Civic › Jacksonville, FL › September 24, 2026

FAO Select Committee - Sep 24, 2026

Jacksonville, FL City Council September 24, 2026 6 minutes
▶ Watch original video Interactive viewer Search Jacksonville meetings

Transcript

Speaker0:00

Good morning. Why don't we go ahead and start with introductions and get started. Good morning. This is the Financial Audit and Oversights Select Committee on JEA matters. And why don't we start with introductions to my far left. Brandon Russell, Council Research. Mary Stafopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Philip Peterson, Council Auditor. Brian Parks, Council Auditor's Office. Ron Salem, Group 2 at Large. Chris Miller, Group 5 at Large. Mike Gage is visiting. I should also mention Council Member Carlucci is out of town, but normally would be here. I also want to recognize Inspector General Matt Lassell, who's in the audience, that was the thrust behind this JEA issue in terms of capacity fees. So let me ask Rob, or Rob, you want to come forward and sort of outline where you are? Yes. Good morning. I'm Rob Zamatero, Chief Operating Officer for the Water System at JEA. And I'd first like to thank the committee and the auditor for all their time and assistance on this issue. Where we are today is we did provide a memo to the committee, but I will outline some of the next steps coming up. In the next couple months, we will be putting a formal policy and updating the tariff language, and that will go in front of our board. So there will be a whole, you know, typical policy as far as public notice and go through that procedures. Once the board approves the policies and procedures, we'll then go through the evaluation period. That should happen probably in the beginning of the year. We do have some internal updates to our systems to accomplish based on the policy that's approved. And then as that, once that's all done and we go through the initial analysis in the beginning of next year, we will identify any of the ones that had historical issues. And also a lot of the monitoring that's going forward. And really that's the main focus is, you know, how we manage this going forward in a clear and transparent way. So there is a lot of communication that has to happen with our customers. There's around 1,700 customers that fall in the category that we've been discussing. So we'll be doing that. And all of that work that will be ongoing in the next 6 to 12 months will be reported out quarterly. So we're not operating in a vacuum. We do do typically a quarterly report, finance update to the council and to the council auditor. So we'll include all the updates of the progress that we're making as we go in that quarterly report as we go along. Okay. And I think that will satisfy Mr. LaSalle in terms of there being – I shared your email with him, and he was just looking for some monitoring mechanism external to JEA, and I think the auditors are perfect for that. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments? Are there questions from the committee members and such? I think we've got a process, and I think it's President Howland's goal to close this out with that process. Do you have any comments, Mr. President? I do. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry for my tardiness. The goal of the Financial Auto and Oversight Select Committee looking at unbilled water capacity fees was to ensure that JEA was building a process moving forward and to work with them as necessary on that. I think you just reported the process. I read the report that you distributed ahead of time. And Mr. Chair and Mr. Vice Chair, I think you're Vice Sheriff. I forget if it's you or Joe, Chris. Regardless, the three of you. I'm not sure off the top of my head. I forget. But if you two on the FAO Select Committee are satisfied that that has been done, so am I. And I'm grateful to JEA for coming to this committee and reporting that information, reporting the process forward and starting to collect more unbilled water capacity fees from those who owe it, moving forward to reduce the pressure on, otherwise reduce the pressure on ratepayers. So I'm very satisfied that we can conclude proceedings if you are, Mr. Chair. Thanks. No, I think with the monitoring of the auditors, did either one of you want to say anything in terms of what you intend to do? Through the chair, to the committee, as Mr. Zamataro indicated, we'll review that as they submit their reporting with a quarterly report. And then we do intend to conduct an audit at some point in the future, but want them to have the process in place. It has gone on for a little bit of time, so there is actual data to look at, but we do have that on our radar. Mr. LaSalle, did you want to make any comments? Are you satisfied with all this? I think it would be great to get you on the record. Good morning. Matt LaSalle, Inspector General, through the chair and to the committee. I just appreciate the opportunity to be involved in this process. I appreciate you forwarding me the memo. And like I said, my only concern was that we have some mechanism of external oversight. And I think the council auditors are absolutely the right folks to do that. So with that in mind, I think this is an outstanding way forward and look forward to the process. Okay. Thank you. There are no other comments. We will end this meeting and reconvene the JTA notice meeting in about five minutes or so. Thank you.