfortable so again by the time they come to us the bill is two months behind right and to get them started almost like a new slate until they get themselves or if they can again if they're on um an income that may not be able to pay for that next month's bill am i making sense that i don't know if a thousand dollars is going to be enough now one of the things i do know that ja has i don't know the name of the program but it's it's like um you they pay a certain amount a month a a a month and at the end of the year there's a difference i mean i i don't know if we can even consider that to kind of help people where you you you pay right let's say we we get the slate clean and if it's if it's individuals that are having continuous problem paying their ja that we put them on that monthly plan where they pay four hundred dollars a month and then at the end of the year if there's still an issue can this money help with that giving people more than one option to try to pay take care of their bills okay through the chair to councilwoman pitman thank you for the opportunity to speak we have several customer support opportunities options for our customers they can do a pay extension they can have a pay arrangement they can do my way they can do my budget that's what you're speaking about where it levelize their payments for over the 12 month period and they can pay it like that the i think the biggest key um that i want to mention is that before a before our customers find themselves in a bad situation they need to be making contact with with their utility services where we can get you know provide the the the gateway for support through our partners that are the ones that uh look to to find ways to help our our citizens that are that are in need that has to happen but i also want to mention and coretta alluded to this they do a great job helping all of our partners do a wonderful job once they get a voucher once they get some sort of um confirmation that they're going to get dollars um their their power is not turned off those come those conversations are had between the the provider and the utility they get a voucher so that stops any enforcement activity from happening and sometimes it takes 30 to 45 days for those things to to get moving but it stops that enforcement process because we know that there's a dollar attached to paying that individual um that individual cost their their payment i also wanted to provide a follow-up the councilman gaffney jr's comment last week he wanted to know about the number of individuals that are um behind and their payment i didn't have that of relatively available to me and i wanted to have accurate information for him so just some some level setting 85 percent of our residential customers pay their current bill within that zero to 30 day period 12 percent pay before the 60 day past due mark and 97 of customers have paid by the 60 on the by day 60 on average so we like to focus on the 61 day to 90 day bucket because we realized that once that debt starts to occur it's harder and harder to collect at that point and customers then start having multiple bills so now i want to hit your your your point councilman gaffney the 61 to 90 day period where we passed due it's nine thousand three hundred and eighty one residential customers nine thousand three hundred and eighty one residential customers days 91 to 120 is 3387 that number goes down because people start paying their bill or they get some sort of support assistance they get put on a payment arrangement all of the things start happening but even with that i want to make sure that we understand that um they get disconnection warnings day 37 day 42 they get phone calls about their bill needing to be paid they say multiple three auto calls attempts to reach the customer on subsequent days so there's a lot of things happen long before it gets to the point where we're making a cut on their um on their um electricity long before it gets there so just wanted to mention that piece and and just one more question yes ma'am so if someone can't make their payment by the extension and maybe you know something comes up what can't do you all still make like a second extension or what what what is so it's it's it's it's a variable thing that you know we work with our customers that that is a hundred percent fact we work with our customers we want to keep their electric their water on just as much as they want to keep it on and we find ways to try to help our customers out which is the reason why in the big scheme the bigger number of customers that jea has to service that number that i mentioned to you is relatively small although there's a concern the number is not as big as one may think and and the marketing what are you i know y'all used to have monthly and i'm sorry i wasn't here last week so if y'all address this i just want to got about 20 minutes okay that'd be my last question about marketing to make sure because a lot of the people that that are in that small percentage that you've mentioned um they may not be um middle class individuals right so i'm trying to because a lot of times those individuals are too proud to ask for help i understand and so you know if if you all still have that brochure like in the monthly bill do y'all still do that so a lot of folks are on e-bill um 67 of our folks are now using e-bill we do have it on our website we market it every day with our call advisors we have call advisors that get over 50 000 calls a month and you know people calling about their bill and things of that nature and ways to save and all the different um um different opportunities that we have and i will simply say this to you love to get you over there to kind of get you through some of that so you can see some of the additional things that we do but on senior day you know those dollars that we get from the neighbor to neighbor program truly goes to our seniors catholic charities does an amazing job getting those dollars out we had over 658 seniors that came through and fy26 over 127 seniors got support of about 67 000 along with the energy audits efficiency audits um all sorts of uh activity over 20 000 um audits that were correction over 5726 audits energy and water efficiency audits were done in 20 and 26 so there's a lot happening getting done if our customers reach out to us we're able to find ways to help them you start this new program will you be able to have all of the agencies that we're considering today on your email or email whatever we will work with our partners like we always get paper so i want to make sure that those agencies are at the bottom of where they can call and get some additional through the chair whatever comes out of the meetings and and whatever help that we can provide from jea standpoint we will do that okay that's all thank you councilman no you're funny questions are great and and information is vitally important right now and i want to make sure that all of us are comfortable with with what emergency legislation we may push because we need 13 votes so so if the if a thousand dollars doesn't feel right um i just felt like that was a pretty a pretty good number you know if 650 tends to be the average i just kind of look at some of our colleagues and i feel like more than a thousand might rub them the wrong way i also want to make sure what we're using not to mention there's still other outlets that people can go to outside of these programs that were up to maybe 1200 that's just me but with that with you know cost going up i don't know yep so you're recommending 1200 yeah um i just feel like going up to an extra somebody that might have uh works with me for the purpose of us just diving in but but i just want to reiterate what what i'm expecting to file and that's um emergency legislation so it's going to be filed by wednesday and go through the cycle immediately thereafter um and it would be 400 000 for parks and rec and community services for their utility assistance program um and that's two you know 200 000 for year one 200 000 for year two because they can they can take that on without hiring new people so that's those are dollars that immediately go out to people right now then the rest goes through united way via this new program city to neighbor united way would you know we would do 200 000 for administrative services that they would work with their additional partners to make sure that if they need to pay out more to to jewish services desk uh nefka whomever else to get an extra half an fte they can do that they have to work with our auditors to make sure they're telling us that and that would leave 1.7 million out of the 1.9 million to go directly into services for one year and we find out how fast they go through those dollars keep in mind they do have some dollars now right so it's not like they're starting with nothing they do have the ability to pay out at this moment but we are giving them emergency support and that would be known as the city to neighbor program different from the neighbor to neighbor program that united way does directly you know under under city code just are there any major questions on that do you want to and also philip is looking at me like i'm crazy did i did i provide the information correctly all right do any questions from from folks up here and or concerns and or thoughts and or desires to change anything it does it does it feel like this is a good way to get the dollars out fast oh and we have mary stefopoulos don't rain on my parade mary i'm not here to rain on your parade i'm just here to remind you about a couple of other parameters that we talked about you briefly mentioned the 80 ami there's been some discussion about what the maximum dollar amount per account holder or household would be we've talked about a thousand council member pitman mentioned 1200 you also addressed the potential of advancing some some amount up to maybe 25 percent so that there was some additional funding on hand rather than having to do a true reimbursement starting at the beginning so you may just want to talk about that too as well understood you're correct and i think we are going to change it to 1200 as the max per household and i did say because when we discussed with united way and their partners they had said look you know it's a lot to ask of us as you know just start just start spending dollars and then come back to the city monthly for reimbursements they were asking for 25 of the dollars up front so they could start doing their hiring and start doing the administration administrative work immediately does everyone feel comfortable on that okay and thank you mary for for keeping me honest um are there any other thoughts questions or concerns i do have a few comment cards that i did kind of want to go to and i think we have time to but any other thoughts i know this is your first meeting councilwoman and i'm so grateful you're here because you probably have a lot of residents that that could use some assistance i know pretty much all of our districts have a lot of folks and and luckily councilmember romero was here last time as well he's got a lot of residents in in the arlington area that i know need assistance um dr moreland anything before we kind of go to public comment all right we're gonna we're gonna give everyone um two minutes each um try to stay within that if you go a little bit over you know let it happen uh loreen husband come on up after that is suzanne sap followed by deborah thompson followed by reverend meyer go ahead miss husband name uh an address for the record nope hit it can you hear me there we go uh loreen has been my address is on file um so jacksonville needs to fix utility costs and not just help to pay the bills assistance treats the symptom not the cause the two million dollars in city reserves this council members have proposed will help some families catch up this year but jacfo has already said another rate hike is coming in 2027 28. each year the gap gets bigger and needs more relief money if the city does not deal with the rates it's committing to bailouts every year residents are paying twice in f in fiscal year 2026 jas sent about 179 million to the city's general fund including a one-time 40 million increase counting franchise fees and the public service tax the total is about 348 million if rate pairs fund the city through their bills and then the city sends a small share back as assistance that's not relief lowering or limiting the city's take from jea would reach every household right away the button is growing faster than families can absorb it since october 1st electric rates are up more than six percent water and sewer rates are up eight percent that's the second increase in about a year and a half families are getting bills of about 500 when they expected 100 to 200 and united ways two-on-one line took more than 4 600 calls from duval residents in a year with only seven staff a small assistant assistance fund cannot keep up we're building their infrastructure does that mean this is going to be a permanent program or what are we doing assistance leaves out the working families who are just above the cutoff relief programs have have income limits paperwork and wait times and they only reach people who know how to apply seniors on fixed incomes working families and small businesses that do not qualify still pay the full higher rates addressing the rates protects everyone's assistance only needs to help people who assistance only helps people who manage to get through the process the city has leveraged so we should use it jea supposedly is owned by us the city council approves its contribution agreement before approving more rate hikes or paying for big projects like the 1.5 billion new power plant council can ask for independent review of jea spending thank you very much i could go on no i know you could i'm sorry i'm trying to get to everyone we had kicked out of here at five and these staffers have stuck around a long day today uh miss sap go ahead you have two minutes hello everyone thank you um council member peluso um and gaffney and everyone else my name is suzanne sap my address is on record um i'm here with the sierra club and with the um duval affordable clean energy coalition and um you know i'm really concerned about um i appreciate the fact that we're talking about some solutions but um you know as a former trauma nurse we've got a sucking chest wound here and we're trying to put a band-aid on it i'm not really sure why we um the rate payers are bailing out our public utility not sure about that so we need immediate intervention to help people pay bills um a short term remedy so this doesn't continue to happen month after month and a long-term plan for jea's electricity energy decision making does anybody in this room actually know how jea makes decisions i would love to understand that um so no disconnections and remove the disconnect notice from the required qualification for assistance we've heard that it's a long process there's several emails and text messages um disconnects take three days and energy um bill assistance sometimes take 30 to 45 days um so some short-term remedies free energy audits and programs to help weatherize homes that's great if you own a home um if you're a renter not really sure what you do because some of the slumlords in this town are not gonna um come and put insulation and attics and new windows in for you so what are we doing for our renters um education on time of use rates we need a community advisory council for jea we the rate payers who all of this is being done on our backs we deserve um a seat at the table where energy decisions are being made we don't have that jea refuses to give us that they make these decisions we get three minutes at public comment nobody responds we need a forensic internal audit and financial adjustments to maintain or even reduce rates we need to meet people where they are we need to figure out renewable energy and we need a long-term plan it's great that we're talking about the short-term solution laurene brought up a bunch of good points is this going to be an annual thing what does that look like i don't know but we need a long-term plan jea is currently conducting a secret energy planning process called an integration resource plan and we need a seat at the table thank you thank you very much deborah thompson followed by uh rubber and meyer and and to the credit of our last public commenters um a lot of the comments are brought up they brought up in the past also franchise fee discussion has been something that's been brought up in the past too so just go ahead chair and to all of the councilmen and to our visitors my name is deborah thompson and um i work with the um environmental and climate justice committee for the naacp and i've also worked with um low and moderate income families refugees and other people on fixed incomes for more than 30 years it is very difficult to budget and work with an individual to do financial literacy or any other program that you might put out here to fall into a situation to where an electric bill is higher than the house note it is a very difficult situation to work with families single parent families with more than two children in a home sometimes that is not at the um minimum housing code which allows the um electric bill to be higher in many cases especially during the winter so our appeal to you today is to look for again like a long-term strategy or to work with individuals in these low and moderate income and put them on a fixed rate so that that rate is not so that the bill is not escalating and um on a monthly basis because over a period of time it is just very difficult for a single parent family on a fixed income or an unstable income many of our families are on unstable incomes and um those incomes are fluctuating with part-time jobs two and three jobs in some instances so that is very difficult so we'd like for you to put a human side to the things that you do we as citizens all the time do not understand the operations of business and those things are being pushed on individuals that have no wherewithal nor do they have anything to fight with so we're asking you to help us help them i'm also a helper and a provider for small um low and moderate income families as well as refugees that come into our country and it is very difficult to work with them with an escalating um electric bill which is a necessity in this day and time thank you thank you ma'am lastly reverend dr russell meyer thank you mr chair council members my address is on record i am also the pastor of st john's lutheran church in historic springfield uh we have a hundred year old building uh we have a hundred year old building i have a hundred year old house and i would dare say that most of the people who fall in arrears more than 60 days or in older homes they need energy efficiency i appreciate you recognize the emergency the emergency is not going away it's a permanent feature you can just check the temperature records i say a prayer every day a prayer i think many of you probably say as well and uh one line end of it goes forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us i want to know why we're bailing out the oil and coal industry why aren't we moving toward energy that actually is affordable and renewable and clean why are we putting poison in the air and then saying to our most vulnerable people oh by the way we're going to shut you off when we have the means we have the resources to help people in their homes as you move through this process please move to a true solution the city can work with jea you can create a financing program in which every single family household homesteaded or not can qualify for a loan that would be paid back over amortization on tax bills lien is there whether they're a renter or a homeowner that property could be brought up to date with energy efficiency you have the audits from jea there are ways of solving this problem to make these high rates go away and make housing affordable and livable for the people who are most vulnerable in our city we should not be asking the most burden to carry the heaviest burden i ran the numbers three percent that's roughly 14 000 households based upon what jea says the residential um um clientele is um we can afford this out of 180 billion dollars we can afford to fix the problem with real solutions i would just like to conclude by saying we're better than where we are let's be better in what we do thank you reverend that's all the public comments we only have this one i i did want to ask jea one quick question just really quick i just want to be a co-introducer thank you ma'am i appreciate that uh last time we did have a number of public commenters come up and speak about how high their bills were tough times um have we addressed the issues of those individuals who came by at the last notice meeting i just want to make sure to the chair to the chair thank you for that we did um the very next day we spoke to the individuals that had concern about their bill and we were able to take care of that there were some um understanding issues there that we were able to clear up and and most times that's what we find issues that maybe they just don't understand something and they just need someone to walk them through it but we did the energy efficiency audit went out there and took care of that piece that was good that customer's in a good place and the and the other uh customer that had a concern we were able to take care of them excellent and i did call the one gentleman who was a veteran himself called him the very next day and he said i'm on the phone with jea right now thank you for your help so i am grateful to that i know we're wrapping up one other thing because i think this is important we have what we call an r3 program that this council in 2023 it's called repair restore for resiliency program that started off on the east side it's going in and retrofitting uh hvac systems and then weatherization program in the area that's extended through to 3220208 and 09 that that will sunset the end of the year and close to 70 homes over in those areas those zip codes that i just mentioned will have a better air better weatherization all of that so just want to mention that we work with the city and others to try to encourage you thank you doctor uh and and to to make sure everyone we this is an emergency bill for an emergency purpose the issues that that have been brought up today and have been brought up in other times about kind of the long-standing like oh where are we with energy utilization what can we do better those are those are conversations that we will have but right now we're trying to make sure that as we have uh incredibly high inflation incredibly high gas prices this is a way that we can support working families right now co-chair uh uh gaffney would you like to close us out no i'm extremely thankful thankful for everyone coming today including my colleagues at the end of the day i mean i know this would be you know this this this is this is a long-term fix at the end of the day i just want to be able to say we did something for right now we'll get back to the drawing board maybe in a few weeks to try to come up with a learned tone solution but at the end of the day hopefully this could offer some type type of relief right now jackson will have affordable housing crisis and hopefully they kind of put a dent in this if we could do that say somehow so so thank you to my colleagues i look forward being a co-sponsor this introduction and hopefully let's get people keep people from off the street so thank you um i appreciate it so we look forward bringing this bill before you guys and hopefully we can get the 13 bills i mean the 13 the 13 votes that we need um in a couple of weeks appreciate it thank you everyone for coming out we need to turn one fast meeting yes it's a one cycle it's on in and out that would that really would be a dead on dead on arrival you