Finance Committee - Budget Hearing #1 - Aug 13, 2026

Welcome to meeting number one to review the fiscal year 26-27 proposed budget. We'll go ahead and start off with introductions to my left. Angela Moyer, Budget Office. Mike Weinstein, Mayor's Office. Phillip Peterson, Councilor Auditor. Brian Parks, Councilor Auditor's Office. Mary Stifopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Good morning, Rory Diamond, District 13, The Beaches. Good morning, Chris Miller, At-Large Group 5. Will Lane, District 3. Jaren Freeman, At-Large Group 1. Mike Gay, District 2. Randy White, District 12. Nick Howland, At-Large Group 3. Ron Salem, Group 2, At-Large. Good morning, Michael Boylan, District 6. And way out here in right field is visiting Councilmember Matt Carlucci, At-Large Group 4. I still am a Councilmember. All right, good morning, everyone. So the order is going to be, the administration is going to kick us off with a presentation. Mr. Weinstein has a few comments. Then I have some housekeeping items just to go over all the meetings as we start the budget review season here. I'm going to review some of the guiding principles that I previously mentioned at the first finance committee of the year. And then we will start our line item review of the budget. So with that, Mr. Weinstein. And can you put 15 minutes on the clock? There you go. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'll probably take about four or five. I appreciate the opportunity. I'm not going to redo everything the mayor had presented. It was a very positive presentation. But basically, the budget was worked on for many months, listening to town halls, people, council members. And as you know, there are no dollars from the reserves. We did put in, without reserve dollars, the $10 million that the council had asked for as their priorities. That's in the budget. And no new FTEs, no new positions for the executive branch other than in public safety. And part of that is in preparation, just in case the Homestead Amendment passes. We didn't want to add any recurring obligations as we move forward because we'll have to make some really difficult decisions if it passes. We continue to manage the best we can the CIP. The fourth and fifth year, again, will be without funding. We're trying to manage probably, you know, well over $600, $700, $800 million worth of projects, get them out of the way before we continue to add new ones. As the budget is prepared, end of June through July, we deal with a lot of input, Tallahassee and others, in the analysis that we get from a lot of inputs. And then through the end of July and through August and through September, new opinions are made, new analyses are done, and adjustments are made, as they've been every year that we've done the budget. And even in the first day, in the next hour, we're going to have some out and in of dollars based on new information that has been presented to us since the budget was presented to us. You'll see in a press release probably today, the other two rating agencies also rated us as an affirmative AA, as they have the last few years. They make comments about our management decisions, and they make comments about the city of Jacksonville. And those comments aren't just for the administration. We are looked on as a team. It's council. It's the administration. We make decisions collectively on how dollars are spent and how budgets are done. You have your roles and we have ours. But we're looked at as a team. Some of you may not want to be on the same team, but we're looked at as a team. And as we move forward, I'm hoping that we function that way and we work through this budget that way. We're very proud and pleased as how we're looked at from the outside. And you also should be proud and pleased the way we're looked at from the outside. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you for the next couple of weeks. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein. I'd also like to welcome Council Member Johnson. Council Members, any questions for Mr. Weinstein before we move on? Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Weinstein. A couple housekeeping items. First off, oh, I'm sorry, Council President. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say a few opening remarks briefly and then I'll turn it over to you at your show. But to people like you and I, this is the most wonderful time of the year. I'm sure the auditors wouldn't feel the same way. But to me and you, it's the most wonderful time of the year. I'm so looking forward to getting going in this meeting today. And everything I said about the budget and how we should look at it and how I believe we should look at it, I said in my installation speech. And everybody knows we face revenue uncertainty in the fall. And because of that, it's only responsible that we scrutinize this budget line item by line item, focusing on the core. Just as a family who would face similar revenue uncertainty would look at their own budget line item by line item and focus on the core. Like Mr. Weinstein said, I hope when we go through this budget in detail, line item by line item, that we have a discussion on what is core, what core means to us. And that discussion remains cordial. That's my hope. And I also hope we can deliver a budget that spends less this year than we did last year, while still fully funding public safety, critical infrastructure, and essential core services. With that, sir, I'm excited to have you at the helm. And back to you, Chair Lehman. Thank you, Council President. I think me and you both ran on a we love budgeting platform, actually. So excited to be here. Council Member Carlucci, you're recognized. Wow, thank you. I wanted to make just one observation. I understand all the implications. I understood what our Council President said. But one thing I think we need to keep in mind is that all of the services and all of the, be they core, discretionary, whatever, they've already been paid for for this year by the taxpayers. So we should be careful what we decide to either cut or put under the line, whether it's temporary or permanently. Because there are people that are the recipients of these dollars who may have obligations already to pay for it. Council Member Carlucci, I did want to point out this was meant to be questions and answers to Mr. Weinstein at this point in time. Is that true, Mr. Weinstein, that these services, discretionary core, and recipients of these dollars, perhaps not-for-profits, might have obligations that are due and that this budget is already paid for by the taxpayers. Is that correct, sir? Well, I'm not really sure what you mean by it's already paid for. But basically, I'll close with this. The difference between core and non-core, what have you, the mayor feels that basically it's a full package, that everything is interrelated as our bodies are. And as we discuss the future, and we look to do it in a very cordial way, that we'll discuss basically how they're interrelated from our side and how maybe they're more separate from your side. And we look forward to the debate. Well, they will be funded based on the tax roll that's expected and not by a cut from Amendment 3, I guess is what I'm saying. Well, there's adequate funds to fund them. The decisions are ultimately to be made here by the Council. And that's the point I'm trying to make of our responsibility as we move ahead. Thank you. Thank you. No one else in the queue. A few housekeeping items. First off, for lunch, Council President, thank you for providing lunch today. I believe myself and someone else are providing lunch tomorrow. To the other Council members on finance, if you get with Amber or Jamie to try to fill in the remaining spots for budget meetings 3 through 6, as has been the tradition, we rotate who provides lunch. Visiting Council members, as long as we're on schedule, I'll recognize visiting Council members after committee members have been recognized the first time. But if we do get behind, the committee members will be the focus for discussion and debate. Also, if you're a visiting Council member, please let legislative services know if you leave, if you're done for the day, so they can reset the dais up here. As far as the clock, same thing. If we are on time, I do not plan on utilizing the clock. But if I get concerned that we are not going to finish our agenda by 5 p.m. on budget hearing days, we will start with the clock. There's two items I want Philip to cover for us before we start. The first one, the budget as submitted right now requires two-thirds of a vote to be approved, and that's due to the way two specific items are funded. And so, if you could, Mr. Peterson, could you explain to us why that requires a two-thirds vote right now and if there's any mechanism to remove the two-third vote requirement? Through the chair, to the committee, and to visiting Council members, so as Chair Landon stated, there are, there's actually five specific line items that are pulling out of contingency or reserve lines. And you might recall there's a section in our ordinance code, section 106215, that says all appropriations from general fund operating reserves or from any contingency from any fund must require a two-thirds vote of the council members present. And so, those five line items, one, actually all five of them we'll get to today, but our specific one is related to the $26 million that council set aside last year for specific public safety uses, that those dollars did not authorize carryover, and so the mayor has asked that they be carried over for different purposes. We'll talk about that later. And then there are four specific completion grants that are being brought above the line. Council has already set money aside for those completion grants and prior bills. They've sat in a contingency, and they're being brought above the line to be able to pay those should they become due this year as expected. You might recall Council Member Miller introduced a piece of legislation that said any expected completion grants in the year in which they are expected must be included in the budget. And so, those five items being brought out of a contingency do trigger that two-thirds vote. I will note that a two-thirds vote on the budget is very standard. Last year was somewhat of an anomaly, and then going back, there's been, I believe, one other year in about the past 10 or 12 that didn't require a two-thirds vote. But that is a very normal thing because of pulling from contingencies one way or another this year. We don't have a pull from the operating reserves, as Mr. Weinstein stated, but because we're pulling from other places, that does trigger the two-thirds vote. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And since we do have all those items on the agenda for today, when we get to those, I think that will be the time and the place that we discuss if there are any potential carve-out options. To be clear, I want a budget that does get a supermajority vote, but we may also just want to discuss the flexibility that 10 versus 13 gives us. And I think since I've been on council all three years, we've had well above a two-thirds vote on the final budget. But I do thank you for sharing that with the committee. Second thing, so there's lots of finance committee turnover this year. In fact, me and Councilmember Diamond are the only ones from last year's finance committee. I do know we have, especially our past presidents who've been on finance before. But normally when we go through the line items, we can either approve, which means really we take no action. We can amend to remove something, amend to add something. That's the other thing. We can also put items below the line. So when we put an item below the line, it's still those numbers are part of the budget, but it means it's put into a contingency account. And to bring it back up above the line would require a two-thirds vote. I started talking to the auditors a couple weeks ago. We're in the unique position, November 3rd. We're not sure what's going to happen November 3rd. And there are some line items out there that we probably do not want to get the full amount to be available on October 1st. And so working with the auditors, we have come up with a mechanism to where we can essentially put an item contingent on the turnout of the vote. Before I let Philip explain it, my thought process, again, was twofold. Not just we don't want to give out everything right away to be appropriate to spend on October 1st, but if we did want to then wait on November 3rd, we probably don't want to go through the entire legislative process to where it's at least six to eight weeks. We're probably talking about post-Christmas time by that point if we have to introduce the legislation, bring it above the line for a two-thirds vote. So, Mr. Peterson, with that, could you briefly explain the mechanism that we've been discussing? Through the chair to the committee. So, we've met with also general counsel to discuss this. And basically, we would include language in the budget ordinance that for items you specifically identify apply to this concept. They will be placed below the line contingent on what happens on November 3rd. So, if November 3rd were to fail, the language would allow any of those items to move to a specific identified location all together. They could not be broken up. It would be the entire package through the NBRC process similar to how we treat federal matching grants, fine grants, and other items that you approve as part of this budget. If November 3rd were to fail, or sorry, if November 3rd were to pass, those dollars would stay below the line and could only be moved upon a two-thirds vote of counsel. All that would be crafted into the language that would be included in the budget ordinance in moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. I also want to be clear, this is a tool. So, I wanted to just get that out there. There's very few places I plan on bringing this up within the budget. But I just wanted to be clear that we do have that as an option before we start going through everything. And as Phillip pointed out, if it does, if Amendment 3 was to pass, I think it's a moot point at that point. But if we did want to bring it above the line, it would then require a two-thirds vote at that point to come back above the line. So, I think the last thing before we get into it here, the council president did a great job of saying his three things. Is it core? Is it duplicative? And do we have the cash for it? I've added two things. And that's, again, like I mentioned, the first finance committee. This is a year to preserve cash. Again, if Amendment 3 passes, we have one year to reduce by $200 million. And so, cash gives us flexibility because we may not be able to scale down the entire $200 million in one year. So, having that cash on hand does give us flexibility. Also, this is not the year to start anything new, especially if it's an expense-only item that has no hard revenue return for the city. Just given where we're at, I think it will be a very high bar to approve new things that were in the budget proposal. Again, those are just my thoughts, and I look forward to debating this with you guys. I do also want to say my goal is to have it be 7-0 out of finance. So, whatever we send to our full council, I want it to be 7-0 out of this committee. Thank you. I think we were there last year. But, anyways, and the reason for that is once we get to the full council, we gave a lot of money back on budget night last year. And so, I want to make sure that we get that 7-0 vote to the full council, and then that we stay strong on budget night. Because a lot of the work we did in finance committee kind of fell apart in budget night with a lot of the floor amendments. So, I know my stance will be if there's a floor amendment on budget night, tell me what the offset is first before we consider additional dollars. So, just throwing that out there now. Council Member, past President Freeman, you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just Councilman Freeman is good here. Just one housekeeping key. When we have to take a break, how do you want us to let you know? Do we need to kind of write you a note? Or, you see I'm drinking a lot of water. I have to drink a gallon of water a day right now. Going through a season of life right now, that is my journey. But it's okay and understood. So, surprisingly, I do not see Council Member Boylan in the queue. So, I'll try to answer this myself. But, how about you just tap me and whisper in my ear, you're going to do something. So, we don't have to be – we have to have four at any point in time, plus the President counts for quorum. But that's as official. All right. Thank you. Because I see a TV camera there. So, you might see me – you will see me – well, I'm drinking a gallon a day. And so, you will see me frequently going out. So, I'm not trying to avoid any conversations if that happens. So, I'm learning that you have to control your narrative or folks out there, over there, will control it for you. So, thank you so much for that. All right. No one else in the queue. So, we will move on from restroom policy to reviewing $9.2 billion of expenses now. So, with that, I believe – and actually, I did want to make that point. We talk about our $2 billion budget all the time. That's our general fund balance – our general fund budget. If you look on page 11, by the time we're done, we will have reviewed $9.2 billion when you count all the independent authorities as well. So, with that, Mr. Peterson, I think we are ready to start. And I'll turn it over to you. Does that mean we're on page 12 already? We can be if you want. I'll try to go through this. Yes, given that this is some of your fourth year or, in the case of Councilmembers Freeman and Councilmember White, passed your eighth year. Page three is all of our budget legislation. You've already approved those first two items, the property appraisers budget and the rollback rate resolution. 2026, 501, 502, and 503 are three millage levy ordinances. And 504 is your budget ordinance. Those will all be approved or tentatively approved at your September 8th council meeting for final approval at the September 22nd council meeting. The items after that will all be taken up at your September 15th finance committee meeting. And we'll just make sure the actions throughout these budget hearings are reflected in those bills. That's 505, your CIP, 506, your SHANs agreement. 507 is the five-year IT. 508 is the sales tax growth rate as it relates to pension surtax. Flipping to page four, 509 is the public service grants funding. That is a conflict bill. That's the same for 510, the opioid settlement grants. 511 is Kids Hope Alliance. 512 is the JEA budget. That's a new conflict bill this year. 513 is the council member salaries and benefits. And then 514 being the JTA budget. Thank you, Mary. There's also a bill being filed at the next council meeting, which I've been told is Bill 646. That is funding related to Eastside grants dollars being brought above the line. You might recall last year's $4 million were put below the line until a process could be worked out for the Eastside grants. And then this budget this year includes an additional $4 million to meet the CBA obligation. Those dollars are all below the line. And in order for them to be able to be used for the Eastside grants program, they need to be brought above the line. So that will be introduced at your next council meeting and will follow the same budget cycle. It will come out on the September 22nd meeting. On page 5 is your budget timeline. We're already through the August 4th date. August 15th, the property appraiser and the city council can submit additional information to the Department of Revenue, which is why you'll be taking up the property appraiser budget today. By August 24th, trim notices will go out. And then there's your September 8th council meeting, followed by September 19th when we have to advertise the final millage and the budget. Flipping to page 6, that's the September 22nd final vote. And then there are a number of actions that are required by the administration after the budget is passed. Then come November, tax bills are sent out and discounts for early payments are 4, 3, 2, and 1 based on the month that someone would pay with taxes ultimately being due by March 31st. Flipping to page 7, this is an overview of our property taxes. I'll draw your attention to the bottom of the page as it relates to the 26-27 budget where you'll see a net to the general fund of $1,291,662,837. Then $43.48 million is sent to the tax increment districts, netting the general fund $1.25 billion. That is $70.5 million increase over the prior year. You'll see the rollback rates listed there as well as the millage rates. This was stated at your July council meeting, but the millage rates are staying the same as what was approved last year. However, due to a change in state law, any millage rate over the rollback rate requires more than a majority vote. So this year, based on the proposed millage rates, those do require a two-thirds council vote at your September 22nd council meeting. Pages 8, 9, and 10 are examples of assessed values from 2025 being updated to 2026 values based on the Homestead Save Our Homes cap, 2.7% increase this year. So you'll see the impact as it relates to a $150,000, a $200,000, and a $250,000 assessed value home and what the taxes would do as it relates to those values. As Chairman Lainan mentioned, on page 11 is a budget summary of the entire city and the independent agency budgets that you will view. Down at the bottom right hand is that $9.2 billion, which is up $52 million from last year. But we will go through all of these budgets in great detail over the next two and a half weeks. On page 12 is a high-level view of all of the funds within the city. This matches the $4.7 billion that was on the prior page. But once again, we will go through these in great detail. For the city, you will see that the total budget is going down $327 million year over year. Page 13 is your summary of employee caps by fund. We have a breakdown on the following page of the changes. But once again, draw your attention down to the bottom right-hand corner. Total employee cap increase for the city of 71. Two positions were added during the year by council to oversee the Eastside Grants Program. And then there's a net 69 add as part of this budget. Page 14 identifies those differences. So there's those, footnote A, there's those two positions that were approved during the year. The 77 positions that are proposed to be added within the budget are identified in footnote B. 22 positions are within JFRD for the new fire station 78. 52 positions within the sheriff's office. Two positions in the tree protection fund, which is not a part of the general fund. And then an additional position is being requested in the multi-years fund to oversee that Eastside Grants Program. There are eight positions that are being proposed to be eliminated as part of the budget. And we'll discuss those as we go through each department's budget. Turning to page 15 is the employee cap by department. And so you'll see those 22 positions for fire rescue being added. The 52 positions for the office of the sheriff. And then the few reduces that are within the various departments. They're identified at the bottom of the page, but we'll go through those detail as we get into each department's budget. Page 16 gives you an overview of personnel expenses for the general fund. So salaries going up $32.8 million in the proposed budget. Most of that is related to collective bargaining increases that have already been approved. $18 million is in the office of the sheriff. FOP has a 5% increase for police. And corrections has a 7% increase. In the fire department, it's a $9.3 million increase year over year. They are getting a 5% increase based on their collective bargaining agreement. And then all other non-public safety collective bargaining agreements have a 3% increase. And that's also been afforded to appointed employees that are not represented by a bargaining unit as well. Part-time salaries going up $4.2 million. And most of that is related to the supervisor of elections. There was only one election in the 25-26 year. There will be three elections in the 26-27 year. So that's the reason for the part-time increase. Overtime is increasing by $1.6 million. $1.4 million of that is in the office of the sheriff and fire rescue. And all of this has been offset by terminal leave decreasing $3.4 million based on the number of employees that are in the drop in police and fire scheduled to decrease in the next year. For employee benefits slash pension costs, that is going up $35.6 million. A large portion of that is the pension costs, which are increasing by $20.7 million. Defined benefit and FRS plans are going up a combined $13.1 million based on actuarial studies. And then also the defined contribution plans are increasing by $7.6 million based on employee turnover. So as every new employee is hired, they join the defined contribution plan, which has a set percentage based on the plan that they are in. You can see a chart at the bottom of that page based on the increases per pension plan. General employee group health costs are increasing by $11.4 million due to the planned increase in group health premiums, which is proposed to be covered by the employer for $26.27. And then FOP and firefighter health costs are increasing $4.4 million based on their collective bargaining agreement, which has the city contributing $665, which is a $60 per month increase. And that's based on their collective bargaining agreement. No questions. Turn to page 17. This is the salary and benefits lapse schedule by fund. At the top of your page, you'll see the general fund, non-departmental, has a $5.3 million proposed lapse, which is about a $370,000 increase over the prior year. And the office of the sheriff has a $9.25 million lapse, an increase of $1.5 million. This is based on a model of average turnover, FTEs within the department, the average salary, and then how long it takes to fill a position. So a total lapse citywide of $17.4 million. Turning to page 18. Pages 18 and 19 have footnotes next to them. Those footnotes are explained on pages 20 and 23. I'm not going to go over every footnote. Just try to hit the high items or items that have significant changes. So footnote 1 is related to your ad valorem taxes. We've already talked about that, a net increase of $70.5 million over the prior year. Item 3 is your contributions from other local units, which has a breakdown on the following page. The fines and forfeitures, this is going up, or actually going down, $41,000. The city receives roughly 51% of civil traffic citations, with 70% going to the general fund, 30% go to the police and fire pension fund. And this is based on, the decrease is based on recent actuals. Item 5 is franchise fees. This is payments from JEA and other businesses for the sale of water, sewer, electric, and gas. The increase is to mainly align with the recent increase of JEA franchise fees that we're seeing in the current year. Item 7 is your investment pool and interest earnings. This is increasing $3.6 million in the proposed budget, and that's really just based on what we're experiencing this year. A projection of about $26 million to finish the year. Treasury's projection for the prior year was, or the current year, is 3.02%. They're projecting a 3.5% rate for the coming year. A miscellaneous revenue consists primarily of inmate pay telephone systems and then various pay phones residing on city property. That's a little over a million dollars. The Hyatt Hotel 1% surcharge at roughly $350,000. The city venues manager contribution of $320,000. And then a slew of other miscellaneous items equating to about $780,000. We do have a recommendation as it relates to this that we'll get to at the end of the review of revenues. Item 9 is your local business taxes, increasing $555,000. This is taxes paid by businesses located in Duval County. Local communication services tax. Item 10, decreasing $1.7 million. This represents the city's portion of the communication services tax. And this is just the decreases based on current trends that we're seeing. Item 12, state shared revenue. We have a schedule breakdown on the following page. Item 13 is the transfer from fund balance, which, as noted, there's no transfer from fund balance in this proposed budget. 14 are the transfers in, and we'll walk through those on the next page. And then item 15 is the utility service tax, which, again, is a representation of what we're seeing with JEA fees or JEA revenue, rather. This represents a 10% tax on all purchase of electricity, gas, and water. The bottom portion of page 18 are departmental revenues that we'll go into various detail as we discuss those department budgets. And so there you see at the bottom of the page the $2.026 billion general fund budget. If there are no questions, we'll turn to page 19. And the first item we want to hit is item number 17, local hospital tax fund. This represents a $10 million transfer from collections of assessments on hospital taxes. And based on advice from OGC, this is not an allowable use for this purpose. So we will have a recommendation to remove that $10 million. Item 18 is the loan to the solid waste disposal. That is going down $13.5 million. That's a result of the solid waste fund performing better as a result of the increase in the fee. And so that is the repayment of all prior loans to the solid waste fund. Public buildings allocation decreasing $1.7 million. That's item 19. That's related to paying off some debt related to the Jake Godbold building in the current year. Item 20 was $10 million that was included in the prior year related to Shands Medical Center. The council has met all the obligations as it relates to Shands. And so that is no longer needed in the current year. And then item 21, vehicle replacement fund, is a repayment of $5.5 million that was loaned to the vehicle replacement fund while they were waiting to receive cash billed to customers due to the delay in receiving cars. The contributions from other local units, this is contributions from JEA. Item 22, the $40 million that was received last year was a one-time contribution. And so that is not included in the current budget. And then item 23 is based on the required contribution from JEA. It's a 1% increase over the prior year's value. Item 24 is the constitutional fuel tax. This is 50% of the constitutional fuel tax. That's a $0.02 tax per gallon. Item 25 is the county tax. This is a $0.01 per gallon on that same fuel. Item 26 is the municipal tax. This is also a $0.01 tax per gallon. But this is part of the state's municipal revenue sharing program. And all three of these are decreasing based on what we're seeing in the current year operations. So matching those trends. Skipping to item 28 is the county revenue sharing population amount increasing by $102,000. This represents $6.24 that is paid to the city per resident. Item number 29, the county revenue sharing program represents distribution from the sales tax collected throughout the state. There is a calculation that goes into this. And the decrease is to align with expected revenues. Item number 30, this is part of the municipal revenue sharing fund on net sales and use tax collections. The decrease as projected by the budget office was based on the information available to them. This is one of the items that I think Mr. Weinstein was hinting at where due to when they are required to submit the budget versus when we start to receive new information from the state, we will have a recommendation to increase that revenue line item. And then lastly, the local government half-cent sales tax program, which ends up being a little bit more than a half-cent. And the decrease is to align with expected revenues, and we agree with those projections. So turning to page 23 are the three recommendations I mentioned. We recommend decreasing miscellaneous revenue by $585,415 to better align with the revenue from the inmate telephone system. There was a change as it relates to the FCC that went into effect, it was adopted in November, it went into effect in April, and so we have that updated information that will have a negative impact on special counsel contingency. Item two is removing the transfer in from the local hospital tax fund of the $10 million based on OGC advice. This will also have a negative impact on special counsel contingency. And then item three is we recommend increasing the sales tax municipal revenue sharing program by $10,719,366 to better align with the current actuals that we have already begun receiving from the state. This would have a positive impact on special counsel contingency. The three together have a net positive impact of $133,951. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And I know that was fast, but that was $2 billion of revenue that we just went through. So thank you for that. I know your team puts in a ton of time going through that and vetting everything. Also, thank you for taking time with me to go more in-depth on the recommendations. I have no one in queue for any revenue questions. So if there are no questions, can I get someone to move the three auditor recommendations? Okay, I got a motion and a second on the three auditor recommendations. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. By our actions, auditor recommendations one, two, and three pass. And we are at a surplus budget right now. Mr. Peterson, you want to take over on our reserves on page 24? Will do. On page 24 is a history of reserve usage in the annual budget, also compared to available reserves. So I'll draw your attention to on the left-hand side. There's a small box about middle way through the page showing that there are no reserves used as part of the proposed budget. And there's the $2.026 billion budget. On the right-hand side, you'll see the operating reserve balance at September 30, 2025 of $392,138,000. That is the same balance as the prior year due to a bill that was introduced by Councilmember Laynon to take anything above that $930,24 amount of $392 million and move it to the multi-year fund to help pay down future completion grants. That's a bill that I believe will be taken up in finance next week. I believe that number is about $34 million. You'll also see the emergency reserves increased about $5 million year over year. So total reserves between operating and emergency sitting at $525,220,000 as of September 30, 2025. Draw your attention to the box just below it that the operating reserve balance as of June 30, 2026 is a little less, $1.33 million less due to a couple uses during the current year that were not factored into the ACFR based on the time in which they were presented. So sitting at $390.8 million combined between the two represents 26.6% of the general fund operating budget, which is considered very healthy when our goals are at 5% to 7% for the operating reserve and 7% to 10% for the emergency reserve. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Council President, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, Mr. Peterson, 26.63%. So is it fair to say that I like to think in terms of months of cash on hand that we have three months cash on hand in the reserves between operating and emergency? Through the chair, that would be an accurate statement. Okay. It's good to keep that as a benchmark. Thank you. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on our operating reserve, I like this as a benchmark, as the council president was saying, to keep and to keep adding to the reserve. Because I have to be candid, if you listen to the council auditors the next couple of years, look harder and harder. And that's with regard to putting aside Prop 3 passing in November. And so that money is going to dwindle in a second if we're not super careful. The other question I had through the chair to Philip, which is last year as part of kind of an agreement that everybody made with police and fire, was to put money in a separate segregated account. I supported that effort. I supported cutting the millage. I wish we could cut it again this year. I don't think I'd have the support to do it. But are we still pushing that money again this year into that special account for our police and fire? Mr. Peterson, I can probably field that. That's going to come up in a couple pages. Then I'll shut up. And I'm going to have a recommendation on how to handle that. I'm a yes for it, so let's go. All right. Mr. Peterson, anything to add? Or was that good enough, me punting for a few more pages? The only thing I'll have, again, cash on hand, that's a standard measure. Amendment 3 passing greatly changes that math on our cash on hand. So, again, I like the size of our reserves, and I'll continue to do what I can to make sure we don't use it and help grow it as well. Mr. Peterson, page 25. All right. Page 25 through 29, we'll go over our schedule of expenditures for the general fund. Page 25 shows the top part of your page, the departmental expenses, and this is what we'll cover over the next two and a half weeks as each department appears before you. A total of $1.37 billion in departmental expenses. And then non-departmental expenses is what we're going to cover right now, roughly $650 million between those. So, if you will turn to pages 26 through 29, that has various non-departmental expenditures. Explanations on each of these items are found on pages 30 through 38. I'm not going to hit on every one of them similar to what we did for revenues, but if you have any questions, please stop me, and we'll be happy to talk about those. And if I could, Mr. Peterson, for my colleagues, as we get to a line item that you want to speak on, just get in queue, and I will stop Mr. Peterson there, because my guess is a council member may have an amendment on some of these, and we'll take them up as we go through the next four pages. Sound good? All right. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Council Member Diamond, you're recognized. This is literally my favorite part of the year. Okay, so I want to save the committee time. There's stuff that I want out of here that I know I don't have the votes for. And this economic incentive section is going to be one of those. So in an ideal Rory Diamond universe, I'm not doing any of these. And I like to remove all of these or push them below the line. Every time I do that with economic incentives, then somebody comes and tells me we've already signed contracts, and therefore we're already obligated to do these, or some of them. And so I see $12 million proposed by the mayor to hand out to millionaires and billionaires and developers and companies that have billion dollars in their profit bank sheets right now. And I don't want to give them $12 million. So I'm fully open-minded to getting rid of each and every one of these, to amending these, to reducing these. I'm all ears. I'm happy to push them below the line and go line by line. What I don't want to do, Mr. Chair, is waste everybody's time if nobody agrees with me. Thank you, Councilman Diamond. So I did ask a lot of questions about these as well, and I think I'm going to be the person that I don't like to hear that says they are contractually previously approved economic incentives, everything above the $12 million mark. So if I thought there was any flexibility in there that we had space to renegotiate, I think I got a good track record of not approving economic incentives, but these are unfortunately fixed costs to the best of my understanding, and I see our auditors nodding our head. We did talk about this section for a while in our pre-meeting. Yeah, and I want to give you full credit, Mr. Chair, because they tell me this every year when I say this every year. So this will be why I vote against the budget. Like, I hate to preview you, but this is the issue. $12 million going to billionaire developers, millionaire, billionaire companies that the mayor wants to hand them and put them in their pocket. I just can't support the budget at the end of the day. So unfortunately, like, we're already 18-1 on the budget because I think this is ridiculous. Thank you. I think I'm hearing 7-0 out of finance to full counsel, maybe. All right. Mr. Peterson, where were you? Were you going to go through these economic incentives, or I think we're— I was not. I was going to mention that exact same thing, that all of these have been previously approved development agreements, one form or another. And so unless there's a specific question on items 1 through 29, I was not going to touch those, but I see the Council President has a question. Council President, you're recognized. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. To the auditors, to Philip, are all of these either completion grants, cash grants, or low interest rate loans? Through the chair to Council President Howland, most of these are rev grants. There are—there might be a completion grant or two, but I believe they are—actually, the Dun & Bradstreet is a—like a headquarter—we incentivize them to bring their headquarters here. So I don't know how you want to view that it's not a rev grant. It was a—a cash grant's a good idea. There's also various grants for Paysafe as well, where they're based on the number of jobs created. But these are—the majority are rev grants. All right. Thank you. Council Member Freeman and then Ms. Moyer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just a few—one observation and then one question. I'm sure we'll get into it later. But I see in here, like, the Gator Bowl game, the Florida-Florida State baseball game. I'm a huge fan of all of those. Through the chair to the administration, has there been any further conversation of bringing FAMU to town? I'm going on my eighth year in the council, and in year one, that was something that was brought up, that our urban core, many of our members of our communities graduated from FAMU. Both of my parents did. It was something that was asked for. We brought Jackson State here against Bethune-Cookman. We had 37,000 people in the stadium. So the excuse that we got back then was, you know, the game is going to be a loss to the city. Well, we showed that we could fill the stadium up. We, as in fans of FAMU, we showed that we could fill that stadium up, bring economic development impact, a positive economic impact to our city. But yet, budget after budget, I don't see anything in here for it. And so I just want to know why, one. And then, two, is there anything that you might be willing—because then I'll ask the questions. I know above that $12 million, we definitely are bound by contract. But looking below that, are we bound in all of these for contracts? Because I'm seeing some of these things with Florida, Georgia, and some of these other ones. And I know we're losing that game, I believe, for the next two years. And, I mean, obviously, FAMU can't come then. But has there been any discussion for our FAMU home game in our city with this administration that has shown so much compassion for disparity, so much compassion for broken promises? Has there been any? Mr. Chair, can I respond? You recognize, yes, sir. Thank you. Councilman, I will check. I'm not aware, but that's not necessarily complete. I'll check with Alex, and by the afternoon, I'll get an answer for you. Through the chair to Mr. Watson. I greatly appreciate that. And I will just say the number back when I first started was $2 million, which was a very small number. FAMU was all on board with it. I have great relationships with the director of sports at the state level. We now have something here. There's just no reason why that conversation should not be taking place. And all members of our community, outside of Florida State fans, outside of Florida fans and Georgia fans, should be able to have their team come to our great city and give us a great football game. So thank you. Ms. Moyer. I just wanted to mention to the committee that when we get to page 44, I have a schedule attached to my B3, which is a five-year projection, that shows you the total amount of the annual incentives and then all of the one-time stuff. So we'll get to that shortly. Okay. Mr. Peterson, so on page 26, how about we pick up with note 30 and just hit on the ones you think are worth bringing to our attention? Will do. So we'll bring up – so I do want to point out that anything with an asterisk next to it on the next four pages, including page 26, will only be discussed today. They will not be heard again at any point during the budget. If there's not an asterisk next to it, it will be discussed at some point over the next two and a half weeks. So draw your attention to item 35. This is the city's contribution to downtown vision. It is voluntary by the city, and it's equivalent to the 1.1 mils that DVI charges on properties in their boundaries based on the value of city-owned property in the district. Mr. Peterson, I'm going to recognize Council Member Diamond because he just hopped in the FQ. Never mind. I think he's one item away. All right. Next item, 36, is the $56 million annual payment to Shands Medical Center for Indigent Health Care. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Strangely, I've been getting lots of calls about the UF Health Shands indigent money that we spend, and I just wanted to explain on the record why I fully support it. So, first of all, it's morally the right thing to do. I mean, somewhere in Jacksonville, there has to be somewhere to go if you are seriously injured or having a problem and show up at an ER and get help. It just has to be true. Any ER you go to, that's going to be true, but this is where we pay for it as a city. And I just want to let folks know that the ones who are asking me to do draconian cuts to that number, I just don't see any universe where we're going to be the kind of city that does that. I could see asking more information about it, understanding more how it's spent. I'm fine with that. I don't want any of that money to be used for abortion services, which I'll discuss next week. But I think it's important that we do this as a community. It's one of the few places where I think, yeah, that's a core community service and we need to do it. Thanks. Thank you. And I will note this is the third year. It has stayed flat. My understanding is that we're starting renegotiations next year. At least that's my understanding. I see no one else in the queue, so Mr. Peterson, if you could. All right. Item 37 is a new item in the budget. This is $10,000 for cooling centers. And so this would cover overtime of city staff that might have to staff those cooling centers when they are activated. Item 38 is really... I'm going to recognize Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And very small dollar amount, so not going to take a lot of time on it. But do we have like a heat map of where these cooling centers, no pun intended, but where these cooling centers are located? And then do we have a usage of, like I see the tent set out here in Hemming Park or James Weldon Johnson Park, I should say. And my OCD part of it is always to look out the window before I go to the elevator. I have yet to see anyone ever underneath it. And so I would love to know if we see it as $10,000, I understand, but that's $10,000 that we could put towards coding, that's $10,000 we could have put to public service grants, or that's $10,000 we could put towards JSEB. And my colleagues get used to me saying those three things because I'm going to continue to say it because of my $200,000. Not mine, but the city's $200,000. Do we have a heat map on that, and do we have a usage of it? Thank you. Through the chair to Council Member Framingham, I'd have to defer to the administration on that specific question. Mr. Chair, every time that they open up a cooling center, they'll do a press release and they'll identify where they are in that particular situation. They change a little bit depending upon how hot and how many and what have you. Sometimes on the weekends they're a little different than during the week, but they're always posted as to where they are. And they do tend to be library, you know, all of our buildings are available if the need be. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I greatly appreciate the heart and the spirit behind this, but I'm just lost on what happened before we had these stations. And do we have data that shows the casualties or unfortunate mishaps? And this is just rhetorical. I think that this is more of a feel good than a necessity. But again, it's $10,000. But, Mr. Chair, I do want to point out, you say this is the only time we're discussing it. Like, I have some things that are very important to me, and if those things I find are troubling in this process, these are the type of things that I want to come back to. So even though we're saying we're only discussing it today, these are areas that we may revisit if I need to find more dollars to try to get some initiatives that are important to me. And I'll just put it on the record. I've been told that I'm going to be waited out. Everyone knows that I've resigned effect of a certain date. So I'm going to press hard between now and the end of this process that those things that were important to me, I'm going to find the dollars. If the dollars that we've already preappropriated aren't used, I'm going to find them in here and I'm going to make sure we get those things done for our community. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just add, just like we do every year on probably day six, wrap-up day, like that would be your opportunity that if you want something and you think we should consider, do I want this or cooling center money? That will be the right time to debate any potential changes at that time on previously approved items. Councilman Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just supporting my friend, Councilman Freeman. Every year we do this the same way, which if it's got this magic little asterisk and we don't cut it today, then it's magically baked into the budget. I'd like to just, there's no reason the committee can't have a little leeway on this, that if you've got a project or something that you want to do or something you think is really important for the public to have. And you can see a line on here that's not as high of a priority. I don't see, there's any reason why on wrap-up day we can't say, I'd like to do this and here's what I'd like to cut. And at least have the committee give that person the leeway to make the argument. And that's what I was trying to articulate, that on wrap-up day. Okay, yeah, cooling center. And again, nothing is final until the second council meeting of September. That's when things are final. We're just, I think a better way, an asterisk means we are not specifically discussing it again. Fair enough. Okay, and so, and here's why, though, there's like a, there's momentum to these things once we've slipped past them, right? And then the folks who are out here who are there to like defend their budget line item won't probably be here on wrap-up day. So I just want to like project out, if we're willing to look at these things again on wrap-up day, then these folks don't have the excuse of, well, I didn't know you were going to bring it up and somebody up here says it's really mean to do this on wrap-up day and pull it out at the last second. And just be on notice, wrap-up day, we might cut again. Yep, absolutely. The budget is finalized, and any change can be made until the fourth Tuesday night of September. My new hero. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And hopefully not Wednesday morning this year. Councilman Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Councilman Diamond, for saying that, because I'm just going through and highlighting my book. And if you can see it, I have probably 10 or 15 highlights. And some of these highlights are my dear friends sitting out there, and there are initiatives that I fight for no end for. But I also have things that have been in the hopper prior to this coming before me today. And so unfortunately, I'm going to go down my list of priorities in trying to address those issues. So many of you out there, when you hear us talk about that last day, if your item is one of them, call the administration and ask them, why then, for two or three years, have you not done or followed through with what Councilman Freeman was trying to do to help the same things that you're helping right now? So please know that I'm going to be going through this pretty tough. And I'm sorry, Mr. Peterson, when we met, that I didn't go through this more so. But we will circle back with it, and I'll have a dollar amount to get to at least that $200,000. Thank you. All right. I think we're on line item 38. Through the chair of the committee, item 38 is the direct contracts that are included as part of this budget, which we'll get to later today. And that's why it doesn't have the asterisks. 39 is the employee parking subsidy. This represents a subsidy to the public parking fund to allow city employees to receive discounted parking rates in relation to what's in our municipal code. The decrease is due to a decrease in city parkers in the garage by the main library. Item 40, once again, this year, all travel and training expenses for mayoral reporting departments are wrapped into a singular line item. I'm going to move to page 27 and start with item number 45. Councilmember Freeman mentioned that this is funding for the Gator Bowl game. However, the city does not have an agreement with the Gator Bowl currently. One is being worked on, so we have a recommendation to put this funding below the line until that agreement is approved. Item 47 was a reduction of $300,000. This was the city's share of additional costs associated with remediation of grounds at Jack's Classical Academy. That was included in the prior year's budget. No additional funding is needed. Item 48 is the contributions to JPA. There's a formula that's based on that. It's $800,000 capital contribution, a portion of the telecommunication dollars, and then a quarter mil from JEA's electric contribution to the city. The reason for the decrease in the current year, one, communication services taxes are down. And then last year, the city funded the final $2.5 million to support the raising of the Fulton Cut power lines. And so that's the larger contributor to the reason that this is down in the proposed budget. Item 49, you'll see two items for item 49. The, excuse me, the JFRD CO2 removal system and the JSO leasehold improvements at the Blue Cross building on Riverside. There's another 49 later in the handout for a $10 million contribution to a JSO warehouse. And, Mr. Pearson, just for my colleagues, I'm going to go ahead and address that $26 million piece right now. So the administration, or actually, if you back up, if you recall last year, Council Member Diamond, you were alluding to it. We passed a $26 million, basically a separate fund. I forget the exact words, but it was basically there in case we could not meet our public safety compensation commitment. Budget came out this year, and we were fine, as we thought we'd be. But that $26 million was supposed to go away on September 30th. There was no carryover language, and it could be used for, it was kind of vague in what public safety items it could be used for. So there were $26 million of allowable expenses based on that legislation. At the same time, I believe the FOP and the IFF thought it was going to stay there longer. And so what I would like to do is, the best way to handle this is, JSO has a very large surplus that they do not plan on asking to do anything else with this year. They want the items and are good with how it was budgeted, this $26 million. I would like someone on council, perhaps Council Member White, to essentially reintroduce similar legislation that you had last year. And with that surplus, we're basically going to take money out of the reserves now, and then all that money is going back into the reserves, and we basically end up at the same place we are in a matter of months. So that's, I believe, the best way to both budget for these three items and get the same rough number that was in the, they were put into the budget last year by your legislation. Thank you, sir. I'm on that, and that will be done. Thank you. Thank you. I do have Council Member Carlucci in the queue. Is that on this specific item? Council Member? Go ahead. Those dollars that were put aside last year, I had inquired about those dollars. I thought they were going for like a warehouse and then some other equipment. And it was said that they couldn't be used for operational funding. But then the money that we put aside actually was for perhaps operational funding in case we needed that for salaries. And then when I talked to the FOP, they wanted perhaps to use those dollars for some relief in the firefighters, I think, for their health insurance costs. And I'm just wondering if any of that has been considered or thought about by those of you. So, Council Member Carlucci, you're talking about what a potential step two would be. The mechanism we're talking about right now is ensuring that money is there past September 30th. Okay. So, I do believe they do have a plan or a request that's going to come at some point. Who is they? F-O-P-I-F-F. But for right now, all we're talking about is essentially the accounting to make sure past September 30th, they still have a similar number of what they had before the $26 million that expires by the approved legislation on September 30th. Through the chair, could I ask Council Member White a question? Council Member White, you're recognized. Council Member White, are you familiar with what I was talking about then? I'm not aware of Part B and Part 2 and all that you're saying because that's for y'all that are on the committee. And I sit over here and I'm not privy to all those inside facts. Yes, sir. I'm pretty aware of it. And I think when I get through my legislation, police and fire will be happy with where we are. Okay. I just wanted to speak up on their behalf. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. Council Member Salem. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. I just wanted to throw out an idea that I've had for this $26 million. As you know, we're going to take a hit due to moving all these people to FRS. That will occur at the end of this budget year and into October. I would love to see some type of dollar amount set aside for that because we don't even know today what that amount is going to be. And if it's larger than what we think, that would be, to me, the most appropriate way to reserve that money. I just throw that out. Thank you. Thank you. And, again, we do not, as I alluded to, and it sounds like Council Member White's going to carry the torch on this for us, it's not a today problem we have to solve. But, again, at the end of this process, I'll certainly make a motion that whatever we have between revenue and expenses, I just want to send to the general fund. Because, again, anything in the general fund, we can then use for anything with two-thirds of a vote. So that'll be where I am at the end of this whole process. But at the same time, I want to make sure we have that money there and that public safety trust as well. And we may discuss do we want to increase the dollar amount of that trust as well. So thank you for your input. So any other questions on that before we go on to the next line item? All right. Thank you, Council Member White, for offering to introduce that piece of legislation to extend it. Where are we at, Mr. Peterson? That was item number 49 on page 27. So if there's no other questions, we'll move to item 50. This is the juvenile justice state-mandated contribution, and this represents the estimated amount by the budget office. We do have a recommendation based on this on information that came in after the budget was submitted. Item 51 is the lapse that we talked about earlier in the meeting of almost $5.3 million. Items 56, or both items 56, are your municipal dues and affiliations. They're broken out separately because part of the membership in the Association of Counties, League of Cities, National Association of Counties, and National League of Cities has a travel component to it. You'll see on page 36 a breakdown of what we've pulled together, both of those line items for 56 municipal dues and affiliations. Council Member Diamond, or excuse me, Council President, I'm going to recognize you first. Thank you, Chair Lane. I appreciate that because I'm going to ask something that's right above what I think Council Member Diamond is going to ask. It's back to the Medicaid program. Can you explain the statutory requirements and how that's funded and where it goes? Through the Chair to the Council President, it's a calculation that is determined by the state, and they send us the exact number that we have to send to the program. It's been going on for as long as I can remember. We have another item later on in the handout that relates to—actually, I think I skipped that item. The Medicaid program is another one that is determined by the state. That is—it's just a mandated number. Each county has their own number and has to contribute towards. Okay, thank you. And then through the Chair, one more question. So that $23.7 million is contributed—we contribute it back to a state Medicaid fund? Okay. That's correct. All right. Thank you. Council Member Diamond, I'll call on you next, but I missed one. I had my own question on. Manatee study. Can you remind me, Mr. Peterson, this is contractual? Because I feel like it's in there every year and has been for a while. To the Chair, yes, sir. We researched this in coordination with OGC. It is—the city is required to maintain a manatee protection plan, and this is one of the contributors to that overall plan, which is why you see it funded every year. Thank you. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not dumb enough to mess with a manatee study. No chance. Sea turtles and manatees are above everybody in Jacksonville. Trust me. No, I'm on item 54, the lobbyist fees first. Unless, for some reason, my sheet is out of order. I want to move to remove lobbyist fees, the $120,000. A couple of thoughts here. First of all, over the last three years, this has all been direct contracted to one lobbyist who has done, in my opinion, no value for the city, zero. All the money we get from the state is from our state reps and our state senator. And I've talked with them, and they have said this lobbyist has not helped. All right, then we go to the federal. All the federal money is coming in from our members of Congress and from the pure, unbelievable luck that a Jacksonville resident, well, she's in St. Johns County, but a former Jacksonville chief of staff is now the White House chief of staff. And it has been glorious for Jacksonville to have that opportunity. And so I don't see any reason to spend this $120,000. Move to remove. We've got a motion and second to remove. Council Member Freeman. Whoa. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And questions that I have, I actually have a list of the administration's titles and pay, and I see a director of state and federal advocacy and public-private partnerships listed at $179,425. So I'm a little curious, is that role someone that's supposed to be going over to Tallahassee as well and going to D.C. and lobbying? And if so, now we have a lobbying firm that we're paying $120,000 to. We have someone on staff here that we're paying another two, what is it, whatever I just said, the number, $180,000 basically. So that's $300,000 plus towards advocacy and lobbying, and that is a bit heavy in my opinion. And I do remember the discussions that were held in the past year and agreed with them and how the process, and I do think that process was circumvented a little bit. So for that reason, I probably would not have any issue with it. But through the chair to Mr. Weinstein, who is our lobbyist right now? I just want to make sure I'm understanding our two daughters, whoever can answer that, who is on the chopping block right now. Through the chair to Council Member Freeman, the lobbyists are the Langton Consulting Group, I believe is their official name, and then the Florida Group. Those are the two lobbyists that the city has. I will say that there is additional funding that Council Member Diamond alluded to that is included in the Finance Department, which we'll be taking up tomorrow. We do have a recommendation in the Finance Department handout, so I don't know if it would be best to punt this till tomorrow and to take up that whole conversation at that time. Mr. Pearson, and if I could jump in the queue here, I guess I can as chair. I was going to say just that. We have everything broken out in an exhibit for day two, because to Council Member Diamond, it's not as simple as that 120. They've broken it out into, it falls under the Finance Department. So if we could, it may be best to wait until we have that consolidated document, because I believe it's more than 120, correct? It's more than just that number, and it shows every firm, every amount. And it would be my request that we take that up when we have that full display so you can see all the lobbying contracts. To the chair, fully tracking. My only concern is this, is like Councilman Freeman brought up $10,000 in cooling centers. I'm bringing this one up. We've got to keep a list of the stuff that we're going to go back to to make sure that we don't forget that we're doing this stuff, because it happens every year. There's just like momentum to getting to the end, and then we don't actually have the conversation. So happy to do it tomorrow. I'll withdraw my motion. There was a second, so the seconder would have to do the same. Happy to do that. And look, I like a lot of these people. Marty Fiorentino is a good friend. I don't have a problem with him. I just, my issue is I don't want to spend money on this stuff anymore. I'll withdraw it. And Mr. Peterson, if I could ask your team to help us with that running list. So we've got lobbying fees and a cooling center, I think, are what we have added so far. I'm going to recognize Council Member Johnson for the first time today. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And by the way, the auditor's office always keeps that running list. I know because I've seen it, you know, this is my first time on finance, but I appreciate that because it keeps us together. Let me say, I'd like to see from the administration, Mr. Chair, through the chair to Mr. Weinstein, if you could get a number for us before we get to this. And I'm so glad, Councilman Diamond, that you withdrew your amendment there, the removal of that, because I don't think it was placed properly. I would like to know the number that we get as a result of the efforts that are done when the time permits. Also, I think we missed one. I have on my list Becker and Polikoff. And I know the one group that you're talking about, Council Member Diamond, from what I see in the research that I've done, that group doesn't do lobbying. They do grant writing. And so that group is a subcontractor of Becker and Polikoff, which is a firm that has done some good things for us, both in Washington as well as on the state level, and the Florida group. But in looking at this, while I do understand there may be an appearance of duplication of efforts, Mr. Chair, what I think we see is the efforts that are done that people outside of the city cannot do, city personnel must do. And so I don't think it's fair that we look and say, well, we're going to slash this because this person does that. So I'm certainly looking to get those numbers so that once we do begin to look at those decisions, we can then justify that against the funds that are coming back from the efforts that were made. Thank you. Councilman Carlucci. Real quick, I just agree with Councilman Johnson. I've had good luck in working with every one of these groups and the others, I'm sure. I don't think you can cut them without knowing what benefit they're bringing back. That's accountability. We're going to go through this line by line, and we need to go through line by line, not retail, but detail. So I hope that tomorrow we'll have some information that shows some background information on what they have done for this city, because I can already tell you some, but I won't do that now. But you just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because you don't like lobbyists. They do have value, and they do great work for the city. Thank you. Thank you. And just to reiterate, if you have looked ahead, there is a schedule in there somewhere on the day two packet that has it broken out with more clarity. And I think that would be the right place that we talk about it when we have the full picture of all lobbying fees. So, all right, we keep on moving up the list instead of down. Where are we at? I'll go ahead and recognize Councilmember Diamond. Hey, I appreciate it. All right, so on – look, I try to be fair with people's time. There's some of these down here, like Northeast Florida Regional Council, telehealth, that I will fight for on municipal to cut. But municipal dues, I lose this every year, and I try to get you all to get your head around the fact that we should not be paying for the League of Cities and the League of Counties and all this other stuff. To me, it is a boondoggle, I know, because you all call me, and you're drunk at your parties and having a great time, and I just don't think that the city of Jacksonville should have to pay for that. I just don't. People work hard for their money, and I just don't think that that money should go out of their pockets and into a travel fund for the city of Jacksonville. It drives me crazy. And so I won't make the motion this year because I'm going to lose it, but this should not be an obligation of the hardworking families of Jacksonville. Councilmember Johnson, then Freeman. Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Chair. And I have to say, I don't know who called the gentleman from the beach drunk, but I know I am a member of the Board of Directors. I am the ranking member on the Board of Directors as the person that's representing the top city, the largest city, and that's why I have that ranking seat. And I know I just won an award from the League of Cities for the advocacy done. And the fact that we sit on this League of Cities board, Mr. Chair, I just want to give you this so you understand. For the last, since 1982, I believe, the Value Adjustment Board, and Mr. Chair, you were also the chair of the Value Adjustment Board, so you know this statistic, the amount that was used to pay for the fees for the Value Adjustment Board had not changed since the early 1980s. Since my inclusion on the Board of Directors of the Florida League of Cities, I was able to talk to those other cities and other municipalities to get them on board with one session. Because of the advocacy of the League of Cities and the work that's done, in one session, we were able to right-size that fee so that the Jacksonville City Council would not have to subsidize the Value Adjustment Board, which means hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the city coffers because those fees were done, because we get so many Value Adjustment Board applications. That's just one of the initiatives that this has helped us to net. So while I do respect the gentleman from the beaches, he's clearly out of touch with what is going on in these organizations. I know of the work that Councilman Arias and Councilwoman Pittman has done with the Association of Counties and the work that myself, former Council President Carrico, and former Council President Freeman, and now Councilwoman Clark Murray, who will continue to do this work with the League of Cities. We need this so that we can advocate for Jacksonville to move forward. So if we're going to take away things, let's talk in reality and intelligence. Thank you. Thank you. I'll recognize Councilman Freeman next. The queue is filling up, and I'll note that we actually have no motion on the floor, but I'll recognize my colleagues. How do you remember Freeman? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And had he made a motion, I would have seconded it for discussion just to put it in the proper posture. So, Mr. Diamond, Councilman Diamond, if you want to make a motion, we'll second it for discussion. So to the Chair's point, we have it in proper posture so that we can discuss it. All right, so second it. Directly. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, this is another thing that I've highlighted, not because I want to see it go away, but this is something that there is value to it, but I've also served on this council when we got rid of it, and we still found that same value. So the question that I have through the Chair to Councilmember Johnson is, do you have to be a member of the League of Cities to attend? Do you have to be, through the Chair to Councilmember Johnson, do you have to be a member of Association of Counties to leverage the benefits, the data, the information that they give? Because my understanding is that you may not have to. The next thing that I would share, and have utmost respect for Councilmember Johnson, because he does the work and fully support the role that he holds, but traditionally it was always the senior councilmember who had an opportunity to sit at those tables. In this scenario, that wasn't the case. Now, he's highly qualified, and he does, like I said, he's got a Ph.D. in research, so he goes in and he does the fighting for it. But we've seen some trends kind of bucked in these last four years with this current administration. And so, again, if anybody wants to know the lens that I'm looking at stuff through, I'm trying to climb to find some dollars. And if this is the way I've got to climb to find it, through the Chair to Councilmember Johnson, I'll go ahead and apologize now, just like I did to a lot of my friends sitting out there. But I'm going to get to that point. Thank you. All right, I'm going to go to Councilmember Diamond, and then I'll go to the Council President. He had a question for me, Mr. President. May I answer the question that the gentleman asked? He did direct the question, so go ahead, Councilmember Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just the short answer is no. But it's a short answer to a longer answer. And the reason is, do you have to be a member to attend? That was the first question. And the answer to that is no. You can attend anything you want. I'm a member of a fraternity. We go as social registrants sometimes. But when you are there as a social registrant enjoying your fraternal bonds, you cannot move the business of the fraternity forward. So, yes, you can attend the League of Cities or the Association of Counties. But in order to reap the full benefits of it, one must be a member, which allows us entree onto not only state opportunities for legislation and to bring things back, but also on the federal level. So I just wanted to answer that question. You have been to these meetings. I've been with you. And as it relates to the selection, I don't know why I was selected. I certainly appreciate it. I know I wasn't the senior member. I had just gotten here. But I was certainly open to the possibility, and I didn't even know it existed in this way. But I'd have to leave that one to the administration. Thank you. Council President. What a great debate. This is our first debate on is it core, right? Rockman thinks it's core. Rory doesn't. And I can see both sides. I think there's probably some use in League of Cities, League of Counties for benchmarking practices for things we can adopt here. On the other hand, hardworking families should not be sponsoring council members to go to large parties down in West Palm. So to me, I wonder if this is the opportunity for the first use of the Peterson contingency. You know, could we put it all – you don't want to call the Peterson contingency? Could we put it all in the contingency that depends on the property relief bill and as something that's not core and that taxpayers shouldn't have to use their hard-earned money on if we encourage property tax relief? Just a thought for the chair. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Howland. That is a great option. I am going to go to Mr. Peterson first because he just hopped in the queue. Through the chair, I appreciate that not being called the Peterson contingency. But just to want to clarify for purposes of this discussion, we're talking about the $759,780 and the $237,427 on page 36. Yes. Because the discussion seems to be based on the bottom chart. But just want to – I believe Council Member Diamond's intent was the entire amount. Yeah, and I want to be clear, Mr. Chair, I did make the motion for both. I do think that we ought to look at the Chamber and the League of Counties and League of Cities differently because these are different spending items. So, for purposes of this discussion, I'd like to amend my motion to just removing the League of Cities and League of Counties. We can talk about the Chamber next, happy to, but that's what my intent was. So, I don't know if I need to do that as an amendment to my original motion. Either one is fine. To the chair. So, yes, the original motion was to, based on Mr. Peterson's outlining of it, that removed the entirety of the two items. So, yes, Mr. Diamond, you would be moving that as an amendment to the original motion, and you would need a second on that. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second on the two line items. I still have Council Member Carlucci in the queue and then Johnson. So, Mr. Chair, just to remind you procedurally what the posture is, is that now you are speaking only to the amendment to the amendment or the amendment to the original motion. Once that debate is completed, then you would vote on the amendment, and if it passes, you would need a motion to amend, move the original motion as amended in a second. Thank you. Council Member Carlucci, are you on the amended amendment? That's why I pushed my button. Go ahead, sir. Thank you. So, if the amendment to the amendment is to just put under the line the cities and the county leagues, is that what the amendment to the amendment is? It would be to remove it. Yeah. Okay. I think we're premature in voting on this. I think we're wrong, but I think we're also premature. I'd like to know a little bit more about what they have done for Jacksonville. I know what they have done for Jacksonville in the past. Long time ago, we built jail. The city was having a hard time coming up with a funding mechanism or a borrowing mechanism, and it was the Florida League of Cities who helped us find the right borrowing mechanism because it was a tough time in our budget at that point. And so, the League of Cities played a huge instrumental role in getting us through that. That would be a core service that they provided us. I think we have always found great value in being a part of that collegial, those two collegial bodies. And they're easy to pick on. They're easy punching bags. They look real tough and conservative if you put them under the line. But it's a short-term gain and a long-term loss. And I think it loses credibility for a great city like Jacksonville to just bail out. But all of that aside, we're making a decision right now, and Council Member Johnson has already told us one of the benefits that he has witnessed. And I would like to know more of the benefits that they have brought to us, if they have, before we vote on this. And if we don't do that, we just put it under the line, I don't think we're giving it a fair chance. I don't think we're being accountable to ourselves or to the citizens of Jacksonville. Because I know, from my experience, they bring great value and have brought great value. And I think it loses our city credibility amongst our pure cities and counties in the state of Florida. So, I would not support this. Because I'm just visiting Council Member, trying to impart a little wisdom. And do what you may. Thank you, Council Member Johnson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I echo the sentiments of Council Member Carlucci. I do not believe this is the time that we should be voting on this. I will do my part to ensure that we have all of the details. I know each time that I return, you know, and I won't say I resent it, but I think it's sorely short-sighted for those to say that people who attend these events are going to go to parties. And that it's a boondoggle. To use those inflammatory words shows that the person may not understand what happens. And I think, to me, what I do, instead of casting dispersions, when there are things that are going on that I don't understand or that confuses me, what I'll do is do research. I'll look into the thing to see what it is, as opposed to just cut it because you don't understand what it is. I'll tell you, the League reminds us where democracy comes from. And so I won't go into all of the details of it. But what I will do is aggregate the reports that I turn in each time that I come back from these meetings. I do a report to, at the time, the Council President as well as to the Office of the Mayor. And so I'll be more than happy to aggregate those reports, send them over to the team, as well as the numbers of what we've gotten. But I do believe that this is not the time to vote on this legislation. Of course, I will not be supporting it. But I do believe we should wait on this until getting in for other information. And I want to add, while I did see or hear the Council members say that they wanted to cut the association dues, which is the 237 number, the chamber numbers, that 759 number was left intact. I want to also, it to be on the record that that included sister cities, the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce, so not just the regional chamber, but the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Black Chamber of Commerce, and the Government Finance Officers Association. Those were not to be touched, according to what I understood for the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Again, we are on the amended amendment. I'm going to recognize Council Member Salem because I have not recognized him yet on this. Thank you, Chair, and I have more of a philosophical statement on this whole thing. I agree with Council President Howland that this budget should be less than last year's. We had $60 million in one-time expenses that are not in this budget from last year. This budget should be significantly less than last year's budget. To me, you need two buckets. You need a bucket of cuts and then a bucket of stuff that you want to put in this Peterson contingency. And I say that, but there needs to be cuts. And if all you do and this committee do is move this stuff into this contingency and the tax thing fails, you've spent three weeks doing nothing because it's the same budget. So I encourage you to look at cuts that are not coming back unless it's budget night or something because anybody can do something budget night. If you don't, I am. So, you know, if you want to pack breakfast budget night, we can do that. But there is stuff in here that should be cut and period. Thank you. And to Council Member Salem, that's why I used the word sparingly when I was having Mr. Peterson explain an additional tool or a process we can use. I still envision we're going to do the majority of our stuff is either going to be approve, amend, or put below the line like we have every other year. This is a fourth thing, and that's why I used the word sparingly on it. So it is one option that is out there. So I'm going to go to Council Member Diamond. And, again, I may start the clock soon. We've been on this $98,000 amendment for a long time. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's a $237,000 amendment, just to be clear. It was for all the municipal dues. Okay. I thought it was just the legal. Okay. So it's the entire box. Yeah, that whole box. Okay. So that's one point. Two, you know, the easiest way to get rid of the public's concern that something, and my concern that something is a boondoggle, is just to pay your own way. Right? Seven years on city council, done lots of city business. I always pay for my own hotels, my own travel, because I don't want the public paying for me to go to do stuff. I pay for my own food. I've never taken a meal from a lobbyist. It just makes life really easy. So that's the easy way to fix that problem. The real reason why I'm going after League of Cities in particular, but League of Counties also, is because they are advocating to our constituents that we should fight a tax cut for them. They are spending a huge amount of time trying to fight Prop 3. And I don't want to fund people who are fighting Prop 3, right? And I don't think that's our job, to fund them, to educate, allegedly educate our constituents on that. So that's why I made the amendment, and I ask that we cut it. If you want to put it below the line, I'm fine with that as a secondary option. Again, the reason why people at home, if you're wondering why we're fighting over $237,000 and a $9 billion budget, is because this will set the tone of how we manage this stuff, because budgets just get momentum, and all of a sudden we've spent $50 million on budget night that we didn't want to spend. And so that's why I say we hold the line on literally every single item, and we do the work today. Thanks. Councilman Freeman and Legislative Services, if you could start the clock. We're going to go to a three-minute clock now. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I agree with Councilmember Salem as well in creating another bucket, and we'll be in support of doing something like that. And I'll tell you why. The very first budget that we, you first-termers, experienced, we were flush. We had so much cash, and it was COVID dollars. And I made the comment then that once we put these dollars out, it's so hard to take them back. I also made the point that they're going to hook, they as in those who presented the budget to us, are going to hook things that we love to things to these dollars to make it even harder for us to vote against it. Example, given the downtown park. Look, I'm in a park four days a week, and I was saying I'm going to have to be against a park coming downtown because the residents of District 10 told me they didn't want a destination park. So I am going to support these types of movements going forward because I think it's the right thing to do, not the political thing to do. And then the last thing I'm going to say is this, especially for someone like me that in some of these issues, I'm 50-50. They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So the minute I see someone up here spewing some type of energy that I don't think is respectful for us as God-given human beings and created, my ear is going to turn off. So if I hear someone call me stupid or call any of my brothers up here, we are still one team. You're going to probably lose my interest a little bit. So that is going to be my encouragement as we move forward with these discussions. We can agree to disagree, Mr. President, but we don't have to be disagreeable. Thank you. Councilman Gay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just, and I think it's some of the questions that have been answered to get clarification on the dollar that we're looking at in the, what we're voting on is the $237,427. That's the amount that's on the floor right now. Okay. All right. I just wanted to be clear on that. And that's the amendment to the amendments. So with that, I'll be supporting the amendment. It's just basically we're at a point in time where we definitely got to separate needs and wants. And that's where we are, and that's what we're faced with. And that's going to be my whole take on this whole budget is needs and wants. Thank you. Councilman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to make sure this is on the record. I heard the gentleman say that the league is spinning the, there are two things that are just inaccurate. If we're going to talk, let's talk about accuracy. And I don't like inaccuracy because it confuses people. And here's the thing. I'm just calling it as I see it. You know, I think I agree with Council Member Freeman and what you said about making sure that we're being respectful of one another. So don't just say that people are drinking in drunk halls because that's disrespectful because it makes it seem like everyone is doing these things. So I'm very big on words. Additionally, we're talking about this Proposition 3 that came up. Here's the thing, two things. Number one, when it comes to travel, the majority of the funds that are appropriated in this are for dues to the League of Cities, not for travel. It is a statistically insignificant amount that is put in for travel, less than $10,000. So the majority of the travel that's spent, and you can go back its public record and pull it and see, are paid for by most of the people who are going. It's not that much. It's the dues that go into it. Secondly, the money that is spent advocating for Proposition 3 didn't come from those dues dollars. They come from resources that the League of Cities gets back when they do the Municipal Loan Association, the insurance benefits they get. Those are the monies that are used, that are put into investment funds that the League is using to advocate against this. But here's the thing that's even deeper. Several months ago, I heard the auditor's office tell us that if Proposition 3 passes, that there will be a $300 million hit or so to this city. I don't hear the gentleman advocating to get rid of the auditor's office. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If we are going to do something to that, then let's get rid of the auditor's office, because what they're saying is that Proposition 3 will negatively affect the city. We should not be picking and choosing these things. The League of Cities has been of benefit. Again, I would respectfully ask that this body do not, at this time, vote on this particular amendment. Let's get some more details and information. I'm going to aggregate my reports and send them out, but I'm advocating for this because I believe in what the work that the League of Cities does for this community and what it will continue to do to elevate our city in what we do. Thank you. Councilman Carlucci, for the second time on the amended amendment. I want to go back to a comment that was made that the Leagues are fighting Amendment 3. No, I think what they're trying to do is educate the public about Amendment 3, and that's needed. We need an informed public on what Amendment 3 will do. They are also fighting and always have fought for home rule. How many people here are for home rule? I know I am. We are losing home rule in Jacksonville, and all cities are losing home rule. But we've always got steadfast support from these leagues in keeping home rule a basic tenet of local government. But the arguments I hear against these are inflammatory. They're rhetoric, for the most part. They're unsubstantiated. And we have one member here of this committee who has experience with this league, and hardly anybody seems to be tilting towards his experience. I've never been a part of one of these leagues. I've always wanted to, but it's tough to do that when you've got a full-time business and you're treating council like a full-time job and you've got kids to raise. So I've never been a part of it. But I will tell you, though, that if you talk to any council member who's been a part of those leagues, they are a valuable part of our city and every city in Jacksonville or county. I just hate to see us go down that path and bail out. It's a mistake. Council President, then Mr. Weinstein, then we're going to vote. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say that maybe it's not the best candidate for the new contingency simply because it seems odd to put funds for a group that is actively advocating against a referendum into a contingency that is dependent on that referendum. So I think whatever you see, however you see this as core to the city and good use of taxpayer money, I think we should just vote up or the motion up or down. Thanks. Mr. Weinstein. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Three comments. The first to Councilman Salem. The budget's going to be $2 billion, $26 million. That's the revenue we have. It's not going to be less than last year. You can put half of it in reserves and half of it to public safety, but it's going to be bigger than last year because that's the amount of revenue that we have. The appearance and the impression is that you're basically going in a foxhole and a cocoon. Let's not have lobbyists. Let's not be a part of any organizations. Let's just hide from everything outside. And it's not a good appearance for you guys, and I say guys because there's not a female amongst you, which isn't a good appearance either. Thank you. Councilmember Freeman, then we are voting. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Proud father of what I have, four daughters. So if there's anybody that's advocating for girls and young ladies, it would be me. But that said, we are who we are. Sometimes we're called 19 angry men, I've been told, but there are also females on the council. I just want clarification here. I won't even talk about our fire chief and me not being able to meet with them. So when we start throwing those types of allegations, let's make sure we put it all out there that he's not allowed to meet with us one-on-one, and he's the first in that position. If we take this vote right now, and I want to make sure I'm clear because I've been quiet, but I've been a member of the League of Cities as a liaison since I came on this council in 2018. At that time, I went to being a junior member. I served my time patiently to become a senior member, and then all of a sudden when it was my turn to try to rise up in leadership and to learn more about it and to maybe serve on a board, respectfully, I was told that the administration gets to choose who serves on that board. I think they chose a brilliant person. There is nothing I can take away from a doctor or a Ph.D. that studies. So therefore, I stood down. So I want to make sure that this is clear, that we understand there is someone up here with knowledge, there is someone who paid their dues, and then that opportunity to sit in the seat that he's sitting in was removed by this administration. And so that said, Mr. Chair, through the chair, to the chair, if this vote is taken now and it's voted down, does that mean that it's gone forever, or can there be another vote later? Because they're casting judgment on this process, but in the end, it could come back later and be overturned. Is that correct? We can do anything until the fourth Tuesday night of September. Okay, well then I would encourage those that are making these types of political hits that are going to run well on the media cycle, that this is not final. It's just a vote for right now, and it could come back, depending on if we treat each other with decency and humanity. Thank you. Mr. Weinstein, and then Mr. Carlucci, are you still on the amended amendment? Mr. Weinstein, real quick, please. Thirty seconds. Councilman Freeman has said three times, gave the impression that we handled differently our fire chief because of the color of his skin. And I think that is inappropriate. I think he should apologize, and it's just not true. Gentlemen, we are getting way off the amended amendment. No, I agree, but he called my name. I'm going to give you time, and then we are voting. Through the chair to Mr. Weinstein, you served on several administrations. Was through the chair, yes or no question, was Chief Wilson required to have a representative administration when they met with me? And was Chief Powers, yes or no, were they required to have someone to meet with me? And the answer is no. You don't even have to answer that because they met with me. But on this dais, they've been said that they told us there is a policy now that he has to have someone, and I think that's discouraging. The color of his skin. I think that that's discouraging. That's definitely. And as a black man sitting here, you cannot tell me how I feel. Totally inappropriate. Council President. Totally inappropriate for you to make that comment. I agree with Mr. Freeman. And Mr. Weinstein, your comment about no women on this committee. We have two women out of the 19. The people elected 19 council members. They elected two women. And so there's no one here that is in charge of putting women on council. That's the electorate. And you physically can't have a woman in every single standing committee on city council. So, look, I said in my installation speech, I reiterate here, we're an hour and 45 minutes into our budget hearings. We have probably 100 hours to go. Disagreement is inevitable. Disrespect is not. Let's please keep the issues around the numbers. That's what finance committee is about. I'd like to start again right now. Let's please continue to respect each other and not introduce issues that are not pertinent to budget discussions. I'd appreciate that from everybody. Thank you. Thank you. That's a good opportunity to reset, and I'll try to help reset. I want to put it on the record. No one's ever called me late at night from these conferences, and it sounds like I may never get that opportunity. So, with that, we are voting on the amended amendment. So, affirmative is to remove the funding. No, you need to vote on the amendment to the original motion first. You never voted on that. So, the amendment to the original motion was to only remove the, because the original motion was to take all of those line items out, both line items. A motion to amend that was to only remove the League of Cities and Association of Counties line items, so that 237,000. Once you vote on that, if it passes, you'll need a motion on the original motion as amended and a second, and then you would vote on that. Understood. So, vote yes now is to remove the 237,000. All those in favor of – am I getting this wrong? I think me – okay. Yeah, let's work this out real quick. So, my original motion lumped everything together. That included all the chambers. And, yeah. So, this amendment is just to go down to 237 only. Yes. Okay. That's what I said. That's not what I heard. Sorry, this was a long discussion. All right. So, we are voting to remove just the 237,000, which was the amendment to the amendment. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Nay. I heard two nays. Should we do this by hand vote? All in favor, raise your hand if you're an aye. Any opposed, raise your hand. So, the amendment to the amendment passes. So, now we need a – we've got a motion to move as amended. Can I get a second? We've got a motion second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have one nay that time. So, that amendment passes. We've removed the 237. Council Member White was a no on that. I don't know if we need to re-vote or if I can just voice that. We just removed 237,000 of the – I do not have the page handy right now. I put it back. Mr. Chair, yeah, you have removed the line item relative to the Florida Association of Counties, the Florida League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the National League of Cities from the budget, which is a total of $237,427. Thank you, Mr. Fopolis. Council Member White, you're in the queue. Yes, sir. Thank you. I just want to explain my vote. I just think it's a bad look for a city this size when the smallest city to our west and to our north are members that we put ourselves in this posture. But I do understand the other thought, but I just wanted to put that on the record. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member White. I think we are at line item 57, I believe, Mr. Peterson. Through the chair to the committee. Line 57 is your non-departmental allocations increasing by $32,000. This is mostly for internal service charges for various items like utility consumption, building maintenance, security. Line item 58 is the Northeast Florida Regional Council. The reason it shows a $390,000 increase is that it was funded via separate legislation last year. Council Member Diamonds recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is my last year on City Council, and I think for seven years I've been trying to remove the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council from the budget. And if I had been successful, we would have saved $3.2 million. I absolutely promise you that this council has not given us $3.2 million worth of value. And here's the number one reason why. Almost everything they do, the city does itself. And I've made this argument year after year after year, but these regional planning councils only made sense 15 years ago when you had developments of regional impact that they had to approve. So they actually had a purpose. And then I think it was Governor Scott had that purpose removed. And so since then, it's been like one of these organs that we developed 15 million years ago and no longer use in our bodies, but it still keeps living on and on and on. So I will move to remove the North Florida Regional Council, the $390,000. I hope we don't fall for the trap that we fell for last year when they came up here and said that you have to, by statute, give them money. You don't. We have to have them by statute, but you don't have to give them any money. Other counties have opted out of these regional planning councils, including Clay County, which has opted out of ours in the past. So I've talked, every year I talk to counties who've opted out. They don't have any problems. I make this motion, and I hope we never fund this thing again and save this money. Thank you. Councilman Johnson. Of course, Mr. Chair, I will not be supporting this. And while I tell you I certainly understand and want the gentleman from the beach to have success, I'm so glad that he was unsuccessful in these efforts to remove us in his tenure on this council. I have seen the work working with Councilmember Boylan in the jail committee. I know they've worked with him on CQLI. I know that there are other things and reports that they have done to help us that the city has not produced those things. And so the regional council, in fact, we were able to hear from the town of Baldwin, who was certainly in need of the regional council support and work. And all of us have been able to not only see it, but when we call on them, they are working with me now on a study for the nightlife bill that was passed earlier this year. They are there with us to support what we do. In many ways, we don't have that capacity here. And again, it's something that was mandated by the state. So I will not be supporting this. And if it is cut, I will look to put it back into the budget, because I do think, just like the leagues, the regional council is extremely important to the work that we do to make Jacksonville better. Thank you. Councilmember White. Yes, sir. Thank you. I certainly respect Mr. Diamond and everybody's opinion here. But for me, I will not be supporting this, because I think this is a vote against public safety. And what they just simply do for JFRD and Chief Golden, I think, could give you that information if you needed it. So I would not be supporting this because of public safety. Thank you. No one else in the queue. Councilman Carlucci, you do not seem to be falling out of the queue after you speak, so I can't tell if you were in the queue on this or not. Okay. Do you wish to speak on this one? Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. Mr. Chair. I have always stood up for the regional planning council, and I usually vote for the budget. I think if you're going to have influence on the budget, if you're going to take money from the budget, and you're going to use it for something for your district, then you need to do some heavy lifting and vote for the budget. So I just say that as a comment, but we played around with this regional planning council last year to the extent that the little town of Baldwin couldn't count on us to keep this in the budget. And when it came time, they had to raise their millage by a mill because we dragged our feet and we couldn't muster the courage to do what was right. And it doesn't take a lot of courage to keep the Florida regional council in the budget. But we get all wrapped around the axle because we think we've got to cut, cut, cut. And when we do that, it affects real people. Baldwin counts on the regional planning council as their planning department. I counted on them when I first got on the council, along with some of my colleagues, to put together the resiliency office and our resiliency officer. I can't tell you the invaluable part they played in that. And the study that they helped put together was worth probably a couple hundred thousand dollars. The jail study, the CQLI, you know, the resiliency that we never seem to talk much about, but I can tell you that's probably the biggest issue for future generations if you live in Jacksonville, particularly at the beach or anywhere along the 1,150 linear miles of shoreline that we have in Jacksonville, Florida. That's huge. And they helped us put that together. I don't know what we would have done without them. Please, let's lay off of them. Let them help us to help our citizens and get off this fairytale train. That they don't do anything. And this is all brought by the same people and the same person who never votes for the budget anyway. But yet, he'll go to the budget to take money. Well, I think you've got to do some heavy lifting sometimes to take the money. Sorry to hurt your feelings, but sometimes it's got to be said. Sometimes it's got to be said. All right. No cross-talking, gentlemen. Council Member Miller, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will say, I will give my colleague his due on one of the points that Council Member Diamond made. Should the city be doing these things? Yes, I agree we should. And I believe we're probably staffed to be able to do these things. But we haven't been doing these things. And I think that's something going forward we need to look into. Just like other things that get contracted out. Or strategic plans for $250,000 when we have a lot of people with planning in their title and they're doing no strategic plans. Yes. So there's room going forward. I think we really need to take a serious look at what we're doing internally versus what we're paying outside organizations or related organizations to do. But having said that, I will also say I, too, have been part of and worked with them on various efforts, especially studies, and also help in putting our task force work together and being able to bring it into a form that is understandable and that we can use going forward. So at this point, I will continue to support the work that they're doing. However, with an eye forward, I think we need to take a serious look at which things we're paying for for outside entities and which things we're taking on inside. I know DCPS has gone through some of this with their contracting out of things that used to be taken care of in-house. So I will be supporting this at this time. However, in the future, I believe this is something we need to take a serious look at, not only for this, but also for the other things I've mentioned and other things that we really need to look into. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. No one else in the queue. Council Member Johnson, are you in the queue? You were in, you dropped, and now you're in. And let's start the timer. We're going to be on the timer until at least lunch, because we're officially behind now. This will be very quick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't know, it's kind of giving me little glitches. So Steve or Erica, whoever's here, has given me some glitches. I was just saying with the Regional Council, while I do think it's important, I will be trying to do my part to make sure it's there. It's so interesting how we say that some of the things that they do in the Regional Council we should be doing, but then in the same breath, we're saying, well, but cut the budget and we shouldn't be spending more when there are more people in Jacksonville. And so it just doesn't seem congruent to say we want more services, but we also don't want to pay for them. I want to put that on the record. Thank you. Thank you. No one else in the queue. So last year, I supported removing this. This year, I'm not going to support removing it. And the two main reasons were, since being named a jail liaison, I really have relied on a lot of the work they did with that study. And then also, they are not done with the military installation readiness review. So I want to make sure that that thing is fully wrapped up as well. And then also listening to the council member who has Baldwin under him, listening to his concerns as well. So we are going to vote, and the vote is to remove the Northeast Florida Regional Council funding. So that's what a yes vote is. All in favor of removing the Northeast Florida Regional Council funding, say aye. Any opposed, say nay. Nay. Okay. I know that nay is one. I think the only, was Councilman Diamond the only aye, or were you? Let's do a hand raise. All in favor of removing the funding, raise your hand. All opposed, raise your hand. All righty. So for motivation, when we get done with page 27, we're going to take our first break of the day. Let's see. Mr. Peterson, 58 maybe? All right. That was 58. So we'll move to 59. This is funding for the cultural council. I will say we have a handout later in this meeting. So I think it's deferring that conversation to that time. Item 60 is related to a retiree and clerk group health subsidy. This represents a one-time subsidy from the general fund for retirees and the clerks' state-funded employees. The actual cost to cover the retirees is just over $2 million, and the cost for the clerks' state-funded employees, just over $1.5 million. However, the pharmacy rebate, which we'll discuss as part of the employee services fund, is offsetting this. This is related to the group health premium increase, and because that will happen next year, the administration wanted to let the retirees and state-funded, clerks' state-funded employees be able to have time to make that decision moving forward. That is page 36. Moving to page 37, item number 61 is funding for the riverfront parks. Jacksonville Riverfront Alliance. This is actually going to be taking up as part of the parks budget next week. So unless you have specific questions, we will talk about that at that point. So, Mr. Peterson, you say we will take this up separately? Because I thought for this direct contract, today was the only day we'd be discussing this funding. Through the chair, yep, you're absolutely right. We did put an asterisk there, but working with the parks department, with the approval of the Jacksonville Riverfront Alliance contract at Tuesday's city council meeting, you are required to approve their annual budget on how they're going to spend those funding. You have not seen that. The parks department is working on that with JRA, and they plan to present that to you at, I believe they're up next week. And so we will bring this back up at that time to have that discussion. Okay, thank you. And so what I was going to bring up, if you remember in finance committee last week, we approved additional money for the downtown parks contract, but there's still a million below the line for this year that I want to see how we can use that million to offset this expense for next year. So is it proper to wait until we review the parks budget? Through the chair, I think that would be the appropriate manner. Okay. And so just so the committee knows, I will be bringing that up again. There's a million dollars sitting there unallocated for this current year that I'll work with the others in between now and then to see what the right posture is to get that to be a million dollar budget reduction going into this next year. Go ahead, Mr. Peterson, or I'm sorry, Council Member Diamond, you're recognized. No, it's just on two items. There's wrong, cultural council. I know we're going to pick that up later. So I just want to make sure we don't lose that. And then second, the same exact thing I was going to mention on that you just did, Mr. Chair, on the money that was below the line that we could swift and swap. I'm not really a big fan of this line anyways, but at the very least, if there's a million dollars sitting out there, we should be jumping all over it. Thanks. And whenever you get to telehealth, I'm ready to go. I figured you may want to speak on that one. Let's see. Mr. Peterson, just to clarify, once we are done with direct contracts, which we've still got a ways to go, I believe PSG and cultural council are immediately after that, correct? Through the chair to, or to the chair, PSG funding actually comes up before direct contracts. We'll go through expenditures, talk about the multi-year programs, debt overview, B3, and then PSG funding. It's on page 47 of the handout. 47, got it. Okay, so I think we're on note 62. All right, 62 is part of the 2% lapse that was approved by council last year, placed in the non-departmental area, 63. Council Member Salem, you're recognized. Thank you, Chair. Very quickly, Mr. Peterson, I thought that was closer to $4 million we saved, and there's only 1.6 listed here. Through the chair to Council Member Salem. When we get to the next page, there's another $5.8 million that is in a specific reserve line item. That's included in that 2% lapse that we saved. That's correct. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Peterson. All right, item 63 represents the stormwater fee subsidy for low-income residents and 501C3 organizations, going up slightly. Item 64 is related to tax deed purchases, the revenue the city receives from those certificates. Item 65 is the telehealth and proposed to keep the money flat. And we'll just get to Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For whatever reason, this seems to be getting very personal today, and I don't really enjoy that at all. So my discussion here will be very focused on just the policy. So on the policy on telehealth, here's my issue. First of all, I make a motion to remove the $1.5 million from the budget. If I can get a second, I'll explain it. All right. You have a second. And here's my explanation. So first of all, I spoke to the folks at UF Health. And if you look at UF Health over here, we just approved $56 million for them. That's the city's money to help people at emergency rooms in the city of Jacksonville. $56 million that we just sent over there. So I talked to the doctor running UF Health, and I said, hey, how much did the telehealth contract help you this year? And he said, not one penny. No diversion. That's what he told me. Not one penny. So then council auditors looked at this as we did investigation this year and said, how much did it save the city of Jacksonville? And council auditors came back and said it didn't save the city of Jacksonville one penny. It cost us $1.5 million. That's what the auditor said. It may have helped some patients. It may have helped some hospitals. But it didn't help UF Health Hospital. And it didn't help the city of Jacksonville save any money. So two. And three, we showed that there's a free option out there. There's a free option. And all we have to do is use it. So if we're serious about this argument that we want to focus on core city services and spending our money wisely, I can't think of anything that is a better litmus test vote than this one. So that's my motion. Okay. We got a lot in the queue. Council Member Johnson, then Salem. I'm sorry. Council Member Johnson, then White, then Salem. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, not one penny is just, that's not data. That's some hyperbolic made up nonsense. The dollars are there. Let's go back to this. When this, and Mr. Weinstein, you can confirm, someone from the administration can confirm with me if this is not the case. The RFP that was sent out for telehealth to get set up was $2.185 million initially. Am I correcting that, Mr. Weinstein? I think that's the number, 2.185. This council cut it back to $1.5 million, and they still did the work. And then after doing the work, those increases have gone up 40% year over year, and another 20% of people that they couldn't see. So while I certainly trust the auditor's office, I don't know that they have the right details or information to say that no money was saved from this city. Money was saved when people can go and have a telehealth appointment that allows them to keep from having to go to emergency rooms to take away a space where something could be handled at home or with a pharmaceutical drug or something of that sort. Unfortunately, for us to say, the numbers that I looked at, and I just happened to have met with the telehealth team on yesterday, according to the numbers that they shared with me, there were $9.3 million in savings based on things that could have been, things that were diverted from them having to go to emergency rooms and preventative health care that allowed people to be able to take care of things before they were exacerbated to a point where they had to be in the emergency room. So I do not agree with removing the numbers. And mind you, again, it was a bait and switch thing. This city told this group, it's $2.185 million you're going to have to work with. And then when they got the contract, the administration did what they said they were going to do. We, this council, slashed the number. Now that is bait and switch. And that means the contract that we said that we would do, we were not people of our word. And so I have a problem with that. But even so, even with all of that, even with all of that, they still did the work. And continued people, to allow people to have this service. And I'll say, my kid a few weeks ago had a major incident with a brown recluse spider bite. Maybe there are people who could have said, you know, the doctor could have looked at it and diagnosed it. Fortunately, I knew what was going on and I could get him the care he needed. But that's something that communities across this county, they need this option and opportunity for health care. So we cannot remove this. And we actually need to go back up to the 2.185 number that was initially advertised during the RFP. Thank you. Council Member Salem. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, I went through this. I'm pro-telehealth. I'm in health care. Telehealth can be a wonderful concept. But show me in this budget where we saved $9.3 million. It's not there. We are saving the hospital's money. Anyone that tells you any differently is not telling you the truth. Listen to the auditors. They'll tell you, the city of Jacksonville did not save a penny on this. That's just a fact. Just a fact. Number two, we have an indigent provider. It's called UF Health. If we want to have programs such as this, we're now subsidizing about seven or eight, nine clinics that are going to come up later as well. We should be challenging UF Health. We should be having meetings with UF Health to see how they can broaden their base and not hodgepodge it with various organizations all over the city with city money. If those organizations want to use that money, that's perfectly fine. But it should not be city money. We found out through our investigation that Baptist Health owns 10% of telehealth, and the actual physicians own a significant percentage of this thing. OK, came through our investigation. We should not be doing this. It's not personal. It's just I don't believe the city government should be subsidizing this because it provides no benefit to the city of Jacksonville. It helps the hospitals, may help some patients specifically, but does not help our budget. So I said this last year. We should be challenging UF Health. And I know there have been some discussions. And I support what Councilman Diamond said about UF Health's support of this. I've had similar discussions with them. So I hope you'll do the right thing. Thank you. Councilman White. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'll be brief. I'll just have to disagree with my good friend, Mr. Salem. It does save the city money, in my opinion. It does it in JFRD rescue calls. I know they've taken, telehealth has taken over 11,000 calls. I won't say all 11,000 of those calls would have went to JFRD rescue units, but a big portion of those would. And I'd rather have the units on the street for real need. And I will be supporting telehealth. And I do think it saved the city money through JFRD. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is a valuable program to have in our city and our county. However, anything that's returning $9 million on a $1.5 million investment is just not returning it to taxpayers. It's returning the health care system. I just don't understand why the market can't support telescope and telehealth. And that said, I think it's a valuable service. I do think health care is as close to core as you can get. But I'm going to end up voting no on the motion to kill it. But if that motion fails, I'm going to vote to put half of it, if we can contractually do that, into the Amendment 3 contingency. Because it's something that the market should start taking care of itself. And we should start sunsetting this and having the market take it over. That's my feeling. Thanks. Councilman Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll just say, anytime I hear you have health, my ears perk up. And then it's oftentimes when I hear them, I would love to see them in the room, either concurring with the information I'm getting or sharing some information that would help. Again, I look at UF Health. You are the largest employer of African Americans. It is the number one choice for those who are uninsured and underinsured. And anything that can help meet the needs of those in our community that face some of the most challenging times of their lives, I want to be supportive of it. So I've narrowed this down to four points. I've heard that, and man, I hate when we just throw stuff out and we don't get to verify it. I heard that there's no help from, I can't even read my writing now. I put a UNF, but that's not right. But North Florida. I've heard that it costs city dollars. I've heard it saves city, the city, which I would want to know how much. And then I do agree with Councilman White. If it's something that supports GFRD, I want to. So my question, just to land the plane, I love the Council President just threw that out there. Through the chair to Councilman Diamond, would you be willing, if he's talking about moving half now? And if I understand this properly, it's going to take 13 votes to get it back above the line if we get that. Or will it be a simple 10 in this other bucket? Because I would want it in the bucket with 13. Through the chair, my understanding was Council President Halle was talking about, which we've called three different things so far, but the Amendment 3 bucket essentially to where it would be approved contingent on Amendment 3 failing. Got it. And then the writer would just have it automatically come back above the line. All right. I'll continue to listen to the discussion. Thank you. Councilman Carlucci. I'm sorry. I apologize. Councilmember Gay, for your first time on committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I've sat in Doge and I listened to, you know, a lot of the information that get provided. And I appreciate past President White's concern with JFRD and the number of calls. But I guess where I'm seeing both sides of this, where it can be a benefit to JFRD and the number of calls, but I don't think it's $1.5 million worth of calls. And so I like Council President Halle's recommendation that we move some for a later date, whether we take it below the line. But I don't think there's a justification for the full $1.5 million. And so with, you know, the basis of the JFRD rescue calls. So I really would like to see something to kind of break this up and make it more where we can get it pushed through. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Diamond. Mr. Chair, I can count. So I will move to amend my motion from removing $1.5 million to instead putting $750,000 below the line. Second. Councilman Diamond, to clarify, you're putting it below the line, now we're calling it the Amendment 3 fund. Correct, just below the line. Below the line. My understanding is the amendment is to put it below the line, which would require $13 to come back up. Council President mentioned the idea of putting it in the Amendment 3 fund, which would be just dependent on the vote. Second. We do got a second. So we are now debating putting 700, essentially approving $750,000, putting the second half of the $750,000 below the line. I will recognize Councilmember Carlucci. I guess I was going to speak to it in total. I guess I can to a degree. Is this contractually, are we contractually okay to do that is my first question with the contract that we have with telehealth. That would be a question for the administration or the auditors. Through the chair, my understanding of the contract is contingent upon funding. So whatever the funding level is, is what the administration could move forward with. I do not believe that it is in any way. We are contractually obligated to the $1.5 million. So if I could clarify, we are essentially giving them six months of funding and then, okay, thank you. Okay, then I would like to say this, because I think it is pertinent to this amendment as well, since we are not fully funding what was not fully funding anyway. Because we are talking about subsidizing. That is what I heard. We are subsidizing this. You know, if I had a family member that was sick and I did not have much means, I did not have much money, and I was living from day to day, and I had a choice of using telehealth in one of their clinics or going to UF Shands. I know where I would want to go. I would want to go the telehealth way, and I would want to go to one of the clinics, because you are going to get better care, unless it was something, like, really serious. And I suspect most people would want to do that. That is just pure human dignity. I would like to wait until I have the attention of all the committee members. Save my time, please. Okay. I think it is just Council Member Johnson talking to the auditor right now. If you could continue, please. Okay. Thank you. So we are talking about subsidizing, and we don't know if we are getting back for it. I submit to you that we subsidize the Jacksonville Jaguars. And I don't like to make those kind of comparisons, because I support the Jaguars. Because I think supporting them, the return on that investment, is not always objective and not always something you can touch and feel, but is subjective to the spirit of city, of Jacksonville, and of our fans, and of our people. I think when we take care of those who are the least amongst us financially and give them a little dignity in how we take care of them, I think that speaks to the spirit of the kind of community that we are. But, no, we can send them to UF Health and put them in the emergency room, and they can wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait until they finally get in there. Thank you, Councilman Carlucci. I'm going to recognize Mr. Weinstein. He has some information for us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of things. One is that a different company is mentioned or a different product is mentioned to do something like this for free. It's a totally different product. The companies are not comparable. The service is not comparable. But more generally, we do a lot of things for the benefit of the people. This is one that's probably one of the most obvious benefits of the programs that we have. It gets people to health. It keeps the emergency rooms less full, and it saves some of our ambulance trips. I just don't understand why we wouldn't do something that's so obviously beneficial. And we do lots of things that is questionable as to the return in dollars. We take in tax dollars, and we do things to the benefit of the people that have been paying in. That's why you guys are elected. That's why the mayor's elected, to make those decisions. This, to me, is one of the most obvious benefits that we can have to many people. And I just don't understand the problem. Council Member Johnson. Thank you, Chair. I also don't understand why. I want to push back on some of the things I've heard. One of the things I've heard was there's not $1.5 million worth of calls. I don't think that any of us sitting on this day is qualified to say the dollar amount of calls. Number one, these calls, some of them could have prevented thousands of dollars of medical debt for the citizens of Jacksonville. That is what's called a tax or a savings for people. And if people are saving money, they're spending money, which helps to keep our city flowing and moving forward, especially if they're healthy and in good health. So for us to say that $1.5 million worth of calls weren't calculated, none of us on this day, including me, are qualified to say that. Now, if the research is done and we have the data, I'll certainly be willing to look at those numbers. But those data do not exist at this time. The other thing is when you look at the specifics, and I tried to pull as much as I can as we were having this discussion, when you look at the specifics of what telehealth is saving, some of the anecdotal data that I pulled said that the information they gave me on yesterday said that 20% of the people who were a part of telehealth said specifically that had they not had the telehealth visit, they would have gone to University of Florida Health. What that means is that those were thousands of dollars of medical expenses that weren't spent, that they did not have to spend. Furthermore, for us to then say that this program is too expensive, you have to take into account what it takes to run this program. There are qualified, certified doctors and nurses and other medical professionals. There are IT professionals and infrastructure support professionals. All of those people are needed to make this program work. And, again, I have to underscore, we said that we would put this out at $2.185 million. When we came back, it was a bait-and-switch thing. We said we only got a million and a half, and they made it work. That should count for something because people are saving, and that means that they are able to pay their taxes and live a life that they want to live. Thank you. Councilman Hergay. Councilman Freeman. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Did you say what time lunch was today? When we're done with all direct contracts. Okay. Well, then, I'm going to be very brief here. I'm going to always try to support indigent care. I hear the needs of my colleagues, and so I'm going to put one thing out there because I always say I want to get the most information as possible. I would like to have a meeting because I've met with individual groups, and I've heard numbers. I would like to have a meeting in my office with these three entities and these three entities alone. So, JFRD, so that would be Chief Percy, I would like to have a meeting with a UF Health representative, and I would like to have a meeting with a telehealth representative, and only those three. And so, once I have that meeting, so right now I'm going to support it going below the line because I do hear the concern of my colleague, but I will gladly be one of the 13 votes to move it right back up. Once I meet with those three, and those three only, in my office. Thank you. Counselor White. Yes, sir. Maybe this will all be the last speaker. I certainly understand, Mr. Gaze, not knowing how to put a dollar figure on it, and I don't expect anybody on this council to really understand the operation of the fire department. But where I'm coming from, if it keeps a rescue unit in the station, because you don't have a rescue unit coming to you if there's a bad emergency, cardiac arrest, gunshot wound, but it might be from three districts over, and this could save lives. You could put a figure on it. It is impossible to do, but if you understand the operation of the fire department, it certainly saves lives, and I won't support anything other than leaving it at 1.5, because we've already cut it from the 2.1, and just for more consideration of how it works. Thank you. Counselor President, in your last in queue. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to take a motion out of this, at least to take a motion out of the equation when people vote, to say that we're not investing in indigent care is a misnomer. We already just approved $56 million for UF Shands, $24 million for Medicaid, $10 million in local hospital tax. When we get to CIP, we're likely to approve $26 million in capital projects for Shands. I think we're already ahead of last year, and that's without even factoring in telehealth. So to think that we're shirking our duty to take care of those who need it most from a health care perspective is incorrect to say. At this point, I did prefer that half that funding go into the special contingency, but I'm willing to support, particularly in light of Mr. Freeman's comments and what he needs to make a decision to pull the rest out. I'm willing to support $750 straight out below the line with a two-thirds vote later. And I imagine that Mr. Freeman or one of us on the committee or one of you on the committee would support bringing it up at a later date if that information is satisfied. Thanks. Okay, thank you. No one else in the queue? I was prepared to support the whole 1.5. It was not incremental compared to last year's budget, but I think Council Member Diamonds is probably the best consensus amendment we have. So with that, all in favor of the diamond amendment, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. I heard two nays, Council Members Johnson and White, I believe, and then the rest were ayes, so the diamond amendment passes. Can I get a second? We got a motion to second to move the amendment as amended. Let's do a hand vote just so it's easier. All those in favor of the amendment as amended, raise your hand. All opposed, raise your hand. The amendment as amended passes. All right. Mr. Peterson, we may get through the rest of this page. All right. Item 66 is a contribution to the North Florida TPO. The reason for the increase is the city pays 25 cents per capita for the Duval County population. Items 67 represent all of the unfunded liabilities of the city's pension plans. Collectively, they are going up $17.9 million, and they are based on the actuarial reports. Item 68 is funding. This is the annual appropriation to the zoo to run the operations at the city on zoo based on the agreement with the city. Councilman Diamond. Mr. Chair, I promise my last one. I move to remove the $30,000 payment to WJCT lease payment. If I can get a second, I'll explain it. I know it's contractile. I want to have a motion. Let's have a fight. I got a second. Let me explain. WJCT is a far-left news organization, and we are subsidizing their lease. It is absolutely ridiculous to me that we are paying for this. Just listen to them, and you'll know where they stand. The city should have no business being a part of their lease payment, specifically just because they have construction in their parking lot. So that's my motion. Councilman Freeman, you're recognized, and then you're the last in the queue, it appears. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I just want to make sure through the chair to our auditors, per my understanding of this last year, this had to deal with the easement and JFRD being able to have access to come out and get out of their building, that this did not go towards programming or any of those types of things. Is that different this year? Through the chair to Councilmember Freeman, so this $30,000 contribution dates back many, many years when they started, I believe, when they started operations at their facility. The point that you're referencing about JFRD traveling up and down and the agreement related to the parking lot was a recent agreement where we were basically saying if we mess up anything in your area, we will fix it. This $30,000 has nothing to do with the access related to JFRD and the construction that's going on at that fire station down there on the river. This $30,000 is a continuation of what has been in their contract previously. You just approved a new agreement that maintained that $30,000. Thank you. And through the chair to the auditors, that's a little different than how I understood it last year. I was, words were used like eminent domain. I heard some things when it came to this WJCT piece and portion, and therefore it gave me the comfort level back then that we were following in a contract that would afford the city and the building with the stadium and all of those things, the access for JFRD to do what they needed to do. If you're saying that that is different now, then that definitely puts me in a different posture than I was in last year. And maybe if somebody up here on the committee that was here last year can help me understand what I'm missing here, but I would have never supported something last year if I thought it was just for operations. Councilman Johnson. I'm sorry, Mr. Peterson, were you going to add something to that? Okay, I'm going to go to Councilman Johnson. Of course I won't be supporting this, but I have to tell you, Mr. Chair, it's just so short-sighted, and I hate to continue to say the gentleman from the beach doesn't understand, is out of touch, but as a journalist, I kind of take umbrage with the assertion that the gentleman made that we're giving money to, and I quote, some far-left news organization. That's just not true. It's not true, and unfortunately, if the councilman would take just a moment, I did a quick Google search, and clearly the councilman is not familiar with that particular piece of technology, but it'll tell you that they provide educational health forums. No, no, because I want to put it on the record. One of the biggest things, no, no, no, no, because you're not going to cast dispersions like that and not allow me to respond to it, so I shall. At this point, for us to say something like the radio reading service, which blind citizens use, my grandmother used that service from WJCT as a blind person in this community, there are thousands of people that use this service, there are community news discussions, there are educational health forums, that is from a quick Google search. Now, I remember the visual radio reading service for the impaired, but the reason for this passion is because this is something that the community can go to for a public opportunity. Let's not forget the children's program. Many of our children, and children from generations, have grown up on these programs from this, but to categorize it as a far-left news organization and to just say, we're going to just move it to the side. At a time when this organization has helped so many and are struggling is something to me that is not this body. We're bigger than that, and we're greater than that, and that's why, even though this is a small amount, we should not support something like that, and I stand by my words. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to go to Council Member Gaye and then Council Member Boylan, and I think our legislative services person has left temporarily, so I will keep track of time. Council Member Gaye. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, Mr. Peterson, do we have any other contracts, or do we have any other funding that we give any other TV stations? Through the chair to Council Member Gaye, none come off the top of my head. I'm just trying to recall, and we're looking for it now, but this $30,000 dates back 90s, 80s, maybe even 70s, related to when WJCT started using the property at what is Metro Park, basically, and the city at that time agreed to the contribution. Mr. Boylan may have the information off the top of his head, but that is what this is for. This is not a contribution for a TV station or operations of their TV station. It's related to a land deal way back when. Okay. Our expert is – oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Gaye. Council Member Gaye. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So that kind of goes back to what Councilman Freeman was saying, that we was under the impression last year that this was a land access or agreement that we were supporting. Through the chair to Council Member Gaye, so I went and pulled that piece of legislation that was approved in May of last year, and essentially the city needed to disrupt their operations, their parking lot, to make the path down to the fire marina station. In doing so, we entered into a redevelopment agreement that allowed for the city's disruption. It also reflected in that agreement that the city was going to continue to make that $30,000 payment for their operations, and it's basically how they want to use it. It just recognized that $30,000 was going to continue. The $30,000 payment was not related to the city's disruption, but we needed a formal agreement to then put that into place, showing both parties' obligations as it related to that construction. All right, so you can kind of see our confusion here, because I'm hearing the 70s and the 80s that this has been going on, but we had to do an agreement for a disruption. So I may go ahead and just yield and let Mr. Boylan come on the queue and kind of give us a little more insight. Thank you. Our resident expert is next, Mr. Boylan. Thank you, Mr. Jarrett. I would characterize myself as a dated expert in this process. I've not been party to the WJCT's operation for almost 10 years now. Back in, I guess it was 2003, 2004, in negotiation with the Delaney administration, we surrendered to the city a land which we had leased from the city for the creation of the amphitheater and other pieces of the property. The deal at that time was, and also by which, by the way, we surrendered the WJCT Jazz Festival to the city as part of that. But that wasn't part of the deal. The $30,000 was strictly for us surrendering a portion of the land back to the city. And the agreement we raised is for a period of years, I believe it was 25, that we would get $30,000 a year to support the organization. I think what you're seeing happen last year, and I'm far afoot from it, because I wasn't personally involved with it, I think Mr. Peterson's characterization is correct. It was recognizing the continuation of the opportunity of the partnership between the city and WJCT with respect to the property and the use of that property and access to that property through WJCT for the new police and fire station that's happening on the river. So it doesn't really necessarily support the leftist operation of the organization, and I put that in quotation marks. I would certainly characterize what Mr. Johnson said as more than accurate, probably more so than he can even appreciate the importance of this station in this community. So I would encourage you to continue to support this, the relationship. I remember when Mr. Corrigan was on this council, he says WJCT is our TV station, meaning that the city, and it continues to be. So we differentiate ourselves from the commercial stations in that regard, and I'm hopeful. I will tell you one quick story very quickly. To Mr. Diamond's point, I remember a long time ago, I had a long conversation with the anchors of one of the national shows. I gently reminded that their center in Washington and other places is not the same as our center here in Jacksonville. I think the current administration, with Ms. Fagin's now taking over as the CEO, reflects the kind of honesty and balance that we'd like to see continue happening at WJCT. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Boylan. I'm going to go to Ms. DeFopolis real quick. I think she has something to educate us on. Through the chair to the committee, and I just wanted to support what Mr. Boylan said. He did give you an accurate representation of what is in the amended and restated lease with WJCT, which was actually executed in 2002. But it does provide that the annual contribution of $30,000 was for, among other things, and I don't know exactly the history, but compensation for the reduction in acreage within the WJCT lease and the surrender of a pavilion. Lease term is for a period of 25 years, so we're coming up close to the end of that term. Council Member Diamond, to ask your clarifying question. Through the chair to Ms. DeFopolis. I mean, do we have to give them $30,000 until the end of time? When are we done? Yeah, I'm getting on the record. Once Ms. DeFopolis gets this answer, it's going to be Council Member Johnson, Freeman, and Gay. I'm going to continue to research that. There's multiple agreements with WJCT. We're just trying to make sure that we— Mr. Chair, I don't mind if we revisit this later once we get this. I'm not going to pull my amendment either way, but I'm fine if we get better information. Okay, so what's the right posture in order for us to move on? Should he withdraw his amendment for now and we come back to it or table it? If you would like to table it, Mr. Chair, you can always revisit it. We will table the Diamond Amendment on WJCT. Colleagues, I said we would take a break once we got to the end of that page. I know a number of y'all have left and come back. Do y'all want to take a break or keep on plowing through? All right, next page, Mr. Peterson. Go ahead. Ms. Moyer was able to look and she confirmed that there isn't on the horizon for next year the bringing back the lease for renewal. So it sounds like we are within the end of that 25-year term and that's when the—so the lease would be revisited next year with respect to that $30,000 provision being in that lease agreement. Okay, thank you. So now that we have the answer, let's untable it. Council Member Freeman, you're the only one left in the queue. All righty, so just want to make sure before we vote on this and love the discussion where we've gotten to, I'm not really here to get into a lot of the semantics of what they're producing, but I love the question that my colleague asked of how many other TV stations or radio stations are getting funded. And I believe through the chair to the auditors, that answer was none. And Council Member Bowling has kind of updated us on and refreshed our memories that this is a contract that predates all of us. We've just learned that there's one year left in it. And so for me, my question is, is in this one year through the chair to OGC or the auditors, my colleague, Councilman Diamond, has a concern. Are these dollars able to be restricted? Because I fully supported it last year, and last year must have been the first year it was really kind of brought back to our attention. And I was comfortable voting last year because it was definitely for property and easements. But some of the things that they've just mentioned, now he mentioned Met Park. We understand now that's under the control of, I want to say that's the CBA, the Audi Steel, Jaguars are managing it now. He mentioned another thing, the Jazz Festival, that's downtown, it's no longer there. So a lot of the premise of why we were leasing it for that amount every year no longer exists. So can we now restrict these dollars for said uses that it was Met Park back then? Can we now say it's for the children's course? Or can we now say it's for and have a better feel that it's not going towards where I think my colleague is upset with, has heartburn, which is operations and programming? Are we able to do that? And if the answer is no, then I'm going to be probably putting in a different posture. Because my last question is, do we have control of those assets that he just mentioned, which we don't anymore, Met Park? Through the chair to Council Member Freeman. So Mr. Peterson, I will try to respond to your question, but Mr. Peterson is also asking Mr. Chair that we continue to table this item because he's got some conflicting information he wants to look into. With respect to the $30,000, so to restrict that, because currently there is no restriction in our lease agreement with WJCT, on how they use those dollars. So to restrict that would be a contract amendment. However, I would also say that because the term comes to an end next year, the opportunity, should that payment continue, would be consideration made during that negotiation of a new lease, if there is going to be one, as well as how those funds, if they continue to be paid and allocated, whether there's a restriction placed on it or what the purpose of that payment would be, would also be potentially a part of that negotiation for a new lease with the entity. And thank you. And if my understanding is correct, the agreement that we have for 25 years was based off of assets that we no longer control. And so I'm just trying to say, and if we were to restrict it, you're saying we're in breach of contract, now you're saying WJCT might be willing to sue us as a city. I just want to make sure I understand if we make restrictions and they don't like it for one year, what are their options? Can they sue us? And now if I want to know if they're going to be in that posture with us as we've been great, we've been in a great partnership up to this point, that in and of itself would probably say something. So a couple of things. Don't want, you know, people sue for a lot of different reasons. And so I think to assert that they can only use the dollars for a certain purpose when that is not a part of the agreement could be a matter that they would potentially have some form of legal action that they could take. Whether they took it or not, obviously, it's up to them. I also would just like to point out that in the lease agreement, it does say the $30,000 is subject to annual appropriation. Council Member Gay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At each minute we're getting more enlightenment on this, so I support tabling this right now. Some of the things I've just heard, you know, about the, yes, we're in a contract, and I understand the framework of the contract, we got to uphold to that. But with this other item being discussed about, basically, if we fund it, then we're not subject to any, if we don't fund it, we're not subject to any potential damages. So I think we really need to understand the total framework of this contract, and before we take an action on it, I support just tabling it for now. I agree. I'd like to table it and move on and get more information, let our team research it. I thought it was the $30,000 annual payment when I saw it in there, but I think there's a little bit more to it. But let's just table it. We'll get more information. We'll come back and revisit it at a later time. With that, I still have three speakers in the queue. I'd like to move on from this, if that's okay. Or did you still want to speak, Council Member Johnson, because it is tabled as of now. Okay, Council Member Johnson. But, again, it is tabled for now. While I do understand that, I just want to make sure, especially when there are things that are said, we must make sure that we correct them. And one of the things that was said was how many TV or radio stations do we subsidize? And I would actually, I detest answering a question with a question, but the question then becomes how many TV or radio stations are 501c3s or nonprofits? And the answer is zero. The only one is WJCT, and the reason being is because they provide additional public services. So to equate that with them being this left-wing organization, it just doesn't gel with reality. And so I look forward to the discussion, talking with WJCT, and also ensuring that we are doing our part to continue providing this service for the community. Thank you. Mr. Boylan, do you have anything else you want to say? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for continuing the conversation. Just to be clear, as Mr. Papalos pointed out, the contract with the city was signed in 2002. It was a 25-year agreement for surrendering property back to the city. That's all this was, as well as the amphitheater. We are in the last year of that agreement. Moving this $30,000 through, and, frankly, it's not going to make or break. I mean, it's a $10 million operation. All right? It was just an acknowledgment of a commitment made by this administrator and by the city back in 2002. So if you have some concerns what happens next year with whatever negotiation is taking place right now, I think that would be the appropriate time for you to address any concerns as to how those dollars are used. Pure and simple, this was a real estate transaction that happened to include the assignment of the festival to the city away from WJCT. Thank you, Mr. Papalos. Yeah, Mr. Chair, we're going to keep researching it. There is an agreement that was approved. There was a bill that was approved in 2025 that contained an amendment that spoke to this particular payment being continued through 2037. So, again, still subject to annual appropriation, but it's so the term on this particular payment provision doesn't end to next year. It continues through October 15th of 2037. Okay, thank you. But we're making sure that got signed. Okay, thank you. So no one's going to blame us of not taking every dollar seriously. Let's see. I think we're done with page 27. Is that correct? Okay. So on to page 28. Page 28, the top of your page reflects dollars that are being placed into a reserve or a contingency for one reason or another. The first item, item 69, is funding that was set aside in last year's budget stabilization account by council. The mayor's office has not proposed putting any dollars in there. Item 70 is the $10 million that council approved earlier in the year or requested to be placed in a council strategic plan. Mr. Peterson, I'm going to recognize Council Member Diamond. And Council Member Diamond, I was going to have a motion on this as well, but I'll wait and see what yours is, and perhaps we're thinking the same thing. Well, I'm open-minded to whatever number we want to talk about here. But just so folks at home understand is for the last couple of years, the city council has put like $10 million aside for essentially like special projects. I don't know any other way to put it. Somebody who is cynical might call it a slush fund for whatever we come up with. Somebody more adept to like spending money might say, hey, this is a way to easily fund district projects. And so I think what's good for the goose is good for the gander. We rightfully look at a lot of the mayor's spending priorities and think some of them are ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous that the city council is putting $10 million aside, especially with this budget coming up. So my goal would be to cut this in half. But I'm open-minded to that numbers because I really don't know where the rest of the finance committee is on this. So I'll defer to you all, but I'm happy to make a motion and support it. So, Councilor Diamond, are you making that motion to cut it in half? I'll make a motion to reduce the city council strategic plan, this contingency cash, by $5 million. Got a motion and second to reduce it by $5 million or to $5 million, sorry? To $5 million. Got a motion and second. I have two members in the queue. I will probably have an amendment to the amendment, but I'm going to acknowledge our council president first. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is a great opportunity for us to set an example of a spending constraint. And I think that is, in and of itself, a strategic pursuit. So I would recommend that we eliminate a majority of it, even if the body felt so inclined, all of it. But I'll leave it up to you all to make motions. My thought on this is such, a week ago we got a report on council district discretionary funds. Every council district here, 1 to 14, has between $1 and $1.1 million in their discretionary funds, except for District 2, who's used about half of that on a critical piece of infrastructure in District 2. I think it was an intersection that needed to spend immediately for safety purposes. I think that was what it was. Oh, okay. No, then something else. I thought it was intersection. But everyone, for the most part, except one of the 14 districts, has between $1 and $1.1 million, which was funded largely by the CBA but some other sources of funding. So unless the district members feel that they need significantly more, I think that should be sufficient for those special projects. And we can show, again, that example of Spanagan's rate by taking most, if not all of us, and putting it to reserves. Thanks. We're going to go Freeman, then Johnson, then Carlucci. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Council President, you read my mind. I was going to probably think about offering something for at-large council members and just getting rid of all the district ones, but I think that idea would sink like a lead balloon. No, I'm joking. But I just want to make sure we understand the impetus of this. This was basically a project of a council president at that time who was ensuring that when budgets were presented, the things that were most important to district council members, that they had some funds to be able to do it. And it was Council Member Bowman, and we used to have a white board up. We all had dots, and we put the dots there. And wherever the most dots were, if it was in infant mortality, that was where he would ask the budget. That's where we would negotiate with the administration to say, here are the priorities to focus on. So that was the genesis of it. I do agree, and when I invited Doge to town and they said, well, where should we start? I say, start with the council. So I do agree that we should, in good faith, do some type of cut. If it's all of it, I'm fine with it. If it's a portion of it, I'm fine with it. I would vote for all, and I want to thank you all for bringing this one forward. Okay, we have Council Member Carlucci, then Johnson, and then I will be making an amendment to the amendment. Council Member Carlucci. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been a district council member previously, and at that time I had a fund that I could draw upon. I've got to tell you, I think it's a mistake to – I think it's admirable that the council would be willing to put the money back and to cut it. And what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I get that. I think that's a noble move, but I think that if you have, as a district councilman, some discretion to use dollars that can touch the sensitive areas of your district, that can make a difference, I think it's really a great thing. I used it in a way that was very picky, but that added a lot of value to my district, and the dollars were spread around evenly. I would leave it there. It's not like we're increasing the budget. We're not. And as a district councilperson, I would surely want to be able to hold on to some dollars in order to have some flexibility in meeting the needs of my constituents. I would urge you not to support this as well-meaning as it might be to turn the money back. I think a lot of your constituents to say, you know, we have needs in our neighborhood. We would really appreciate it if you would help us. So I would vote against this motion to cut. Thank you. Councilman Johnson and then me. Thanks, Chair. Chair, I want to first say I hope that one of the things I keep hearing as we look at the numbers that we're talking about, one of the things I hope is that we are looking beyond the numbers and seeing the people. That's what's important to me. I believe in my heart of hearts that's why the council president placed me on this committee. Not that anyone else doesn't do that, but I go a little deeper, and I see more people than numbers. I do not agree with removing this contingency. I know of the good work that it's done in certain communities, and I also have to push back a little while, again, when I say look beyond the numbers, I do know, as the council president stated, that there were funds in each council district. But it doesn't tell you on that spreadsheet that comes out from the auditor's office what those funds were already allocated for. So in many cases, those communities have been worked with, funds are allocated, but as we know that government runs at the speed of government, not at the speed of life, so that's why you may not know that those things are being worked on by the general council's office or the auditor's office or public works so that the communities can get the things that they need. I tend to agree with Councilmember Carlucci, I think to just, again, it takes votes to get these funds out from the contingency, and while I know it sounds good and it may look good, I think it's all pro forma. In this space, I do believe that these funds need to stay here and continue the process as usual so that those council members, both district and at large, who have specific projects, have access to the capital to realize those projects in those areas of Jacksonville. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to hand my gavel off to the vice chair and ask to be recognized. Mr. Chair, you're recognized. Thank you. I would like to make a motion to actually lower it from the 10 point, right at 10.0, all the way down to 2.2 million. I'll get to why in a second. First off, we already said a lot of the same things. I got a second. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me of that part. I mean, our biggest strategic priority this year should be to be prepared. And Council President mentioned, you look at that discretionary report, most all of us still have money for traffic calming. There was the critical quality of life study on parks we have money for, and of course, the CBA dollars. We all got a million dollars. And then if that's not enough, you submit legislation and you sell us on why it's important for you to get that additional funding. The reason I went with 2.2, if you jump all the way ahead to page 55, the auditors put together a table of what did Council approve that was not included in the budget. Now, I'm not saying I'm going to support all the line items that are in there, but I'm saying I want to at least keep that 2.2 for us to debate if there are items and initiatives that we want to continue that we put into the budget last year. So that is my logic in reducing it down to 2.2. You may see I did not include there as a one-off. We had $3.5 million, which was very much a one-time thing for the FSCJ burn building last year. I did not include that number. So, again, my amendment takes it down all the way to $2.2 million, and it would be to directly transfer into our reserves if my amendment is approved to the reserves, correct? I do not. Mr. Carlucci, are you back? Okay, never mind. You just disappeared. You are recognized, and you are the only speaker on this. Okay, thank you. I don't support your amendment, and the reason is it's well-meaning. I get that. You take that 2.2 million, and you put it in a contingency somewhere, and then you've got perhaps 19 council members who want to try to use some of that for something, and it doesn't go very far. And it's usually those that are in position committee-wise that wind up obtaining those dollars and using them. And there's just table scraps left for everybody else. I'd like to see all the district council members have an equal share of dollars to use for their districts. But when you start minimizing it like that, it's kind of a who comes first, who grabs it first, and then there's not much left for anybody else. I think, and I've got a question. Why are we going through? It seems like numbers is the big deal here in cuts and not quality of life and not people. That's how it appears to me. I'm not questioning. I'm not making it personal. That's what's appearing to me. When I look at a budget, I look at the whole. I look at people. Every dollar. There's a dollar behind every person in this county. What is the direction we're trying to take? I just don't understand it because the money we're going to collect this year and in the coming fiscal year is enough to fund this entire budget. What are we doing? I just don't understand. I don't understand the principle here. Sure, no one else in the queue, and let me just reiterate, if you vote yes for my amendment, nothing is being cut other than essentially a placeholder that was at city council's discretion to choose against what a strategic priority should be. And I think we have consensus that the strategic priority is to be prepared if something was allocated that there is no, that it was not allocated for anything, right? It was there at city council's discretion. I appreciate the administration for budgeting it. It's per ordinance, and we had a little issue with that the first budget year. So I think this is the best use of taxpayer dollars. Let's put it back into the reserves if we do not have a specific use for it right now. So I don't have anyone else in the queue. I believe I can call for the vote, correct? It was my motion. So all those in favor of the Landon Amendment to the amendment, say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. I have one nay from Council Member Johnson. We got a motion on the amendment as amended with a second. No, it's just one. Yep. So this will be the amended amendment, which is to reduce it to 2.2. All in favor of the amended amendment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed have one nay. By that, we have reduced the council contingency from roughly $10 million down to $2.2 million. Mr. Peterson, can you take over with, I believe it's note 38. Council Member Johnson, you recognize. Just I want to make sure, if the auditor could share with me through the chair, the funds that were realized from that reduction, while this is not firm until Council Knight, do they go back under the line? Do they go into another contingency? Where do those specific funds go? Thank you. Mr. Peterson, if you don't mind, my amendment had it going directly back into the reserves. So it's back sitting in the city's savings account, essentially. Once the budget passes. Correct. That's what I wanted to make sure we were clear on. Thank you. So I think what you're getting to, could you have your own floor amendment to bring some of that back up? Absolutely. It does require a majority vote. Thank you. Mr. Peterson. All right. Item 38 is another direct contract that is in a reserve line item. This is related to the Orlick. And so we'll discuss that at a later time. You'll see Riverfront Parks, Council approved a $2.6 million reserve last year. That has zeroed out because it's being funded above the line, as previously discussed. Federal matching grants, item number 72. This is dollars that are set aside for state and federal continuation grants that are on Schedule B1B, which we'll see later. These are all grants that the city has received in the past, and the funding is set aside for when they come in in the future. Item 62 is the Duval Doge 2% lapse that was approved last year that was set aside into the contingency, required utilizing those dollars to come back to council, the two-thirds vote. Item 49 is the $26 million that was set aside in the last year related to the public safety. It is being shown as a reduction here because it is being carried over to fund those three projects that you all previously discussed. Item 73 is a contribution to JTA for the Community Transportation Coordinator Program related to an interlocal agreement with JTA. It's in a contingency because it will be brought above the line in the Conflict Bill 2026-514. Item 74 is $250,000 that is set aside in a reserve for federal programs. In case the city receives any additional state and federal grants that require a match that come up through the year, the city sets funding aside. Otherwise, it stays in that account. Item 75 at the bottom shows your principal interest and fiscal agent payments for all the city's debt related to non-departmental items. So that will then take us to page 29. Mr. Peterson, if I may, colleagues, lunch is here, and I imagine there's going to be a lot of debate on the first line item there on page 29. So I would recommend that we take a 20-minute break for lunch right now. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started again. So, Philip, I believe we're on the top of page 29. That is correct, and that is footnote number 76. The proposed budget includes $4.9 million for an affordable housing trust, and you'll see on page 38, the administration has identified the intent for this $4.9 million is to go $1.5 million for a down payment assistance home ownership program, $2.4 million for a local capital stack for attainable housing program, and $1 million for an attainable housing TAP fee fund. And depending on the discussion, we do have a recommendation as it relates to this. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Before I acknowledge Council Member Diamond, I would request there's basically three separate things in this line item, so I think it would be most efficient on any amendments if we take them up as an individual line item instead of all three. So with that, I'll recognize Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My motion is to remove the $4.9 million entirely and put it into general funds, so total remove. If you want to take them up piece by piece, that's fine with me, but that's my motion. Yeah, to reserves, yeah. Council Member Diamond, I guess my request would be, could your first amendment be to remove the $1.5 million for down payment assistance, and then we can debate that. Okay, so move. If I get a second, I'll give you my argument here, my discussion. Do we have a second? Second. We got a second from the Council President. Thank you. So, again, this is one of those things that is incredibly well-meaning. It sounds wonderful. Down payment assistance. Unfortunately, it's a drop in the bucket for what Jacksonville would need to actually have an impact here, and that is a good reason not to do it, because we'll be picking and choosing families in Jacksonville that get help and that don't. Secondly, this is not the job of government to do this kind of assistance, especially local government. Like, federal programs exist to make it easier for first-time homebuyers and for veterans to purchase, and those programs are backed by hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars over the years, so this money is not going to make an impact. It's not our job as a local government, and my biggest piece of the puzzle here is if we reverted this money to make it easier to build housing in Jacksonville, the price of housing would go down in Jacksonville. Now, we've made some great strides forward with our private provider bill and some other things, but it is still far too difficult to build a single-family home in Jacksonville, and that is on the mayor and her team. And we absolutely need to direct our efforts and our funds on making it easier to build and not to put a Band-Aid on a broken leg with this misspent money. Councilman Carlucci on the amendment. Unless slave services, we're going to use the clock the rest of the day, given how far behind we are. Well, I've heard many people up here say they support down payment assistance, and if they were to direct money towards anything, it would be towards down payment assistance. I support this. It may not solve everybody's problem, but the people whose problem it does help and lands them in a home, I suspect they would have something glowing to say about this program. Why are we against this? Or not we, but why would somebody be against this? I don't get it. It looks like it's a partisan thing is what it's turning into here. But I'm for this. I'm for helping people, and I've been trying to help with affordable housing since I've been on this council. We do a lot of talking about it, and then when it comes time to actually do something, then everybody seems to, you know, turn and go the other way. That's one of the things I really have had a hard time understanding. And it happened last year at budget time. I had quite a bit of money in the budget, and then it went down $6 million, and poof, it went gone. It just went away. But then every time it comes up, if we're at a town meeting or somewhere, we like to talk about how we're for affordable housing. Well, we've got a chance to do something about it here. And down payment assistance is a great, it's a valuable tool to help people of all ages. I just got a report here from the eye care group, and they've got a lot of people in the audience. And it's good reading. Just because we can't solve everybody's problem doesn't mean we can't try to help some people. That's the silliest reasoning I've ever heard. And can we just be for something instead of being against everything? I just appeal to your inner core, to your consciences of when do we start helping people here? This is a place to start that. I know a lot of y'all looking at your phones and doing other things, but I'm a councilman that cares about the people of this city. And I want to move the needle forward on affordable housing. And a lot of people want us to move the needle forward. And we've got a chance to do it right here and right now. So we can ignore it, or we can go along and put the money back, and now we've saved some more money, cut, cut, cut. But then when the big projects come before us, and there's millions of dollars that we can give for some economic incentive, which I support those, because they're good for the city. I support those, but I support what helps the average person and the poor folks as well. Thank you, Mr. Carly-Cheek. Council Member Freeman, then Johnson, then Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate my colleagues' comments. But I'll just say this. I think two things can be true. I think we can agree, and I don't believe this is partisan. I've served on this council when we had a Republican mayor and a Democratic president, and we put out $1.8 million in microgrants, and a special committee was created. I think Councilman Boylan might have been one of the few Republicans on it, and Councilman Carlucci, and they put out a lot of money. That's just the way government works. I don't think that's partisan. I think it's just folks doing what they think is best. But two things can be both true, and we also can disagree on how we pay for it. And I think that's where we're at right now. I think all of us would agree. It was one of my biggest initiatives when we talk about affordable housing. I think we all will agree that we can do better, and we should continue to do better in it. It's just how we go about it. So my procedural question through the chair to anyone on the left that can answer this is with the motion, and I would love for you to restate the motion, if you can, in your response, when these dollars are, if the motion passes, if the amendment passes and the dollars are moved, how many votes would it take to bring it back at a later point if we chose to? Where are these dollars going? I think he said general funds. So then how many votes would it take to bring it back at a later point if it can? Through the chair to Councilmember Freeman, if you're referring to a later point in time being the finance committee, it would just be a majority vote. If you're referring to a later point in time up to September 22nd, it would be a majority vote. Come October 1st, it would take a two-thirds vote. Well, thank you. So in this move that we make right now, you're saying that once we send this budget, whatever we get to, to the administration, and they do what they do, and then we get it back, 10 votes could put something back into it. Is that what I'm understanding? Through the chair to Councilmember Freeman, I would argue that you don't send it to the administration until October 1st. So up until that point, it would be a majority vote either at finance committee or through a floor amendment at council. Understood. After October 1st, the two-thirds. So it would be just 10 votes coming from this. And then the next question is, if we pass something that the administration doesn't like, do they have the ability to veto anything? Through the chair to Councilmember Freeman, yes. So the mayor has the authority to line item veto items in the budget. You don't line item veto the absence of something, but she can line item veto items in the budget, yes. Councilmember Johnson. Thank you. I just want to speak. I will, of course, not be supporting this because this is about community. I certainly think of the work that has been done. While I do understand the rationale to put it below the line to drop it down, I don't think that the rationale that I would see to do that does not correlate with what I see with the numbers. I'm just thinking about the firefighter or the nurse or those others that have that place that has decent credit, that's been paying their bills, $1,700, $1,800 a month in rent, and then they get to the point where they can contribute even more to society by being a homeowner, and there's a gap that's there, and they need $15,000 to $20,000. I know that because when I came on this council, I commissioned, there was a lot of, and Mr. Jeffries is in the audience. He can correlate this. We worked really closely with not just lenders, but borrowers and the community, and we were able to get, I think it was more than 100 people in homes with the work that was done, and we worked collaboratively with that. It's not picking and choosing winners. It's giving people who need the opportunity a place where they can come and get that opportunity, and I think moving these funds around like chess pieces or musical chairs only shows the gamesmanship that is attempted to be played with people's lives, and so again, as I look at these numbers, I look at people, not just money, and I think that's why this is so important to keep it where it is in the budget, so I will not be supporting this movement. Thank you. Councilor Diamond. This will literally be the last time I do what I'm about to do, which is to respond to people not on the committee, and then to what I keep hearing from my left. Okay. Let me explain the people who are not in the room who matter. They're the people who earn the money that pays for the city. I keep seeing what I think about the people behind it. Yeah. Nurses pay property taxes. Doctors pay property taxes. Police officers are trying to keep their homes in Jacksonville. They pay property taxes, and the property taxes keep going up and up and up, so when I move to remove something from this budget, it is to make their life easier. It is so they can keep their homes. It is so they can send their kids to the schools they want to, right? That's what I am doing up here. This is not about partisanship. This is about policy, and the policy I am infuriated with is this council keeps on taking money from the people who have earned it here in Jacksonville and just throwing it to other people. That's my problem. I won't do this again, but if I keep hearing, tell me about the people behind this. Yeah, of course we are thinking about the people. It is so easy and cheap just to be like, here is the money. There you go. These guys earned it, but they are not here. They are not trying to get your vote right now. Here is the money. That is the easiest thing in the world to do is to say yes. It is hard to say no, and you say no because you believe the no will help someone. I am telling you who will help. All these people who are trying to hold on to their homes in Jacksonville, people who are renting, who can't afford a home in Jacksonville because property taxes are so high, and I'm trying to help people who have been in their mom's basement for way too long. Average age of a new homeowner is 40 in Jacksonville. New homeowner in America is too old. The best way to do it is to increase supply by making it easier to build and to make it cheaper to buy by lowering their property taxes. That's what we actually have control over. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just also wanted to make a comment. Emotionless, purely numerical. I've heard that this is gamesmanship with people's lives, that we don't want to help people, but I just want to remind people what we've approved already today, and it's 1242. We've approved juvenile justice, Medicaid, indigent health care, telescope, infant mortality, alcohol rehabilitation, cooling centers, funding for all those initiatives that are nearly $80 million. So to say that we don't care about people's lives or we're playing games is absolutely incorrect. We're here allocating dollars to what we think the priorities should be. That's what we're doing, and we're being prudent with the dollars because they come from taxpayers. Thanks. Mr. Weinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The budget that's in front of you has a lot of pieces to try to deal with affordability. Some council members don't think we should be dabbling in it. No, we can't fix everything, but we're trying to do all that we can. I think before you vote on basically taking something out that is, in fact, providing some assistance, you might ask Josh Hicks to come up and explain what the impact would be. But there's a lot of posturing, a lot of political comments, and basically performance, rather than really getting into the impact of taking money, not taking money out of the budget, and what impact that it will have, rather than huge political positions. One of the council members right and left, and it's just, we move away from the impact of making line-by-line decisions as we talk, basically, as political platforms. That's all. But Josh is here if you're interested in knowing the impact of what you're doing. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein. And for my colleagues and for the public out there, today is not the first time we've looked at the budget, and so a lot of us have had meetings. I see Dr. Joshi out there. I had a long meeting with him. I see Travis and Josh out there. I had a long meeting with him. So I'm hesitant to start calling people up, only because most of us have met with them. But at the same time, if a committee member has a question, feel free to call that person up. But I just want to make that clear. Most of us had had pre-meetings to get our questions answered. I'm going to go to Council Member Johnson. I, for one, I do want to hear from, I'm curious as to what Mr. Hicks may have to say to add to the conversation before we make the vote. So if he could come up to the podium through the chair. And I just want to say prior to him coming, while I do certainly understand the want to, just because you've done one thing does not make it right that you didn't do something else. So while I do understand the assertion that because we did approve certain funding for certain things, that does not negate the fact that there are other things that we need to do. I've said it before. We must both walk and chew gum at the same time. And I think this is one of those instances. But I'd love to hear what Mr. Hicks could add to this before we make the vote. Thank you. Mr. Hicks, do you want us to ask you questions or do you have something prepared you want to tell us right now? Through the chair. It's completely up to the chairman. I would like to hear, Mr. Chair, what, how this, as Representative Weinstein said before, how this will adversely impact the work that you all are doing in the housing group. Thank you through the chair to Councilman Johnson. Thank you for that question. So I want to first emphasize Travis Jeffrey, the chief of housing community development, is also here. We can talk about some of the set-asides that we have with our federal and state dollars compared to the local dollars. Our federal and state programs that fund down payment assistance that we have worked with Councilman Johnson on is capped out at 80% AMI. We can't go higher than that. We can't help people. If you're a dollar above that 80% area medium income level, you're out of luck. You don't qualify. That's a federal rule through HUD. That's a state rule through the state of Florida. This down payment assistance program really should be called the down payment assistance workforce housing or workforce program because it's helping the AMIs just north of 80% AMI to 120%. My councilman from the beaches recently just mentioned that nurses, police officers, firefighters need support, need affordable housing. They start salary levels around $60,000 or $70,000 a year, $80,000 a year. That's the 80%, 85%, 90% AMI. So that's workforce housing. That's who this program will support. In fiscal year 23-24, when this program was funded, we were able to help 77 households, 77 families receive their first-time home. If this program passes with this $1.5 million, we've reduced the amount of money they can receive from $25,000 to $15,000 to be able to help more people to get to 100, 125 families. Again, firefighters, nurses, police officers, teachers get them into a first-time home, which then frees up our rental market. We do need more supply. That's why we have a capital stack fund in here for $2.4 million to help build some more housing. But we need that supply, so let's free up some rental space by getting people into home ownership. Let's help reduce their mortgage cost to support them long-term. So that's the purpose of this program, Councilman Johnson. Councilman Freeman. Thank you. Security Chair, too. You're not done. I just had a quick follow-up. Was the money that you put in, you said you decreased it from $25,000 to $15,000, is that sliding, or is it $15,000 across the board for everybody that applies? Sorry about that. Through the Chair, to Councilman Johnson, it'll be $15,000 max, but it's up to the credit underwriter. So if the credit underwriter came to us and said, this homeowner, to get them qualified, only needs $5,000, we'll provide $5,000 of down payment assistance. That's how we can do a lot more with less. So just because it's $15,000 max doesn't mean every person will receive $15,000. Councilmember Freeman. Thank you. Through the Chair, to Mr. Hicks. One, are there any federal matching dollars to this, or state matching dollars to these dollars here? We receive federal, through the Chair, to Councilman Freeman, we receive federal and state dollars every year. They're not matching dollars. They're specific. There are set-asides through home and CDBG funds on the federal side, and then our money from ship in the state that we can use for down payment assistance. So we're not risking losing or getting a return. I know the big thing now is like $3 for every $1 we invest. So this is not one of those scenarios where we would be getting $3 for a $1 taxpayer money that we invest in. Is that correct? Through the Chair, to Councilman Freeman, we would be getting a return on investment by moving people from rental to home ownership, at which point they can pay property taxes into, which we receive for the city of Jacksonville as a homeowner. In terms of our federal dollars, it would not jeopardize any of those. We still receive those every year. We still receive money from the state. Perfect. That checks the box. And then my last question is, when was the first project done? And help me with my memory, was this the one where you all did the press conference and the podium had a political sign in front of it of a presidential nominee at that time? It was in the newspaper. I kind of Googled it and looked up, and it had. And so when I hear everything's partisan and I hear it's politics, the very first, it was $25,000, one of the programs that we're funding, it was done, had a political candidate's name as they were running for the highest office in this land. Thank you. Through the Chair, to Councilman Freeman, no. When we announced the down payment assistance program originally two years ago, it was with Councilwoman Jacoby Pittman in front of one of the houses that we built. And it was one of the JWB houses, actually, that they were building that we could then apply down payment assistance towards. But it did not have a presidential slogan or sign or anything like that. Thank you. My time's running out, but you can go Google it. You'll see it. It had a Kamala Harris waltz on it. And that might have been a different program. Not at that event. My point is, is when we're allocating dollars for assistance for affordable housing, I keep hearing that we're partisan and we're political, but those things are put on it as wins. So who actually wins are the people. But I wanted to put that out there that it comes from other sides as well. If that is their sentiment, I don't feel like we're being partisan up here. Councilmember Johnson, then do you want to respond, Mr. Hicks? Mr. Chair, if I may. Mr. Chairman, I've never done a political event in terms of these down payment assistance programs, in terms of housing programs, since I've been at the city of Jacksonville. I've never gone to a presidential event in Jacksonville since being at the city. So I don't know what event you're referring to. Maybe I wasn't there. Maybe it's one of our different programs. But in terms of down payment assistance, again, we did an event on the north side in Councilman Pittman's district to announce the $2 million program two years ago, which then led to us supporting 77 families across Jacksonville and receiving a first-time home. Councilmember Johnson. Thank you so much. Well, I was there, Mr. Chair. I was at the event. My friend Kamala Harris, the former vice president, looked at the things that were going on here in Jacksonville. And Mr. Hicks is right. The information that he gave was in Councilwoman Pittman's district. That was the first announcement of it. And that's when I got involved and created that Blueprint from Home Ownership workshop that we had. But the information, and while I do appreciate my colleague Councilman Freeman bringing this up, this has nothing to do with this program. It's just someone came in, they saw, Vice President Harris saw the program, her team saw it and said, this is what looks good. And this is something that if I am elected president of the United States, I would like to take across the country. It had nothing to do with partisanship. They just saw a program they wanted to highlight. And yes, as a Democrat, I was there with the mayor and some other folk and some people who benefited from the program. But it was not specifically a political event to say this is done because we were members of a Democratic Party. That's just not true. Councilmember Gay, then we're voting. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Back to the numbers, what is the, through the chair, what is the numbers that we do get from the federal, any organization to fund this? Through the chair to Councilman Gay, thank you for that question. So we receive anywhere between $15 and $20 million through four federal grants on a yearly basis. Y'all approved our budget about three weeks ago, three, four weeks ago from HUD. Within that, the home dollars budget, we receive about $6 million a year, and we can use that for a portion for down payment assistance. Now, that is split. Some of it goes into our revolving loan fund to help build more housing in our community. Some of it goes towards our heirs property programs and other things. So traditionally, between SHIP, which is the state fund, which we received $7 million from the state this year, traditionally, we put in between $2 and $3 million into our down payment assistance program on the federal side that supports AMIs of 80% or below. Really, we support individuals 60% area medium income or below with that program. So $2 to $3 million a year. Okay. So back to my question, in the affordable housing, the down payment assistance, the dollar amount that we received, are you saying it's $15 to $20 million? No, sir. So that's our total federal funding that we receive that runs all of our programs. So that's ESG for homelessness. That's HOPWA for AIDS and HIV-related homelessness issues. That's community development block grants, which we're putting in $2 or $3 million of that money this year into road resurfacing projects within this budget. And then it also goes to HOME, which is their development money that HUD gives us on a yearly basis. On the state side, we get about $7 million. So then Travis puts together a budget every year. And all of these programs that we fund are like our rehab and repair programs, our down payment assistance, our revolving loan programs, our foreclosure properties programs. All of them get a line item within our budget, which passed this council a few weeks ago. Within that budget, we put in $3 million this year for the 80% or under AMI. So we have $3 million that we're working on right now for affordable down payment assistance. Workforce housing, above that 80% number, we have no dollars currently. Thank you, Mr. Hicks. Council Member Gay, Mr. Peterson walked over here, and he said the number you're asking about is on one of the exhibits. So I just want to point that out for you. And then Council Member Carlucci for the second time, and then Council Member Freeman, and then we really are going to vote. Okay, thank you. I'll turn my button off. I appreciate everything Mr. Hicks, through the chair, just said. I don't see how somebody couldn't vote for this after what we just heard. This is going to help a lot of people. It's going to free up some apartment space. So in fact, it has a double effect. We have a chance to do something positive on a really big issue in Jacksonville. Right now, we have that opportunity. I tried to do something a few years ago that the money would have been tripled if we'd have passed it, but somebody had a problem with the organization that was going to help triple the money, and it was like a boogeyman, and suddenly the support faded, and it went away. There's always a reason why somehow we can't find a way to get over the goal line for affordable housing, except for $900,000 in the budget last year that, thanks to the help of the other Councilman Carlucci, we got passed, and that wound up building, I think, 55 or 60 homes in Mayport Village. That was desperately needed. Now, go talk to those folks out there and see if they appreciate it. We're talking about helping people, and that's really our primary goal. Our primary goal isn't to come up here and see how much money we can save. It's how effective we are in helping the quality of life for the people that we represent, and I represent everybody in this county, and I see an opportunity here, and I'm speaking up for it. Thanks, Carlucci. And I hope you'll support this. Thank you. Councilman Freeman, last speaker. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I just want to make sure that folks understand. When I speak, I'm really speaking from a place of just sincerity and genuineness. August 28, 2024, here is the article written by Ms. Hannah Halthus, and there's the garage, and it's for affordable housing. So I'm not telling folks that I put out a misnomer or mistruth. This was a fact. I'm saying merely that when we approve programs for affordable housing, utilizing taxpayer dollars, as Councilman Diamond said, we were accused of being political up here. My whole argument was the attacks that we keep hearing, that we're being partisan, we're being political. That was the only reason I was going with this point. And so I'm saying, you're saying that we're being political, but yet I have a picture with presidential candidate at a Jacksonville project. That's all I was saying. No comment needed. Just wanted to make sure that I got the record straight on what I was referencing and the date of it, which was August 28, 2024. Thank you. No other comment needed. Thank you. Councilman Johnson, real quick, please. Sorry, but I have to respond to that. I was there and I have the video. You may have an article, but I got a video because I spoke there. And the reason I bring this up is because it has nothing to do with something political. It was that a candidate saw a program that was working and put, do you not see me in the picture? I'm there too. But that's me on the other side. And the reason we are there is because this candidate, because if another candidate came through, I've been in this game, although I've only been on this council three years, I've been involved in government life. Hold on, let me finish. I've been involved in government life for a long time, right? There have been times when I stood in that park right across there with Senator Hosendorf and others, right? And there are times that we have championed issues that have been, that people who are of other parties came in and we all stood together. I have pictures of that as well. All that they were saying is that, but don't put, conflate and put these two things together. The only thing that is happening here that happened at that event was simply that someone from Washington who was at the time the sitting vice president of the United States, who happened to be running for another office, said, this is a good program. And if we want America to flourish, we should do what people are doing in Jacksonville. And I, for one, am going to support my city when we are showcased to the world as to the good things we're doing. And that down payment assistance program, which I fought to make happen, was something good. And if so, could you please give me the rest of my time to Mr. Hicks very quickly? I'll just, through the chair, thank you, Councilman Johnson. I'll also just highlight recently Federal HUD, the two most senior members, or two of the three most senior members of Federal HUD under the Trump administration, just President Trump's administration, just came down here to talk about a manufactured housing program that we're looking at starting. And they were complementing the work that we've done, not only in Jacksonville in addressing affordability, but also the work the mayor's done in terms of the down payment assistance programs, in terms of our programs that we use federal dollars for. So I appreciate any time, if President Trump wanted to come down here and complement the really well-run down payment assistance program, I would show up and be there. So ultimately, we'll take HUD members at any time we can get them, because it means we're putting taxpayer dollars, federal dollars, in the right places, and they're recognizing our success. Okay, thank you, Mr. Hicks. Sure. I'd stay close by for the next times. All right, well, we're ready to vote. My comments on this, and no surprise to Travis and Josh, because I said in my meeting, I'm not going to support it. It is incremental. I said at the beginning of the new meeting, extremely high bar for me to approve anything new in the budget. In fact, the only time we approved this was back in 23-24 as part of the transition committee. I believe it was 20-something million dollars. I also want to point out one of the things I had concerns with is we've probably all gotten the emails about how there's 50,000 people needing affordable housing. At best, this would help 100 households. So, when I think about how we can best help with affordable housing, how can we do the most to maximize the taxpayer dollar to help with that? So, with that, the amendment, we are voting to remove the 1.5. So, if you're a yes, it's to remove it. All those in favor of the amendment, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Okay. I have one nay. So, that amendment passes. Council Member Diamond, I imagine you're going to make an amendment on the second category. Same amendment, move to remove the 2.4 million from the budget and send it to the reserves for local capital stack of town housing programs. And if I can get a second, I'll make my very brief argument. We have a motion to second. Go ahead, Council Member Diamond. My very brief argument is, of these three, the only one that I could even barely stomach was the assistance home ownership program, which I didn't support, obviously. So, this one I definitely don't. And so, I'll just repeat this over and over again. The easiest way, if the mayor cares about affordable housing in Jacksonville, is to make it easier to build in Jacksonville. To go into the building department and work out the kinks that are serious and significant. Work out the permitting. Get that fixed. You could take all this money, and if you wanted to do it and say, I'm going to use this to get staff to help make permitting work, I think the entire council would support you. So, again, this is a supply and demand problem we have in Jacksonville. It's not unusual to us, but this $2.4 million and the next $1 million and the last $1.5 million are not going to move the needle. What moves the needle is increasing the supply of housing. Council President, you were in and then you dropped out. Do you still? Okay, go ahead, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I figured rather than let the emotion go and then come follow the numbers, I'd start with the numbers ahead of what I imagine will be a number of emotional comments. But people are probably going to say that we're not doing something positive for the people of Jacksonville. We're not getting anything over the goal line on affordable housing. I just want to reiterate a number of things we funded. Recently, $3.8 million for Justina Court, nearly 100 units. $5 million for Campbell Cove, nearly 300 units. $6 million for the loss at South Bank. $1 million as a loan or a giveaway to Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority. Over $100 million issued in bonds through Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority. Ship funding, loads of lot giveaways for affordable housing, the ADU legislation, and finally third party providers for permitting, all things to help drive down the costs of housing in our city. So we're certainly paying attention to it. It's certainly a priority of everyone here, Republican or Democrat. Different people just do it in different ways. I'm happy the way we've been doing it, and I'm going to support the motion on the table. Thanks. Councilor Johnson. While I certainly appreciate the information from the council president, what I do see is that we're, again, back to moving apples and oranges and trying to compare them, and that just doesn't work. An apple is going to be an apple, and an orange is an orange. In this, I don't want to name people's names out aloud, but what I'm talking about is not someone helping an apartment or helping a community, but these are people who are nurses, are doctors, are firefighters, are teachers, are sanitation workers who are just at that point where they cannot get funding for a house. This is the bridge to get them to possibility. And so that's what I'm fighting for, to ensure that they have a bridge that they can see when they get there. But to come in and name all of the things that we have done as this council, we do myriad things. But as I said before, we must also walk and chew gum at the same time. And this, being able to support a down payment assistance program, says that we are smart enough to be able to do both and take care of everybody, regardless of their situation. Thank you. Okay. No more speakers. I did want to point out, so last year we did have $900,000. That was added as a floor amendment, I believe, on budget night. This is one thing I could maybe consider supporting the $900,000 once we get to the end of the budget process. But for now, I'll be supporting the amendment. And so with no other speakers, all those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Nay. Amendment passes. And on to item three. You are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, move to remove the $1 million for attainable housing TAP fee fund. Put it into reserve. If I can get a second. I don't have any to add on this. Councilman Johnson. And I just want to say, one of the things I see here, too, we're trying to give reasons and rationale. To me, they look more like excuses. And I hope that we can find a reason to keep people in a place where they can move forward. Thank you. I actually did have a question for Mr. Hicks on this one. I am the last speaker. It looks like we gave $750,000 a couple years ago. How long did that last? Did that last for three years? And you're just now coming back for more? Did we use all that up in the first year and we haven't done it for two years? Through the chair. We used that up in the first year. That was part of also the mayor's transition, $20 million. So it was a $750,000 pilot program that we were able to use for single-family home developers as well as multifamily home developers. So what we did is we sort of split the pot. $300,000 went for multifamily to get a bigger bang for the buck to cover some of the utility connection charges that JA charges to ensure that those properties would remain affordable, like Avion, like Artia, like the villages at Cedar Hills. The other $400,000 or a rough $1,000 went to single-family developers, up to $25,000. JA can charge them $85,000 for a lot. And if you're a nonprofit, that lot's not going to get developed for affordable housing. That's going to be market rate because they have to make up that money. But on the affordable housing side, if you're getting a charge for $15,000, instead of that developer putting that $15,000 charge back onto the rent to increase the rent, increase the cost to our community, we covered that $15,000 of the utility fee to basically keep those homes deeply affordable. We ended up being able to help over 40 individual projects, which resulted in over 256 units of affordable housing just through a $750,000 investment from the city because of this utility program. And in the mayor's affordable housing transition committee, which was a bipartisan committee, Alex Sifakis, president of JWB, was the vice chair, it passed unanimously, and it was the number two recommendation of developers and builders of a need for Jacksonville to address affordable housing. Because ultimately, we here have no control over what JEA charges for these connection fees. Sometimes developers are given a number at $10,000. And then when it comes due, they have to pay $40,000 or $50,000. And they didn't budget that extra $40,000 because these financial capital stacks are to the number. So to answer your question, no, we spent that in a year. After that, because of Councilman Miller's Great Amendment, we had to come forward to the commission in December to actually give an update on those transition programs. So we could not fund them in fiscal year 24-25. And then last year, we requested, I believe, $750,000 in the budget, and it was cut through the budget process. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hicks. And again, I'm going to go back to be consistent with this one. This would be all incremental. And we did vote last year to remove this. So all those in favor of the Diamond Amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Have one nay. The amendment passes. To the committee, so we are done with the affordable housing trust line item. We are well behind. When the property appraiser gets here, she's going to be followed by fire and then police. I do not want to keep our first responders waiting in here. We're going to keep on chugging through the direct contracts. But when they get here, we are going to then switch to them and come back to whatever direct contracts we didn't get to when we are done with those three groups. Mr. Peterson. All right. Through the chair. So on page 29, the rest of the transfers to other funds will be covered as we discuss those funds in the future budget hearings. So I won't go into detail on those. Looking on page 38 then, we had three recommendations. One is no longer valid due to actions y'all just took. So recommendation one is placing the $464,409 in Gator Bowl funding below the line until a new agreement is approved. No impact to special counsel contingency if you do that. And number two, recommend reducing the juvenile justice funding by $1,261,778. And that's based on the state providing the required contribution amount for the next year. That will have a positive impact to special counsel contingency of that same dollar amount. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And I want to point out for the committee, I had some questions on the Gator Bowl. It does seem like the precedent is that agreement is sometimes finalized fairly last minute. So because we do not have an agreement now, that is the reason for this recommendation to go below the line. Councilman Johnson. Thank you so much. So through the chair to Mr. Peterson, the funds that still maintains that 1.26, the 1.2 for the juvenile justice funding, does that mean that that 1.261 goes into the special counsel contingency that was reduced to 2.5? Or help me understand exactly where that's going to go. Sure. Through the chair to Councilmember Johnson. So throughout the budget hearings, you'll have gives and takes, and we call that pot special counsel contingency. As well. So that's what pot it will go to. Thank you. Can I get a motion on the auditor amendments? I got a motion and a second on the auditor amendments. Councilmember Diamond, are you on the amendment? Yeah. I made the motion for the auditor amendments. I fully support them. They make perfect sense to me. I just want to say one thing on the Gator Bowl. So I love the Gator Bowl. You know, I love the jackets, the whole deal. It's great. Everybody that has a bowl in their city loves their bowl. The college football playoff is destroying bowls. Just absolutely. And it's not this year, right? The Gator Bowl will still have, you know, a team from the ACC and the SEC, and it'll be fun. But in the next couple of years, this money probably needs to go away as the bowls go away. And I just say that to my colleagues who are going to get reelected into term next year. Be ready to cut that money at some point. And it'll be tough, but the bowls are dying. Councilmember Carlucci, is this on the auditor recommended amendment? Yes, I support it. And I would say to my future colleagues, don't give up on the Gator Bowl. Don't give up on it. I've never heard so much doom and gloom in all my life. But yeah, the playoffs are having an impact. But there'll always be teams that want to go out of town and play in a bowl, and the Gator Bowl is one of the great ones. So let's try having a little faith in the future, guys. Come on. All right. And I will agree with you, Councilmember Carlucci. My first football game was a Gator Bowl game. I was on the Gator Bowl Association until elected. And I hope something does change in that college football landscape. But we'll see. All those in favor of the auditor recommended amendments, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The amendment passes. So I believe that takes us to page 39. Through the chair to the committee, page 39 is your multi-year programs and initiatives fund. This mainly holds funding for the Eastside Grants Program and then also some economic development incentives that have been approved in the past. The page 39 is the budget schedule. The descriptions are on page 40. So you'll see revenues of just over $4 million. This is money that the city is required to set aside per the CBA agreement for Eastside strategic focus. The community benefits agreement, council districts is zeroed out because that was a one-time funding of $14 million. And then economic incentives. There was one incentive that needed an additional $400 based on the proposed payout schedule. Looking at expenditures, the $198,016 is for salaries for three positions mentioned earlier. Two positions were previously approved. This budget does add an additional position. Pension cost of $23,762 is for those three employees. Same with the employer provided benefits of $36,000, which is mostly for health insurance for those three employees as the group health premiums are increasing. Other operating expenses of just over $4,000 relate to operating supplies, miscellaneous service and charges, various office supplies, and local mileage as the Eastside grants are required to visit the recipients of those dollars. And then in the contingency, $3.7 million. This was what we referenced earlier that a bill will be filed to bring this funding above the line so that when they do get through the Eastside grants applications scoring process, they will be available to fund those areas. The second section under expenditures, community benefits, council districts, we discussed that. That's all the $14 million that was a one-time funding last year. And then economic development incentives. These are three of the line items. I said that there were four line items related to this fund that need to be brought above the line. This fund contains three line items. You'll take up an additional one when we get to DIA next week. The funding of $2.4 million for Osprey River in four, a little over a million for the 721 Pearl Street Garage, which is in five, and then $4.6 million for Jax Porter in 11. Those are all gateway developments. No service level changes. We mentioned the employee cap change, and we have no recommendations. Thank you. I have no speakers. One thing I want to point out during the CBA deliberations, there was the Lane and Howland Protection Amendment, and if Amendment 3 passes, that will alleviate our contribution to the CBA for next year. So I just wanted to, there's $4 million less we are committed to if Amendment 3 passes. Go ahead, Mr. Pearson. Yes, Council Member Carlucci. So if Amendment 3 passes, there was an amendment. Was that to the CBA legislation? Correct. Yes, there is a protection amendment put in there that if revenue dropped year over year, we could take a year without having to contribute to the CBA. Okay. That's a big broken promise. No, no, no. It wasn't a promise. It was a protection that if year over year revenue fell, we did not have to meet that year's CBA contractual obligation. Well, I don't want to pit it as, I don't want to put it in a bad light, but I guess what concerns me, we'll come back and visit some other time, but that CBA was a big, big deal to the east side. Does that include east side money? Yes, we debated this and it was approved, I believe, close to unanimously by full council with that amendment in there, Council Member Carlucci. Okay. I don't remember the debate including that part, but it might have been before Amendment 3. Council Member Howland, Council President. I'm still speaking, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure if Amendment 3 was part of that at the time, was part of the mix, and that surely is going to put us at a deficit, but that's concerning because the east side will look at that as another broken promise. I don't think Amendment 3 is going to pass for very reasons like that. That's something that needs to be, that's something that folks on the east side need to know, but I'm not trying to say it was, that it was a bad intent on y'all's part, but that caught my ear because anytime there's a broken promise somewhere to one of those communities, that's a big red flag and that's a big divider. I think we need to go back and take a look at that. I might call. Okay, and I would be careful with broken promise. You're talking about legislation that nearly all of us, I think, voted yes on with that amendment that was discussed and debated. I get it, and I probably voted for it. It's a protection for the taxpayers is what it was. I get it, but I have a little concern with that now looking back. There's oftentimes we look back and reflect and say, uh-oh, maybe we need to revisit that. Maybe I'm the only person who's ever done that. In here. But I may call a notice meeting to take a look at that again. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just note that you did vote for it, and it was a long debated aspect of the CBA negotiations, and the CBA would have been unlikely to have passed in its form without that amendment in it. That amendment was critical to the CBA actually passing. Thanks. Councilman Johnson. Actually, I'm going to get a Ms. DeFopolis. I think she has something to add. Yeah, and to the Chair, I don't know if this will help the discussion, but just to clarify, it means we can take a pause in the payment, but we're still obligated to the full amount towards the program under the CBA. So it doesn't mean that the city doesn't pay that dollar amount, but we can take a pause in our contributions for a limited period of time until revenues catch up or whatever. But to hopefully a sewage, Council Member Carlucci's concerns, the full amount that the city committed to in the CBA would still be paid by the end of that 20-year term. Correct. Well, yeah, it does not affect the total dollar amount. It simply says if we had a time when we had a reduction in year-over-year revenue, we could take a one-year break, I believe was what it said. Mr. Chair, may I ask just one more question? Yes, and again, we're getting way off the fiscal year 26-27 budget here. I seldom have a chance to come before your committee, so just a question, to Ms. Stepopoulos, through the chair. So if Amendment 3 were to pass and our revenues drop $350 million, it might be a while before we catch up and surpass that. So would we have to catch up that $350 million and surpass that before we start giving the dollars to the CBA to the east side? Or what is it that I'm missing here? Through the chair to Councilmember Carlucci, so annually we do a year-to-year calculation of what the contribution would be. And so long as we reach the full dollar amount by the end, we're obligated to that. How that calculation would be affected annually, I would suggest we can, myself and the auditor's office can get with you offline to kind of go over that in more detail. But the main point I wanted to make is that while we get a bit of a pause, by the end of it, we are still going to be paying out the amount we promised in that contract for that program and for the east side. But we can talk about the year-over-year calculation and how that's adjusted. We can move on. If you'll just get with Corey, you and Mr. Parks, and contact my Corey, and we'll go over that. So I appreciate you letting me just get a little information on that. Thank you. Sure. All right, Mr. Peterson, let's try to maybe knock out one or two things before we switch to property appraiser, fire, and police. All right. So on page 42, this is an analysis of the budgeted debt service for this proposal. I'll draw your attention to the bolded line items. So about the middle of the page, total non-debt management fund debt service going down just about $2.8 million. Next line, the total debt management fund, GSD debt service, down just $174,000. So your total budgeted GSD debt service, that's the general fund, going down just shy of $3 million year-over-year. The next line is budgeted debt service in all other subfunds going down $74 million. And the reason for that is the BJP had a scheduled kind of a cliff, if you will, drop-off of scheduled debt payments when there was consideration years and years ago of the BJP possibly ending early, that the debt was staged so that it could possibly end. And so that's the reason for the drop-off there. And then so your total budgeted debt service citywide, $197.6 million, down $77 million year-over-year. We do have a couple of recommendations that are very technical in nature. First is to switch $2,288,856 in principal and $1,298,927 interest from fund 211. It should say $3,0 to fund 211,31 to properly account where the debt is paid from. We also recommend switching the transfer debt service payments of $1,348,438 in principal and $1,028,694 in interest to fund 57111 to budget the debt service transfer going to the correct fund. And then also correcting the subobjects used for the transfers out of fund 46101 and fund 4,7105, no impact to special counsel contingency. I got motion, seconded, owning the queue. Did want to point out that is a, I was pleased with those numbers on the debt service. So moving in the right direction. All those in favor of the auditor amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment passes. With that, I see our property appraiser as well as our fire chief in the crowd. So I'm going to go ahead and switch it to the property appraiser. So good afternoon, Ms. Morgan. And Phillip, do you normally go through the budget? Or I believe you do, correct? Unless Ms. Morgan wants to do it herself, I guess. Would you like Mr. Peterson to go through his notes first? Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. President. And to all of our finance committee members. And good afternoon to the council auditors. Yes, we will start with the auditors. All right. To the committee, if you'll turn to page 75 and 76, this lays out the property appraiser's budget with explanations on page 77. So you'll see on page 75 the mayor's proposed budget of $15,024,789 for the property appraiser. That is a $1.1 million increase year over year. You approved a budget to be submitted to the Department of Revenue of just shy of $14.3 million. But after the budget office goes through all of their personnel factors and then internal service charges, that's where we end up at the $15 million. We'll walk through the expenditure line. There are breakdowns of all the expenditures on page 76 for you. And I'll hit the high points. For permanent and probationary salaries, the increase of $327,244 is mainly due to the 3% salary increase for nonpublic safety collective bargaining agreements. There's also funding of one commercial appraisal division chief position and one tangible personal property position that was not funded in the 25-26 budget to offset the cost of implementing their just appraised TPP service. We do have a recommendation as it relates to this. Items B, which are all the pension contributions, are increasing to better align with pension costs and the salary increases noted above. Item C is the group hospital insurance, and you will see this on almost every department's budget. The increase is related to the planned increase in group health premiums, which is proposed to be covered by the employer for 26-27. Item D is the postage. The increase is due to the increased volume of mailings and higher postage rates. Item E is their hardware, software, maintenance, and licenses. They're seeing increases in those. Item F is the printing and binding of commercial, and the property appraiser is switching to a new vendor due to performance issues with their current vendor, which is causing the increase in that line item. Item G is for internal service allocations related to building for the overall increase in building maintenance costs of the Yates building being allocated. Not all of it, not all of it, but the portion applicable to the property appraiser. Their internal service related to computer systems maintenance and security is actually decreasing 41,000, and this is due to adjustments in the IT allocation methodology. Their fleet vehicle replacement line is decreasing 21,000, and this is due to vehicles that were replaced in prior years being fully paid back, so reducing that budget. Item J is the IT replacements, the decrease is related to computers that were replaced in 25-26, and then lastly, their OGC legal charges is going up 38,000 due to an increase in actual usage. Per discussions with the property appraiser's office, we have a recommendation to remove funding for the commercial appraisal division chief position. This would decrease the budgeted salaries by just shy of 90,000, pension costs a little shy of 11,000, and benefits just over 12,000. This would be offset by decreasing the transfer from the general fund and would have a positive impact of special counsel contingency of $112,580. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. I have known in the queue, Ms. Morgan, anything to add before we take up this auditor recommendation, which my understanding is you agree with? Yes, absolutely, Mr. Chair. We do agree with the recommendation, and I will just say just specifically about the property appraiser's office at this point for this budget season. We continue our strategic planning, and that includes succession planning, community engagement, as well as professional development. We're continuing our internship program, of course, trying to bring more people into what we do as we are going to be losing people through attrition and, of course, through retirement. We continue to look for ways to utilize current technology, new technology that is coming on board to complete our work in a more efficient and timely manner. And, as noted, our largest increases, as you saw, are from our vendors who continue to go up year after year. And, of course, these are vendors that are super crucial in getting our work done in the most efficient manner that we can. So, other than that, I'm standing here for questions. Thank you. VAB, Chair, you are recognized. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Madam Property Appraiser, thank you for the work that you do, and you've worked so hard to keep it flat. The work, you know, consistently. So, you and Desi, my buddy Desi, somewhere here, thank you for the great work you're doing. Question on item H. Just curious, that's about $40,000 in a reduction. Is that something that artificial intelligence, were you able to use some of the AI platforms, I think? No. If I remember correctly on that decrease, it's to do with replacing things that we had before in the office. So, it really doesn't have anything to do with AI or anything like that. Gotcha. Next question is about the rationale. I do understand you agreed with the auditor's office, but the division chief being removed. Obviously, there are more people in Jacksonville now, so I kind of get a little wary when we start removing stuff just for the sake of removing it. So, I want to know, what is the rationale for removing that division chief position? So, with that, our division chief is actually a part-time worker. He retired from our division, and now he actually does that as a part-time employee. So, they're just removing, quote, the full-time and not the part-time. So, he still works. Makes sense. We still have a division chief. And last question is about the OGC, the $38,000 of increased actual usage. This is probably a question more for the OGC's office, but I'm assuming this is billable hours that you need more than that's done. Has there ever been some kind of blanket thing? Because this was kind of reminiscent of what we went through with the school board before. Yeah, if you could address that for me. Actually, through the chair to Council Member Johnson, this is really probably something that Ms. Moyer could really hone in on because we have used OGC a lot more in recent years. And, of course, with things going the way they are, with the November vote, we could see even a more increased use for OGC. So, that is an internal service charge we have no control over. Through the chair to Council Member Johnson. So, there is a very elaborate allocation of OGC's cost based out to all of its users. It is based on, I believe it's a three-year actual history usage and projecting that usage to each of the departments. So, the allocation is really out of the hands of the property appraiser and all departments. It is an allocation based on the total OGC budget going to each area based on their usage. And, very quickly, before you end, through the chair, Mr. Peterson, is that something that the OGC, the General Counsel's Office, sends yearly to them, saying this is how much we're going to hit you for the year, or forgive my ignorance on that? Through the chair. No, so this is just a budget based on historical usage. They still only get billed based on actual usage. All right, Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair to Ms. Morgan. One, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. All of my questions were answered thoroughly, and you guys did an amazing presentation. And so, I just like going to record, and I'm going to do this with everyone that meets with me. I'm going to thank them for coming in and taking the time to meet with me. Really answered a lot of my questions. So, thank you so much. Wish you the best. I'm glad last year we got your staffing correct. That was really exciting to hear how you all have been able to utilize what this council was able to do for your authority yesterday, last year. All right, so thank you so much. Thank you. All right, with that, looking for a motion and a second on the auditor's recommendation. Government, a second on the auditor's recommendation. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The amendment passes. And thank you, Ms. Morgan. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, time for our first responders. We do have fire up on the agenda first. I want to say good afternoon, Sheriff Waters and your team as well. Thanks for being here. I think we're officially the safest place to be in Jacksonville right now. So, with that, we will start with fire. All right, through the chair to the committee. So, we're on page 78 of your handout and page 136 of your budget book. So, you can see the numbers that I'll be referencing. The budget book is also on your computer if you don't have your physical copy in front of you. An overall comment on the fire and rescue budget is expenditures are increasing by about $12.7 million. And this is mainly driven by salaries, mostly due to the 5% pay increase that's in their collective bargaining agreement. There are also increases related to fleet vehicle replacements and overhauls of various equipment that we'll discuss. There are an additional 22 unfunded positions for temporary fire station 78 that is already operational being added to this budget. That station is currently being staffed with overtime, so those 22 positions will then go and fill that station. Looking at their revenues, a total of $59 million in revenue. Charges for services line of almost $3 million is increasing, primarily due to an increase in the fire protection inspection fee. This is based on better alignment with recent actuals. Revenue from city agencies of almost $2.2 million is increasing $75,000. There's a number of reasons. First, $48,000 is related to the 911 user fee, which pays a portion of the salaries of JFRD's emergency call takers. There's also a $27,000 increase in city venue-related overtime reimbursement from the collective bargaining increases. And this is offset by a decrease of events that will be happening at the stadium and Daly's Place while it's under construction. Net transport revenue is up $527,000. This is driven by the net increases is driven by the lower budget in Medicaid and Medicare adjustments, mitigated by a slight decrease in gross billings due to a decrease in overall transports and a lower billing rate code. Within this category is the $12,000, almost $13 million that the city receives from the Public Emergency Medical Transportation Managed Care Options Program and then also the Public Emergency Medical Transportation Certified Expenditures Program. The city contributes about $5.4 million and receives back almost $13 million, and that revenue is reflected here. Fines and forfeits is up $18,000 to better align with recent actuals from fire code violations. And then miscellaneous revenue up $110,000. This is mainly made up of $1.3 million from the Boeing Aircraft Rescue Firefighting. There's $975,000 for special events reimbursements for overtime pay, and then $165,000 in mutual aid reimbursements for disaster deployments. Contributions from the local units, $11.1 million, that's an increase of $226,000 over the prior year. This is resulting from CPI increases with our agreement with JIA for providing fire services out there, as well as the agreement with Jacksonville Beach. Expenditures for the fire department are right at $400 million. Total expenditures are at $470 million when taking into account the UAL that was previously in non-departmental expenditures. Salaries are increasing $7.2 million. This is due to an increase of $9.2 million from collective bargaining increases, which was partially offset by a decrease of $2.2 million in terminal leave related to the number of drop participants in the current year versus those who are scheduled to leave in the upcoming year. Pension costs are down $2.6 million, and that's a result of the overall decrease in the normal costs for the police and fire pension plan. Pension costs, PSDC, which is Public Safety Defined Contribution, is going up $2.8 million, primarily due to salary increases noted above, as well as employee turnover, because every new employee that comes on becomes a member of the D.C. plan, therefore increasing these costs. Employer-provided benefits is increasing $3.2 million. That primarily consists of the city's contribution to IAF employees for their collective bargaining agreement, as well as $577,000 related to general employees' group health premiums increasing. Internal service charges are going up almost $10 million to $43.9 million. The large part of this is related to fleet vehicle replacements. $4.65 million of that is billing for the overhaul of five pumpers, and that's at a cost of $400,000 each, and then 10 rescue units at $265,000 each. They'd have an additional $800,000 in vehicle replacements that are scheduled to be billed in 2627. There's $2.1 million in computer system maintenance increase due to an overall increase in the allocable IT operating costs, as well as an update to that allocation methodology. Fleet parts, oil, and gas is increasing $1.1 million due to rising fuel prices. There's an increase in citywide building maintenance based on recent actual maintenance expenses of about $356,000 in the fire department. A $286,000 increase in fleet repairs, sublet, and rental. Their OGC legal costs are also increasing about $244,000, and then they have an increase of $200,000 in the IT systems development costs related to an increased project scope for the electronic patient care reporting system. On page 81, you'll see the 12 vehicles that are proposed to be replaced in the year at a total cost of $9.5 million. The portion that's allocated to the budget is $765,000 based on when they're expected to come online. When they're fully online, it'll have an annual cost of $1.6 million. Insurance costs and premiums are increasing $200,000 due to an increase in the allocation for general and auto liability. Their other operating expenses are going up $850,000 due to increases in fire hose and bunker gear, mostly related to the new fire station, and then also a contractual price increase on that gear. There's $172,000 for increase in net operating supplies, which includes clothing uniforms, their shoe allowance, clean clothing allowance, and to also better align with recent actuals. Capital outlay is at $696,100 for the year. This is down $8.7 million due to end-of-life equipment being replaced in the prior year. Debt management fund repayments are at $296,000. The decrease is due to the self-contained breathing apparatus that were bought in prior years fully being paid off in 2526. And then the $5.4 million in grants, aids, and contributions is related to the contribution to ACA for the Public Emergency Medical Transportation Program. Below that are division changes that I won't walk through that basically repeat all those, but in case you wanted to see, each division on page 82 has a breakout of their costs. Flipping to page 84, if there are no questions, this is a schedule of grants that the fire department expects to receive in the upcoming year. These are all continuation grants with no city match. Total estimated grant award of $6.7 million. It also funds 14 FTE positions. On page 86 is a schedule of continuation grants that do have a city match. There are two grants there, a total of $14 million in grants received with a match requested of $1.469 million, and that was in the previous non-departmental line item that we discussed that does fund one FTE position. There are three items for food and beverage expenditures that are included in the budget. Service level changes is related to Fire Station 78 being in the design phase. No contracted completion date yet, but it is fully operational as a temporary station. And then also the fire department expects fire station number 66 to be completed in 2027, and then 67 to be completed in the fall of 2028. I mentioned the employee cap changes increasing by 22 unfunded positions, 15 of those in fire operations and seven in rescue. There is a capital outlay carry forward item of $968,070, or actually two items that make up that $968,626. 066 is for baby boxes, previously approved by city council, and then $342,004 for stretchers and cardiac monitors. They're asking to be carried over into the next fiscal year, and we have no recommendations. Thank you. I have no one in the queue, so I'll go ahead and ask my questions. Good to see you, Chief Golden. Remind me, on Station 78, I know we call it a temporary fire station, but these 22 new positions, as soon as you get your budget approved, you're going to hire full-time firefighters instead of having people do it just strictly on overtime right now? Is that how? Yeah, currently, through the chair, currently we are staffing that with overtime. Having these actually funded next year will create some consistency at the fire station, so it won't be people transferred in. People know the territory, it'll help with response times and continuity. Okay, great. And then my other question, this safe room, I know we've been hearing about this, I think, since my first year in office. What's the latest on that? Have we started construction on it, actually, or where is that in the planning? No, we're still in phase one, that safe room, phase one of that project. We're waiting on FEMA. It's in the phase with FEMA right now, waiting on that part, so we can move into phase two of that project and start the building of it. But right now, we're just waiting on FEMA. Okay. Thank you, Chief Cohen. Council Member Diamond. Through the chair to the chief, I have an easy one. One of the most popular things we've done in a while was fund baby boxes earlier this year. And I keep getting asked by folks when those are going to get installed. Do you have an update on when that might happen? And just if anybody knows, like, your team was awesome in helping us find the right spots for them and working with us as a team. It was really good stuff. Yeah, through the chair to Councilman Diamond. Yeah, we're working on the baby boxes right now. We don't anticipate that getting done this fiscal year. We're going to carry it forward to next year to try to get that facilitated. It's just working with buildings and making sure that we're able to install those baby boxes at the identified stations. But we plan on getting that done, hopefully, next fiscal year. All right. Well, with that, no one in the queue and no recommendations. So thank you, Chief Cohen. Thank you for everything you and your team does for us. Never mind. Council Member Freeman. Chief Golden, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I'm super excited about you and your leadership, JFRD, and just moving forward. Anytime if I can be any of assistance, don't ever hesitate to reach out. Thank you so much. Thank you. The auditors are reminding me you're actually not quite done yet, Chief. So with that, I will let you take it away, Mr. Peterson. You're close, though. All right. On page 88 of your handout, this is the Opioid Settlement Special Revenue Fund. It can also be found on page 148 of your budget book. This takes in the approximately $80 million that the city expects to receive over about 18 years that funds two positions and then also oversees the opioid grants that are handed out. Revenues of $6.1 million. This represents the appropriation of previously received settlement revenue that will be necessary to operate the city's opioid programs, including fire and rescue administrative costs. And then you'll see investment pool earnings of $471,000. The increase is related to that previously discussed increase in projected rate. For expenditures, salaries are $714,613. That funds two full-time positions and includes $505,000 of funding for overtime for the Coordinated Opioid Recovery Program. This is operated by the fire department staff seven days a week for 12 hours a day by a fire rescue lieutenant or captain and an engineer. And the increase of that $48,000 in that line item is due to the impact of collective bargaining agreements. Employer-provided benefits are increasing due to the increases in group health premiums for those two employees. Internal service charges are decreasing slightly based on recent actuals. Other operating expenses of $44,570 are increasing due to grant management software costs and then also to better align recent actuals with medical supplies and office supplies. For the contingency, this is funding that is set aside for these opioid settlement proceed grants. The funding will be taken up as a separate bill, 2026-510. That's a conflict bill. But the dollars are placed into a contingency for now. And then transfers to other funds is zeroed out this year as last year's was to help contribute towards the non-public safety health premiums that were transferred from various funds. No service level changes, no changes to the employee cap, and no recommendations. All right. Council Member Johnson, you're recognized. Thanks. Mine is because I wanted to get some more information. It's not on the opioid. Do you mind if I go back to the initial, what the chief had? Go ahead. It's the same chief, so he's still there. Okay. Thank you. Chief, I wanted that through the chair. Chief, I'm looking at, it's on our page 86, but a part of the grant, the food and beverage expenditures. I just wanted to make sure that your team has all that they need. It just seemed like, and I don't want to just give money away willy-nilly, but I also want to ensure that we are doing something that makes sense. Help me understand. And the apprentice program, and you know I've worked before you with Chief Powers on that program that I was trying to do to bring in, and we're still working on it with Crowley and some others, to bring in additional people to your team and to have corporate sponsors sponsor these new men and women that will be a part of the fire department. The $500 for the apprentice program just doesn't seem to be requisite. Help me understand what that is for specifically. Yeah, through the chair of Councilman Johnson. The apprentice program is still being funded. We still have money that's been funneled into that apprentice program. This is just specifically for food. Yeah, and the amount of people that we need to bring in to ensure that we have the fire department that we need, I think that we need. I think this is a little low, as well as the extended stay and the other. While I am still looking for us, this came up when I was doing my research on the budget. While it is not, and I know this was not a request from you, Chief, or your team, this is just something I think that makes sense because this community, this is a program that helps the community. I don't know where I'm going to get the funds from yet, but I would, you know, I'm going to say it and I hope you will join me that I do believe that in order to make sure that we're maintaining the best and the brightest, that that apprentice program, there's a disaster activation, deployment, and food and water. Those funds need to be shored up to the amount of about $10,000. So I'm just trying to find those funds, but I think you would appreciate that. If not, I just think it's something that's the right thing to do. So I do look to put those funds in at a later time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Mr. Peterson, back to you. All right. That takes us to page 90. This is the building inspection fund, only as it relates to the fire rescue department. Explanations are on page 91 and 92. You'll see at the top of page 90, charges for services of $903,705. This represents customer payments for plan review and inspection services for new construction. The decrease of $105,000 is to better align with recent actuals. A little bit ways down your page is the top expenditures portion as it relates to fire and rescue. The salaries line item of $1.5 million has a net decrease of just $1,570, mainly due to a decrease in overtime to better align with recent actuals, and the decrease is almost entirely offset by the salary increases from the collective bargaining agreements. This fund has its own salary and benefits lapse based on the calculated average turnover ratio and the estimated number of vacancies. Pension costs are down $125,000 in this fund entirely due to employee turnover, resulting in less employees being in the plan. The pension costs, PSDC FRS, is up to $27,000, and this is a result of hiring new employees that are now on the DC plan as part of this operation. Employer-provided benefits increases, once again, for the general employee health premiums, as well as changes to the contribution for the health care for the IAFF employees per the collective bargaining agreement. Internal service charges are increasing $19,697 due to IT allocation method updates. Other operating expenses has a budget of $21,962, and this is due to, the increase is due to the addition of 11 annual parking passes for fire inspectors working at the Ed Ball building. There are no service level changes, no employee cap changes, and we have no recommendations for this fund. And I have no one in the queue, so next fund. Through the chair, this is the Homeless Initiative Special Revenue Fund. It can be found on page 140 of your budget book. Ordnance code section 111-920 requires the city designate an amount equal to 4% of the approved economic development agreement incentives approved during the prior calendar year for projects located outside of an established CRA be deposited into this fund. This fund also houses the JFRD PATH team that was created in 2024, so you'll see revenues of just over $4 million, $4.1 million, and the transfers from other funds, and this represents a transfer from the general fund, GSD, to fund that $1.3 million, 4% calculation, and then the additional $2.7 million worth of costs that are described below. Salaries are decreasing $67,402 due to the net impact of removing the adjustment to the negative budgetary balances that was done in 25-26, which is offset by a 5% increase in the fiscal year due to the collective bargaining agreements. Employer-provided benefits are increasing by $7,000 for the JFRD PATH team. Professional and contractual services, the $1.3 million is up $309,000. This represents funding to continue three contracts for the homeless shelter beds at the same level that was in the 25-26 budget. The increase is due to utilizing available budgetary balance of the contracts in 25-26, so now we're getting to the full cost of these contracts. We do have a recommendation as it relates to these contracts as they are currently set to expire at September 30th of this year. Other operating expenses is down $530,000. This holds the $1.3 million for the Homelessness Initiatives Commission, and remember that anything over $100,000 from that account requires prior city council approval. This also, other operating expenses, contains expenses for the JFRD PATH team for supplies, clothing, uniforms, and safety equipment. No significant service level changes. This does have the seven employees on the PATH team. As it relates to the Homelessness Initiatives Commission funding, the administration has not identified a proposed use of the $1.3 million, but it did indicate that these funds will be used to start or continue programs identified in the Homelessness Initiatives Commission's Homelessness Reduction Plan. The 25-26 funding of $1.8 million that was approved last year as part of that 4% calculation still has $690,000 remaining. We've identified the approved pieces of legislation and then also pending bills that are before you that are proposed to use that funding. Our recommendation as it relates to this fund is adding authorization to enter into contracts with Trinity Rescue Mission, City Rescue Mission, and the Salvation Army. Should you choose to approve of that use of funding, we will need to waive Municipal Code Section 118-107 due to contracts not being competitively bid. We'll have to get applicable term sheets to attach and then also have to chase down the 118-107 affidavits as it relates to a non-profit provider. This has no impact to special counsel contingency. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Known in the queue, I do have two questions. One, the recommendation is simply renewing a contract we had at the same cost as this year, correct? Through the chair, that is correct. Okay, thank you. And then the second question, so economic incentives are likely going to continue to go down. What did we get last year from the 4% versus what are we expecting to get this coming year from the 4%? So the calculation is based on a calendar year time frame so that we can prepare accurately for the budget. So the $1.8 million that was in last year's budget was from calendar year 2024. The $1.3 million that is in this year's budget was from calendar year 2025. We keep track of this along with the budget office to make sure we're in agreement, but I don't have the number off of what the 2027-28 number would be. Okay, thank you. With no more speakers, can I get a motion on this recommendation? Got a motion to second. Can all those in favor of the auditor's recommendation say aye? Aye. Any opposed say nay. Amendment passes. Chief, you really are done now, I believe. Thank you. All right. Oh, I'm sorry. Another chief wants to say something. Council Member White. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to thank you, Chief, for what you do in your team, and you've got a good group of folks out there. But I'd like one person to stand up that's been keeping us all straight for years. That's April Mitchell. Yes. She has that budget, and she's been there, I won't say how many years, because she's not that old. But thank you for what you do, and thank all y'all. Love y'all. Thank you. All right. Thank you, JFRD. Next up, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Good afternoon, Sheriff and JSO leadership team. Mr. Peterson, how about you kick us off, and then we'll certainly let the Sheriff say anything if he wants to. All right. Through the chair to the committee, page 96 in your handout will be the most useful. The Sheriff's Office is broken into a number of different departments that are reflected over a number of pages in your budget book, so we've compiled all of them into one place so you can look at the office of the sheriff. So starting on page 96, you'll see total revenue of $19.3 million. We'll get into that. Total expenditures of $673.6 million. When you add in the unfunded pension liability of $93.4 million, the total expenditures for the sheriff's office are $767 million. There is a change of 52 positions that we'll talk about, and then note that this budget does not include the $14 million in non-departmental line items for the tenant improvement cost that you approved, or I guess you went past earlier related to the $26 million. That does help avoid rent payments being higher as at the Florida Blue Building when they are fully moved in. And then one last reminder is that through four statutes, the sheriff has full transfer authority, whereas the mayor's transfer authority is limited to $500,000, and within funds, the sheriff can transfer within his budget without coming back to anyone for approval in there, so there's no set dollar amount. On page 97, an overview of the sheriff's office, there are 3,435 sheriff's office positions in the general fund broken down there for you. As of July 21, 2026, total number of vehicles in the sheriff's fleet was 2,423. The average inmate population for the correctional facilities, slight decrease from this time last year of about 100 individuals, and as of July 21, 2026, sheriff's office has a vacancy count of 240, broken down by 105 in police officers, 67 correctional officers, and 68 civilian positions. The sheriff's budget compared to the general fund general service district expenditure budget and employee cap percentages are reflected there for you over the last three years. The increase in JSO's budget is mainly driven by salaries, employer-provided benefits, and pension costs due to the collective bargaining agreements. There's also increases in operating expenses for their move to the Florida Blue Building, and then an increase in their contractual and professional services due to contractual increases in the health services contract, food services contract at the jail, and various security guard services. Page 98, revenues, the main revenue change is revenue from city agencies of 7.3 million. This is a decrease of almost 2.5 million, mainly due to a decrease in overtime reimbursement due to overtime salaries related to projected events at city venues, mainly due to the stadium renovation schedule for 26-27. Total expenditures at the 673.6 million is broken down into salaries at 402.6 million, the net increase of that 16.3 million due to a number of items. First, the 5% increase for FOP employees, 7% increase for corrections employees, 3% for non-public safety employees, and then also adding 32 COPS grant positions that will no longer be funded by a grant. The increase in salaries is offset somewhat by a decrease in terminal leave of 3.4 million, once again, due to there being less individuals in the drop scheduled to retire for the next fiscal year. Sheriff's Office has their own calculated vacancy rate based on the same model. That number is negative 9.2 million for 26-27. Pension costs are going up 1.9 million, mostly due to the impact of the increase in salaries. Employer provided benefits are going up 3.9 million. 3.3 million of that 3.9 million is due to the planned increase in the general employee group health premiums, 1.9 million or almost 2 million is related to the city's contribution based on per employee amount per the collective bargaining agreements for the public safety employees. And then this is also offset by a net decrease of 1.7 million in workers' compensation, heart and hypertension based on the actuarial study. Internal service charges at 47.6 million are increasing 1.9 million due to fleet vehicle replacement costs, mainly due to full year cost of the vehicles purchased last year being included in this year along with the partial year of the vehicles that are expected to be purchased this year. There's also an increase of 1.5 million in fleet parts, oil and gas, mainly due to the overall increase in fuel costs. These increases are offset by decreases in their IT allocation charge, their public buildings utilities allocation charge, and then also the ITD replacements based on the five-year plan. The chart on page 99 identifies the JSO vehicles that are proposed to be replaced in 2627, 264 total vehicles at a cost of 16.2 million. The allocation for 2627 is at 965,000 with a full year allocation of 3.86 million when all of the vehicles are acquired. Insurance costs and premiums are increasing 1.4 million, mainly due to an increase in the general liability insurance based on recent claims history and an overall increase in the city's general liability based on the actuarial study. Professional and contractual services at 45.9 million, 46 million, are increasing close to 4 million due to increases in the inmate health care contract of 1.5 million, increases in the inmate food cost contract of 1 million, and then increases in the security services of 1 million, and that's mainly due to security guard services related to inmates at UF Health, increasing up to 7.7 million. Other operating expenses are increasing 7.9 million, and that's mainly due to rental costs at the Florida Blue Building. This will have the first full year's worth of rent as it relates to their lease over there. The total rent due is 5.8 million. There's also a million-dollar increase in software costs related to them acquiring a newer version of Microsoft 365. There's additional equipment that needs to be purchased at the Florida Blue Building, and then there's also a 241,000 in criminal justice information services compliant cell phones. Similar to the fire department, we have a departmental change broken down for you on page 100, but it's a lot of the same information that I just covered, so I won't go through those pages unless you have questions. That's described on pages 100, 101, and 102. On page 103, identifies the food and beverage expenditures of the sheriff's office at $40,500, and then the sheriff's office has 23 grants on the B1A schedule that do not require a city match. Those grants total 4.6 million, fund six FTE positions, and 11,880 part-time hours. Looking on page 107, the sheriff's office has two grants that do require a city match. The grants are at $450,000 with a total city match of $1,004,223, no positions or part-time hours. Actually, I take that back. There are 40 positions related to the COPS grant for those two grants. There is a capital outlay carry forward of $738,290 related to the purchase of computer equipment for the Florida Blue move that is asking to be carried over into the next year. There's no significant service level changes. There are an increase of 52 positions. 32 of those 52 are COPS that are coming off of a COPS grant and will need to be funded by the city in 2627. And then 20 crime scene technician positions are being added, which will enable 20 officer positions to be put back onto the street. Part-time hours remain unchanged, and we have no recommendations as it relates to the general fund. I have no one in the queue. No one? Council President? Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the Sheriff and Chief Clement, great budget. I know we talked about this before, but I think the highlight needs to be the last thing that Mr. Peterson just said, which is 20 crime scene technicians positions are being added, which puts 20 more sworn officers on the street. I know it doesn't get you close to the FBI recommended amount per thousand, but it's getting you closer. And I just appreciate everything that JSO is doing to keep our streets and neighborhoods safe. I think it's a very reasonable budget, very reasonable growth, and I applaud all the efforts of you and your team. Thank you. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll keep the hit parade going, Sheriff and Chief. I take meetings with literally anybody who wants to meet, especially out at the beaches. The other day, I got absolutely yelled at for voting no against a lot of stuff, but never voting no on JSO. You never push back. You never – and I ask this simple question, do you feel safer in Jacksonville right now? Total silence. I mean, it's working. Jacksonville is safer, and I appreciate every single one of you for getting it done. This is the easiest yes I do every year. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, two, Sheriff Waters. One, thank you for who you are and your steadfastness in keeping our city safe. Just one question, and I've been asking this as I've traveled around the state to others. Per capita, where are we when it comes to having men and women in uniform out keeping our citizens safe? Are we at that level per 1,000 people, a certain number of officers, or is there still a delta? So, excuse me, through the chair, to Councilman Freeman, no, sir, we're not there yet, but I can tell you we're working really hard at it. And these 20 positions, and what we've done is we took 20 civilian positions, created those to allow us to put police officers back on our street to continue to serve this great city of ours. So, we're not there yet, but we're working on it, slowly but surely. We appreciate the partnership. We appreciate this body, what you've done for us to help us always improve, which is one of our core values. We do appreciate that, and it doesn't go unnoticed. So, we're very grateful, and I can tell you that we're in a good place. We're just getting better. Thank you. Council Member Boylan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, Chief, Sheriff, thank you so much for the great work your folks do. A specific question with respect to the co-responder program, that was grant-based at one point in time. Is that still a grant program or funded by through grants, and or is it part of the operating budget now? It's part of our operating budget now. It still remains the same, but it's part of our operating budget. Thank you. Appreciate it. Council Member Johnson. Thank you. I'll echo those sentiments. Thank you for the work you do, Mr. Chair. Question for you. As a journalist myself, I got a couple of emails and some calls, public information related. It was shared to me that there was somewhat of a backlog of information from, or the request of camera footage or what have you, as it relates to public information. Would there need to, I mean, it was because of requests from citizens for YouTube, what have you. Would there need to be some kind of increase in public information? Do you feel that you have the adequate public information staff to respond to those requests and get those people the things they need in a timely manner? Through the chair, yes, sir. So, Councilman, I can tell you that this is a situation where you could probably have a room this size full of people, but when it comes to looking at all that information and redacting the information that has to be redacted legally, they have to watch every minute of footage. Everything needs to be done. And unfortunately, it creates a backlog for us. There's also the advent of these YouTube channels and social media channels, whether it be on TikTok, whether it be on Instagram, that request a lot of stuff at one time. And we have to go through all that stuff, which creates a backlog. We're working as quickly as possible. They do a great job, but there's a backlog, and there will be, because of, one, Florida's information laws and sunshine laws, and, two, that we just have to go through all that info to make sure that people are getting the stuff that we can give out legally. But no increase is needed from your opinion? Not currently. Thank you. All right. No one else in the queue. Sheriff, thank you for everything you do. And I want to point out, we always talk about how Jacksville has a public safety first budget. And this year's budget, public safety is 61%. And I had the research team look at other cities, and Tampa, 58%, Miami, 56%, Orlando, 55%, St. Petersburg, 54%. And, again, that's only a few percentage points, but that's millions of dollars in a budget shifted to public safety versus other things. So I just want to make that point that certainly council stands by our first responders and makes sure we have very much a public safety-facing budget. In fact, the largest of all the cities, all the large cities in Florida, we have the highest percent that's dedicated to public safety. So I just want to point that out. And I think we're ready for the next fund. All right. Through the chair to the committee, page 108 is the 911 emergency user fee that's within the office of the sheriff. The city collects dollars from the total number of wireless service identifiers, non-wireless service identifiers, and then also prepaid cell phones. So this results in your budget book. Page 292 is where you can see the numbers related to this. Total revenues of $7.3 million. The largest portion is the charges for services, which includes a wireless and prepaid cell phone fee of $0.40. That results in $5.3 million to the city, and a monthly landline of $0.40, which results in $742,000 to the city as part of the proposed budget. Investment pool earnings are down due to a large balance that was used in the prior year. And then the transfers from fund balance is what is needed to balance revenues and expenditures. That is also down related to that large balance that was used in the prior year. As far as expenditures go, the salaries of $285,000. The increase is related to a vacant position being filled. The proposed increases associated with the collective bargaining agreements and then other salary increases that occurred during the year. Employer provided benefits increasing $16,372 due to the planned increase in group health premiums. Internal service charges are decreasing as it relates to their IT, computer systems, maintenance charges based on the update in the billing methodology. Inter-departmental billings at $2.9 million. This is increasing $68,000. This expense is a revenue item within the sheriff's office and the fire and rescue. This is budgets for reimbursement of call taker salaries and the increases due to more revenue being available to cover those costs. Other operating expenses are down $1.2 million. The $3.3 million that is in this fund or in this line item is from $977,000 related to telephone services, $902,000 in hardware and software costs, and then $554,000 is a miscellaneous charge that is a payment to the beaches for their call taker salaries and benefits based on call volume. The net decrease of that $1.2 million is mainly in the hardware and software costs due to one-time dollars that were in the 25-26 budget related to the move to the Florida Blue Building. Capital outlay of $657,000 represents specialized equipment for additional purchase of equipment for the Florida Blue Communications Center. There's $150,000 in the computer-related equipment due to annual equipment replacements, and then a couple of dollars set aside for office furniture and equipment. No service level changes, no employee cap changes, still at five, and then no recommendations for this fund. I'm going to go to the council president, then council member Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quick question for Chief Clement, and it only triggered a thought from the 911 emergency user fee. Are you having to pay for parking at the backup call center at Cecil Field, or was that now off the table? Through the chair to Councilman Howland. I'm not aware that we're paying anything for parking over there, but I'll have to confirm. Okay, yeah, if you don't mind sending me an email to confirm. I think at one point they sent you over an invoice, and I think we managed to get that canceled. So I'm just making sure that you're not having to pay for parking out there. So if you don't mind just sending me a follow-up, I'd really appreciate that, Chief. Thanks. Councilman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair to Mr. Peterson. This is about the, and out of the 911 fee, on the technology from, I know I took a tour over at the emergency operations center, though, but it's on the fire side. I'm assuming these funds are for both fire and police when it comes to that, Mr. Peterson. Through the chair to Councilmember Johnson, all of the revenue comes into this fund, and then a portion of, an expenditure of this fund is paying for a portion of the fire and then also JSO salaries on the call taker side. In that facility, when I went over there, this also includes, because it looked like there was a decrease, but the last time, and it's been a while since I've toured over there, but when I did, there were some issues with the equipment that were there, but these funds, but do we know, and again, it's kind of specific, so we can talk offline after that, but you don't know? I would have to defer to Mr. Clement. We'll work to that before we get through, because I just wanted to make sure that those funds were there so that they had the opportunity to augment that if necessary. Thank you. Okay. With that, I have no one else in the queue. Thank you again, Sheriff and team, and we appreciate you, and I'll say to my finance committee members, those numbers I referenced in that report comparing our public safety percent of the budget versus other large Florida cities, I've asked the research team to distribute that to all of us as well. All right, Mr. Peterson. So with that, we are not going to go to City Council. Instead, we're going to go back to, I believe, page 45, the Schedule B-3. Is that correct? 43. And while Mr. Peterson is getting organized over there, I want to point out to the committee, we basically got two hours and 45 minutes left to cover a lot of ground still, because we do have to end at 5. All right, through the chair to the committee. So on page 43, this is a revised Schedule B-3. Working with the budget office, found a couple of things that needed to be added. So if you add up the gaps for all four of the out years, that's a combined 250.8 million. There are explanations from the budget office on page 44, and then some explanations from our office on pages 45 and 46. So I'm going to cover the ones on 45 and 46. We do have an ultimate recommendation to replace this, the revised B-3, to be consistent with the schedule on the prior two pages, to correct some economic incentive amounts. So we do need a recommendation to update that, but we can handle that at the end. As it relates to ad valorem taxes, this does not take into account Amendment 3 that will be taken up in November. This assumes a 5% increase in annual growth of ad valorem taxes. That's consistent with prior years. I do want to draw your attention, as Council Member Johnson mentioned it earlier, that based on the property appraisers' estimates of the June 1 property values, the first-year impact, which would be to the 27-28 budget, would be $193 million, and then the following year would be a total $300 million, and that was based on the June 1 numbers, which were much lower, or they were lower, than the July 1 numbers, which we used for the budgeting purposes. And then as it relates to property taxes, each 1% difference in property taxes, so this is based off of a 5% annual growth, each 1% difference equates to about $13 to $17 million. So if property taxes were to only grow at 4% for the life of this schedule, the cumulative impact would be $140 million added to that $250 million gap at the bottom. For salaries, salary increases included in this schedule are those that have been approved by collective bargaining agreements, and then where there is not a collective bargaining agreement in place, such as for public safety, 3% has been added in to factor in some level of increase. Each 1% equates to about $5 million in costs, so if the salary increases were 4% instead of 3%, cumulative impact would be over $50 million for the four-out years. For non-public safety, there is a 3% collective bargaining agreement in place for 27-28. Beyond that, there's not an agreement in place, and so 2% has been utilized by the budget office, which is reasonable for those out years, and each 1% for non-public safety equates to $1.75 million in costs per year. So if that 2% became 3%, that's an additional cumulative impact of $11 million over the three out years. Pension costs, PSDC, FRS. So this schedule is based on all current defined contribution members in public safety switching to FRS when they're given the opportunity later in 26-27. It does not factor in any defined benefit members switching to FRS. And so there can be a combination of some defined contribution members that may elect to stay with a plan, with their current plan, but all new members must go into FRS moving forward. What is known is that drop, members in drop schedule for departure during those out years will result in more participation in FRS. There's an average of about 110 drop participants scheduled to leave the defined benefit plan over the next four years, and each of the 110 drop groups would add a minimum $1.2 million per year in FRS and Social Security, and that's based on the lowest base salary in the proposed budget with no COLAs going forward. And this also does not factor in the impact of overtime, leave sellback, or other line items that are pensionable under FRS that are not pensionable under the city's plan. I'll draw your attention back to when those collective bargaining agreements were going forward. Our office estimated that the total impact once all employees were moved over would be an additional $100 million. We've gone back and looked at that and still stand by that number. Group health costs do reflect a schedule, $60, or not a schedule, but the schedule reflects a $60 per year, per person, per month increase for the public safety unions. That is reflective of what is in their current bargaining agreement for the current year, and then a 6% increase in the per year and employer premium cost for all other employees. Economic incentives is showing, the schedule is showing a total of $95 million in one-time or completion grants over the four-year period that will need to be addressed. Given the passage of Council Member Landon's Bill 2026-213, it's not likely that all of them will need to be addressed unless Amendment 3 does pass, and then they will need to. But if we should have some surpluses year over year, that would be able to contribute towards that $95 million. But if anything else you approved would be added to that. Do our best to answer any questions about B3 if you have them. Thank you. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and always awesome, Mr. Phillip, even with the mustache, man. I just had three comments here. One, I would at some point like to have a more serious discussion about the employee contribution for non-police and fire employees on the health care plans. Like, we haven't really had this conversation. We did it in Doge to talk about this ballooning amount of money coming from the city of Jacksonville for COJ employees. And then putting aside police and fire unions, we also had these other bargained, these collective bargaining units that have got this in there at JTA and other places. I think it's something we, at some point we need to have a grown-up discussion about this because the city's out a lot of money. And I'm available when everybody wants to get serious about that. That's one. If you look at page 44, I understand that we have to project things, but having the $28 million for publics already, like, written in here gives me a little bit of a stomach turn because I don't think this is going to end up in the budget, at least not in this way. That's a second thing. And then third, on a good point, you know, we keep on talking about what we've cut, but please don't forget how much we committed to UF Health, the Financial Tech, and Graduate Education Center. Look at that, $12.5 million year after year after year. It is a huge amount of money considering what we're not funding in this budget. So we're doing good things. We're doing good things for downtown. It's good to, you know, talk about those things. But, yeah, it makes me nervous having that $28 million put in there. I know why you did it. Like, you've got to put it in because the IA passed it, but we haven't. So I got it. Through the chair to Councilman Diamond, you're absolutely right. But this just remains consistent with how the budget office has treated looking forward in all prior years. And so that's the reason that they left it in there. And, Councilman Diamond, that was one of my questions on Monday. I go, hey, it's still in here for $28 million. So anything that had been approved by DIA, not by us, is what went into it. So I guess worst case is the right description for that. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To Philip, can you tell me again the number, the combined deficit we're looking at over the B3? Yes, sir. Through the chair, it's $250.8 million. And if we were correct, that would, in accounting, that would all be in red, right? So we're $250.8 million in the red over the five-year plan. Through the chair, that's correct. Okay. And that's only with about $95 million in economic incentives over that five-year plan? Through the chair to Council President Holland. So there's $95 million of approved economic incentives, whether that's Council and or DIA, that have not been covered or set aside funding for looking forward. Okay. I think just if you're looking for doom and gloom, and none of us are, but this one page right here, page 41, should justify the actions that we're trying to do. No one is trying to decrease at all the quality of life in the city in Jacksonville. In fact, we're trying to improve it. The scrutiny we're giving the budget today and over the next three weeks is not so we can spend less on matters, what matters. It's so we can protect the core and trim the extras so we can invest more on what matters. And if anything should give rise to that, it's this schedule. We need to be very tight with the dollar so we can ensure moving forward, in the case of years that were in the red, we need to ensure that we have the money to spend on the core for the people of Jacksonville on what matters. Thanks. Councilman Salem. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. Just to follow up on Council Member Diamond's comments. As you know, we hired, the council did, hired the Bailey Group this past year, did a complete analysis of our health care plan, made a number of recommendations. It is my understanding from meeting with the administration, they're going to be bidding out the health insurance plan next year, bidding out the prescription drug plan next year, and are looking at premium increases for employees and families next year. I feel like a Gator fan in the 60s and 70s, because it was always next year. I've been on this since I've been on the council, and it goes back to the Curry administration. This is nothing new, but it's continued all the way through the Deegan administration. So I'll be gone, but I hope next year in the budget, they even provided a tiered approach to premiums. If you're making more money, you should pay more in premiums. There's a lot of innovative things that the Bailey Group presented that I hope the administration, it is up to them, that we'll take advantage of those recommendations and put us on a better glide path towards getting this deficit of over $20 million corrected. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Salem. I think you're the reason it is next year, so I appreciate all the work that you did on those with the group health, and I sure hope that you can join us for that conversation when we get to that fund in a couple days. Council Member Carlucci. Okay, thank you. With that, no more on the Schedule B-3. Just my comments, normally, oh, I'm sorry, can I get a motion on the recommendation? Got a motion to second on the recommendation. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? First, the recommendation passes. My comments on the B-3, that's normally one of the first documents I go to this year. I think I'll be looking at it more carefully in November, just because until such time, we need to know what we are definitely looking at. So with that, I believe page 47, Philip? Yes, sir. Page 47 is your public service grant funding, and this will be the only time that we present it to you. So Council Member Diamond can be brought up at any time later if you'd like to. So you'll see at the top of your page that Mayors 26-27 proposed funding of $7.2 million for public service grants. That's broken down into the four categories, acute, prevention, self-sufficiency, and the micro-grant program that was approved as part of 2026-138. Pursuant to 2026-509, the City Council shall review and approve the procedures for determination of eligibility and review as it relates to the scoring of those micro-grant applications prior to distribution. Below that is, oh, I do want to draw your attention to the middle of the page. The categories, based on the allocation of $6.984 million over the three categories, the PSG Council received applications of $12 million, which shows that the $5 million worth of applications will not get funded. The public service grant dollars are placed into a designated contingency. They'll be brought above the line through that separate conflict legislation 509. The portion of the City's cultural service grant allocation that is allocated to grants through an application and scoring process is administered by the Cultural Council. Cultural Council dollars are at $7 million, which is flat year over year. The $6,007,092 represents the portion of the cultural service grant program that goes out to recipients, $937,523 represents the 13.5% funding for the Cultural Council administration of the program. And then $55,385, staying flat, is the Art and Public Places Program Administrator position. We do have a recommendation that the schedule of public service grants, which is A2 of your budget, be updated to remove the public service grant council funding, as that is a part of a separate piece of legislation. The revised Schedule A2 is on the following page. Mr. Chair, you're recognized. Thank you, Vice Chair. So I do have a motion to make on this, and my motion is going to be simply to approve half now and put the other half contingent on Amendment 3 using the process that we outlined this morning. If I can get a second, I can clarify my reasoning on that. We have a second. Okay. So again, we talked about that this morning. First of all, if we did not have Amendment 3 coming our way, I'd be supportive of the whole dollar amount from the beginning. Being the public service grant liaison a couple years ago, one of the things I learned that of all of our non-profit spend, this is actually the most vetted. There's actually measurable things. There's reports that are required. So I support the process. But again, at the same time, this is one of those programs. They get everything on October 1st. So what my proposed amendment would do is they get half on October 1st, and then the next month, it would be contingent on which way Amendment 3 goes. And if Amendment 3 fails, they will get the money right away. And the goal of that is they like to get the money out in the fall. I believe usually by October or November, that money is out there. Whereas this gives us some protection that if Amendment 3 passes, again, preserving cash, right, we will no longer basically be about, what is that, $7 or $8 million that we have not committed at that point in time. So standing by for any questions. And I believe you need to recognize the people in the queue, Vice Chair. We'll now recognize Pastor President Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Through the Vice Chairman to the Chair, you're making a recommendation, and I just want to make sure I'm following on the same page, because they had a recommendation of moving public service grants to the next conversation, so, or to the next page. So this is, your amendment is going to trump their recommendation, per se, or are we still going to take up the two separate things? Help me find myself, please, before I ask myself. Please do, Chair, to Council Member Freeman. I think taking up Council Member Landon's recommendation first is appropriate, because our recommendation is just related to schedule applications, and so based on how that goes may impact the schedule. So I think you're in the right posture to take up his recommendation first. Okay. I'm going to do like my friend, Mr. Nooney. Can we start my clock over? No, I'm joking. I appreciate, respect, and more than likely will align with the Chair, especially if I hear that this is where the Council President wants to go. But I do have some concerns with doing just across the board treating all as equal, because I don't always believe that every non-profit is equal. I believe they're all created with a mission and a purpose to help and serve a particular demographic in our community. But some do it on a larger scale than others. Some do it with a higher level of quality than others. Some do it more efficiently than others. And through that, the YAC committee, we really started talking about more collaboration, some of those smaller ones joining in with some of the largest ones. So that's one of my first concerns. My next concern is being familiar with this space. We understand that a lot of them have already started their programming, because schools started last week or this week, depending on what counties they're in. And so they're having to float dollars until they get to this point where we approve, and then they release the dollars on October 1st. So that creates a greater strain. And so for me, I think that I, you say 50%, I just, subjectivity, I mean, you are a number savant. And 50, was that because that's just the easy number? Why not 65, why not 75, would be one of the questions that I would ask. And then I do want to address the 200,000 that I see in the microgrants program. And I want to make sure that I revisit this, because the legislation doesn't say that any money should be there. I'm grateful that they put it there. But the, am I, go ahead. Through the chair. I see the 3%. I see that. That was an action of the council. I see that. But I want to make sure that I'm clarifying the legislation that I initially filed was for zero, many, many moons ago. They, this is done, this was a, this was done when they came back with a revamp of it. And I supported them in their, in their revamping of this. But the reason why I did it at 0% was because I did not want to burden the council with having to find monies for this. And that if there were an issue in the microgrant space that was important to a council member, that they would lobby and they would work hard to try to get that funding. Actually, there was a pushback from public service grants on the microgrant program when I initially filed it. Bob Baldwin was the chair of it. I had to go to their meeting and assure them that we would not be creating more paperwork for them. There was an FTE position created by Joey Gravy for this, specifically for the microgrants program. The first hire for that, her name was Kristen. She was Brenda Priestley Jones. I'm saying the last name, Brenda Priestley Jackson's ECA at the time. I brought her over. She was then brought in when Sarah Lynn Grass came in to be the chief of grants and compliance. All of everything got looped into that. So I want you to know there's history to it. So I get what we have here and I want to thank, I did work with them when they came to this, but I will say with that $200,000, if there's a scenario where we can move that back to zero or if they, if they want to keep it there, I want this body to know that was their decision, not based off of legislation that I pushed or passed and not based off of from my understanding, anything that you all did that came from their body from the board. But go ahead. Mr. Peterson, please recognize. Through the chair to the council. So the administration brought a bill back in February requesting the percentage breakdown through the PSG process, and it did not include anything for the micro-grant program. That was an amendment by the council to break, to add that 3% and to take away from the other programs. That would have been the finance committee last year in their attempts when they saw that the $200,000 was removed. So if we're going to do history revision, we have to go back and run the whole tape, and I've watched it several times. But it was a $200,000 that they saw for two years plus that I had not had put out into play. They were frustrated with it, and they said, well, if this is a way to ensure that this $200,000 gets put back into the budget, that was what they were going to do to do it. I'm simply saying I'm okay with now if we wanted to remove that $200,000. But I just want to make sure that everyone kind of understands the posture. So when they say it was the council, that was the finance committee getting my back last year because the administration gave us a budget that left out $200,000 that we had already appropriated in the previous year before. If I am mistaken, please add value. But I watched it a couple times, and that was my understanding. The only nuance I would add through the chair to Council Member Freeman is that that is all correct with respect to last budget year. The action taken for the $216,000 was part of this year through 2026-138 when the council was considering the most vulnerable persons in needs categories and the allocations. And I think it was in response to conversation that occurred at that time, but that was this calendar year that that occurred. Correct. And is that because there was no funding for previous dollars that had been appropriated by this body? So when it was originally proposed, it just proposed to fund the three primary categories that you normally have seen in the past, the acute prevention and diversion, self-sufficiency and stability. That came in as the proposal. And during the committee process, you carved out 1% from each of those to make a fourth category for my board. Thank you. And through the chair to Mr. Fopolis, but it was category four in existence when that budget was proposed to us with only three areas funded. So this was separate from the budget itself, but it wasn't included in their proposal with respect to the most vulnerable person. And I'm going to where we're there. And through the chair to Mr. Fopolis, had $200,000 been appropriated in the previous year's budget and sent the public service grants for them to work on a project? The answer is yes. Yes, there was. I'm not, I promise you, I'm not trying to get gotcha moments or aha moments. But I want to make sure because we'll have a lot of misinformation put out and then a lot of other things that distract people when they start talking about JSEBs and all these other things. I'm here to say right now that the $200,000 more than welcome to stay with it. I would ask my colleagues, we should not be intervening to, if it is in their hands, it is theirs. And they work with it. And I want to make sure that I'm putting this on record, that if we vote and approve this to stay $200,000, that's not now what I created. That was for us to try to, if you had a passion project for any type of thing, that is for that body to work with. But I'm also saying, I'm okay if this goes to zero. Because that was the initial thought for me, was if somebody's got a fire in their belly to help the least of them in their community, they should be able to convince nine other people, which I was able to do, to follow them. So I'm just going to leave it at that right there. But that would be one of my, so that's why I was a little leery when you talk about one, across the board, everything, and two, if we move on to the next one, because that was last year's finance committee. And I appreciate them getting my back on it. But now, we're at a position now where that money is out there. And I'm going to work over here to do it as well. We can take that out. We'll go next to Council Member Johnson. You're Rick and Nash. I guess my question was more, as I looked at the grant, I'm certainly not going to support pulling parts of it apart. But help me understand, through the chair, to Mr. Peterson, while I certainly understand the chairs want to do, to move half of the fund there, whatever that's trying to be done, my question is more about, if this amendment, if this proposition passes, we won't realize the full brunt of what will hit this city for the fullness of it for a couple years down the road, why is it at this point that it would make good sense to restrict the funds? Well, no, I'm just, from an auditor's point of view, I mean, I wanted to get from the auditor, restricting those funds, is that something that is, and I'm going to come back to you, Mr. Chair, but through the chair, to the auditor, is that something that's financially what we should be doing, especially if you're telling me, I think the number was around $100 million that would hit us the first year, if this took, it's 200, the first year, and then up to three. Through the chair, to Council Member Johnson, I'm going to say, Council Member Lane, in its favorite words, this is a policy decision on how you attack Amendment 3. No, I get it. I get the policy part of it. I'm just, I'm talking right now about fiscal principles. I'm just wanting to know, is that if there is a reduction in funding, is it commensurate, based on fiscal principles, to usually not fund a certain amount of a thing that is usually funded? Through the chair, to Council Member Johnson. So, the city will receive no impact in fiscal year 26-27, should Amendment 3 pass. That will be in 27-28. Any funding that is set aside now could be used for one-time funding expenditures in future years. So, if the council thinks that that is a wise decision, that is something you can take. I don't disagree that using one-time funding source for one-time expenditures is a bad thing. After that, it becomes a policy decision, truly. And I'm not trying to evade your question. It is a decision of this council to decide how you want to attack Amendment 3, should it pass. Let me understand it. And I'm going to come to you now, Mr. Chair, in your capacity. And the reason I asked that question to you and not you first, because I wanted to get fiscal principles. That's why I keep using that term, because I wanted to know, is this, again, this is my first time. I want to make sure that I understand the rationale. Mr. Chair, being that the auditor has just told us, however, that there will be no impact. What is the reticence with wanting to move this and go so quickly, since there will be no impact, as we just heard from the auditor? Yeah, please, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair. Through the Vice Chair to Council Member Johnson, I believe I addressed it this morning when I talked about the guiding principles I'll be using. Again, we will have to downsize our overall government operations by $200 million. Day 34 of this next budget year is when we'll know whether Amendment 3 passes or fails. All my amendment says is, okay, October 1st, you're getting half. Then you're going to have to wait to 34 days to see if you're getting the other half. And if Amendment 3 fails, you get it. There's no additional legislation. Still probably get it out before the holiday break when everything slows down. But my concern, I also echoed this morning, is $200 million. Again, we got basically a $700 million slice of the pie to take $200 million out of. And we're only going to have a year to do that. There could be the possibility we need extra cash to bridge that gap when we are on our way down to what the new normal would look like. So again, basic business decision. When you face revenue uncertainty, you try to preserve as much cash on hand as possible. So that is the nature of my amendment here. And I hope you'll support it. Again, we are simply saying, let's wait 34 days until we commit the other half because we may be in a position to where that $7 million is needed for something else. It's the prudent decision for us to make. Thank you for your response, Mr. Chair. While I certainly, unfortunately, I cannot support this because I don't believe it makes good sense to, for me and the people that I represent, to take away with the thought of the possibility of what could happen. I'm looking at the now and the fact that the public, and through the chair, to the vice chair, to the chair, I'm looking at the fact that these public service grants, cultural service grants, other grants, while I will be enhancing and amending some of this as I'm working with the auditor to find those funds, what I do believe is if we're going to make those expenditures, now is the time to do it. Not, while I do understand saving for a rainy day, one of the things I know is that we do have a quote-unquote rainy day fund, but I don't want to completely just cut everything because of the possibility of what might happen. But I do thank you for that recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, back to the chair for response. Thank you. Through the vice chair to Council Member Johnson. One thing I want to point out, you talked about cutting. Both of these programs are, each year, it's a completely new evaluation of all the applicants. So when you say cutting, it's, there are some consistent winners, but again, everything should be treated as one-time grants when you get a PSG or a cultural council grant. So I would argue it's not a cut to a specific entity, rather the bucket of money would potentially be less. I'm going to go next to past president, past president Carlucci. He's been waiting for a while. We had some new people added, so I'm going to give him a shot here. Thank you, Councilman, Vice Chairman, Chris Miller. Now we're, we're right now on an amendment to public service grants. Is that correct? Okay. I'm going to throw out a suggestion, but that also includes public or the cultural council grants, as well as the public services grants, because I want to kind of get this out there. Since I'm a visiting council member, I don't exactly get to get my ideas out there quick. So that's why I'm going to do this. I, I will go along with this, you know, not full funding and putting some under the table or under the bus, under the bus. Well, that might be a good way to say it, uh, under the line. Um, but I am going to appeal to the sponsor of, of the amendment. And then the one that's going to come on cultural council that I think it would be well after the feedback that I've had from mostly from the cultural council interest, but also from some public services grants that we moved from the 50% up to 65%. Uh, I think they got a lot of their, uh, the, the, um, the grants, uh, that, that, that they give to their recipients have got a lot of the recipients of these dollars have got contractual, um, um, and I mentioned this earlier, uh, uh, uh, contracts with, with, uh, their recipients that are counting on these dollars. And they have been, uh, because amendment three doesn't happen till next year. I understand saving some money for a rainy day. And I have spoken to at least one of the, uh, one, one of these organizations and, and they think 65% would be a huge help to them in, in getting through this. And so I'm just going to appeal to you. Look, I've been here all day. I'm not a member of this damn committee. Um, but I have stuck with it. I've tried to be a good sport. I know I'm opinionated, but that's what democracy is about. Uh, but listen, I'm giving you some, some good advice and I'm trying to be a team player on this. And I'm asking you to, to take up this one recommendation of mine and adopt it in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in being a good, uh, uh, in, in, in, in helping me to help you and to help them. And if you go to 65%, I think you'll have people will walk out here doing that and you might even score some points because they represent a lot more people than just those that are part of the public services grants and the cultural committees. They represent a lot of other people that are out there receiving them. And then those people represent a lot of other merchants and a lot of other people. Thank you. We'll go back, we'll back to the chair for response. Thank you, vice chair, just to respond because council member Freeman and Carlucci brought the same thing up. Uh, first of all, my amendment covered both cultural, uh, uh, the cultural grants and the public service grants. Uh, so it was an amendment on both. If that wasn't followed a second of all, you asked how, uh, I came up with 50%, y'all know, uh, engineering by background, nuclear submarines. I made a 50%. Okay. So I'm open for discussion on that 65%. Fine. Right. It's a, I want it to be a starting point for discussion, but I do think we need to be at a place to where on October 1st, we are not just approving 14 million released at that point. Again, all my amendment is saying, if someone wants to amend it to make it 65% or some other number, I'd be open to that as well. I'm saying let's wait till day 34 until we give out the remaining pot of money. And also councilman Carlucci, you said specific organizations. I think this is going to result in the ranking of the organizations on who gets the grant. It's not necessarily going to reduce the amount of the grant per organization. So that is the way my understanding. May I respond? Well, with the cultural council, there's a lot of organizations that they suddenly rank, but, but normally they are year after year after year recipients. And one of those groups called me, they're going to get their grant and, and, and, and they're in a part of town and they attract a lot of people to come to their cultural event. And the many restaurants in that particular town center there, they're real concerned because they're not sure this organization is going to be able to fulfill all of the events that they put on. So it's got this segment of this neighborhood, uh, in their merchants, uh, up in, I mean, they're like, what? And I think at 65%, it could help, uh, the cultural council and public services grants to manage, manage this issue a little better. And, uh, I'd love to hear somebody make a motion to that extent and get a second. If somebody would do me the courtesy. Yeah, we've got a lot, we've got a lot in the queue and, uh, we'll go next to, uh, President Howland, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Uh, I just want to say to Chair Lane, and this is the most responsible thing to do. And I support it a hundred percent. Um, this makes the most sense for the people I represent who are the people of Jacksonville and everyone needs to think about this, that if amendment three passes, uh, the next president and the next finance committee are going to have to cut $200 million from this budget, that's, there's a word for that. It's called austerity and, and no one is in a happy mood when they have to cut $200 million. So if we can look at prudent cuts right now, um, or intelligent, responsible ways to make some cuts, um, maybe they don't even cut out of the budget. This is why this is so responsible. Instead, it puts it into a contingency specially designed, um, to fully fund if amendment three fails. So to me, it is the best way to do it. If amendment three passes, we've created some cushion. So next year won't be as austere, um, as we expected to be, this is clearly the best way to do it. And I applaud what Councilman Lane is doing. The only thing I can, um, think of for Mr. Freeman is his 200 million in the micro grant program was supposed to be spent last year. And I think maybe even the year before. So I don't know if that can be accepted about it, but other than that, 200,000, 200,000, 200,000. My apologies. I, yeah, his 200,000 for the micro grant program was supposed to be spent last year, the year before. So it's kind of like money we keep pulling forward. If we can accept, put that aside with a 50% cut for the contingency, I would appreciate that. Thank you. Um, we'll go, we'll go next. Are you still on? Okay. We'll go next to past president Freeman. You recognize. Uh, thank you, uh, Mr. Vice chair and, and through the chair, vice chair to the chairman, I fully understand your amendment and I am supportive of the logic in the thought process. Um, where I have some consternation on is, is one, a lot of these groups that we are about to, uh, tell them that they must start the school year. And I'm just only talking about students. That's kind of where my lane is with only 50% of, of their budget and knowing that ecosystem the way I do, they're going to more than likely have to be forced to make a decision that we're only going to now serve said 50% of that demographic. Even, even though we know that we are going to get funding or we hope that we're going to get funding in November, if they want to keep their doors open, they have to make that tough decision. And then to me, it says what happens to those, those students now that are now left without the program? I'd much rather, and it's, I know it's not just about, it's not about me, so I will go with the consensus, but I'd much rather say, can we table this amendment? Can we get with KHA? Can we get with the groups involved? Can you give me a rank file system? Can you show me? And I don't always say it's the biggest. So just because you serve 30,000 doesn't mean that I wouldn't consider saying you should have a 60% reduction. If like, I'll be willing to take this on. Like if somebody were willing to go meet with these groups and, and I've had to make the tough decisions when I was original Jack's journey member and defund organizations that I was actually a part of gang intervention being one of it. So my question would be, is if there's an appetite for someone that's willing to go meet with every group that's in there, as many as I can caveat by myself, that's going to be the caveat again, I'd be willing to try to do rank file and come back with a way to get you to a number that you guys are trying to, to get to. Yeah. Thank you. I we're, we're currently on a cultural council at this point, not KHA. So I'll go to Mr. Popolis to clarify that. Yes. Through the chair to, or through the vice chair to the committee. So I just want to be sure that the, the PSG and cultural services grants are not related to youth programming that's tied to the school year. Those are all handled through Kids Hope Alliance. They administer all of those grants. And so those grants that are traditionally something you would consider being tied to the school year are going to be under the Kids Hope Alliance budget discussion. We'll go to the chair for a follow-up on that. And through the vice chair, Mr. Popolis, thank you for clarifying that again. And we're kind of overcomplicating my amendment here. The whole reason I talked about this morning by having this methodology applied, both I know PSG, it's a big thing that they want to get them out in the fall. And so this would allow them if a minute three was to fail, they could still get the PSG grants out in the fall. I think cultural council, not as familiar with that, works on a similar timeline. But yes, these are not the kids programs we're talking about here. No, this funding would be available till October 1st anyways. So just wanted to clarify that as well. Well, we'll next go to a council member Boylan. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I do appreciate the opportunity. First of all, I understand where this is going and I think it's sound. Whether it's 65 or 50, that's a discretion of the committee. I did want to clarify a couple things for the benefit of Councilman Freeman. Very clearly, the PSG Council and the Grants and Contracts Department are very fully supportive of the micro-grant program. We have introduced a bill that speaks to it. Last year, they were just slow in getting it out under the table. The opposition last year to moving that money out of the PSG was concerned that it wouldn't be reinstated in this coming year. So the $200,000, in my view, needs to stay in place and be subject to the same 50-50 or 65-35 situation that you're all addressing here. But the bill's been introduced. We are ready to move forward with the program and anxious to do so. So thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. We'll go next to Council Member Johnson. You're recognized. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Just as I expected, that information is a little bit incorrect. Councilman Freeman is right. There are programs that will be funded, children's programs through, I sit on the board of the Cultural Council, thanks to the Council President, through these Cultural Council funds, as well as I'm checking now to see if there's some that come through PSG, but I know they're at least $207,000. Am I correct in that amount? Through the chair to Ms. Donovan, who is here, I think the number is 207 that serve children. So there's $207,000 in just that. And that's just one of the things. I knew it because I just sat through their grant process that they're going through with the Cultural Council. So I think I want to make sure we had the right information. And I want to, let me, let's go. This is a little confusing for me because calling this an austere decision, while it may sound, you know, fiscally responsible and necessary, is not good financial stewardship. I just don't see it as that. Public service grants are not lines on a spreadsheet. These are opportunities for people and organizations that are already doing the work. But here's the thing. If we look at these grants that are being put out, feeding families, supporting seniors, addressing homelessness, neighborhoods, all of those projects and plans, as was said earlier, when we cut these grants now, what we're doing, in essence, is ensuring that we have to spend more money later over an if. And so I think there's a fiscal responsibility here too, because every dollar we remove from prevention today are several dollars that we spend when we're trying to mitigate the things that we could have stopped problems from happening if we just left things as they were. While I do understand the responsibility of planning for the if, I am under the belief that while I do, and I certainly see the rationale, and I get it, I just don't agree with it. I don't think it's the right way to do, and we can't balance a budget by shifting the burden onto the very people who are trying to help us hold our city together. That's not austerity. Thank you. Thank you. Go next to Pastor President Salem, you're recognized. Thank you, Vice Chair. 100% supportive of what Councilman Lehman is trying to do. It's a responsible thing to do. We're looking at potentially $200 million, guys. And when I hear the comment, which disturbs me about reserves, and we got these, and the reserves are healthy, thanks to the people around this room. Over the last several years, we've got healthy reserves. We've not had a hurricane recently. I was on the council when we had three hurricanes within about a six-week period of time. So we have to protect those reserves because we may need them. So making, and I think the use of your plan of these dollars going into this tax reserve that automatically goes, I'm not crazy about that concept, but this is a good place to put these dollars because we want these dollars to go forward if the tax fails. If it passes, Katie, bar the door. I mean, we're not in reality here with $200 million. There's a lot more that would have to be cut. And I'm trying to, I won't be here. A couple of us won't be here. Matt won't be here. But I feel I'm sitting here because I want to prepare the next council as best I can for a potential catastrophe that could occur. That's a lot of money that would have to come out of this budget. So sound plan, go forward. We'll go next to Mr. Weinstein. You're recognized. Sorry, it took a while. We had the queue all lit up there. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I just wanted to say, you know, you're talking so much about the homestead. Homestead passes, it affects the 27-28 budget. And if it passes, we have to look at everything. We have to revisit the entire budget. You're picking and choosing without really a plan, without prioritizing something against the other, which I don't think is necessarily wise. It would be good if you looked at things on the merits as to what's in front of you, rather than trying to get ready for something that may happen that will change everything that we do. Along with Councilman Salem, it's going to take everything that we possibly could think of doing in the 10 months after the vote in November to get ready for 27-28. So, you know, I wouldn't make decisions based on that willy-nilly. It's got to be a full budget review if it passes. That's all. Thank you. We'll go next to past president Freeman, and then we'll go to past president Carlucci. I got you. And Councilman Carlucci, I think there's something wrong with your screen if somebody can help him, because he's got his hand raised, and I don't want his shoulder to cramp up, but he is not coming up in this screen. As I've said earlier, I understand the logic, and I will be where I need to be to make sure that our budget is physically responsible. I think one of the things that we keep hearing is we're talking about treating people, how we're treating people. I often say that I'm also concerned with the people that are going to be here two generations from now, i.e., my kids' kids. And so a part of the decisions, a lot of decisions we're making here today not only impact Jacksonville citizens that are living here now, but it impacts, hopefully, a lot of us rents, and we want our kids and our grandkids to live here. Now, back to what we were saying earlier. I was not saying take $200,000 from them. What I was saying is if they think for a minute that's the $200,000 that I haven't gotten for the last three years, because I've heard that said before, hey, they put $200,000 in the budget for you. I don't want to see it lined up there, because yet again, my goal was, when I fought with those dollars, was to sit down, meet with them, come up with a plan, which they did, Dr. Joy Hervey did it, and then see them execute that plan. So they already had a plan for it. So this is a new $200,000, as far as I'm concerned. It's only here because the group last year was upset that they heard I hadn't, because I showed up to a finance meeting, and I voiced my concern. So now this has added money to a budget that would not have been there had they done the right thing last year. That is why I said I'm okay for those dollars to be removed. As for the rest of this, I'm done with the conversation. I see a lot of my colleagues are getting frustrated with it as well. I would do the math. I would do the hard work I offered to, to try to find groups that maybe they can fall off the list, find groups that can handle maybe waiting to November, and then find those that they say this is just detrimental to us serving the least of them in our community. But I see it's going to lose, and if we're going 50-50, that's where this group lands. That's not where my heart is, but that's just a part of this process, I guess. Thank you. Pass, President Carly, to you recognize. Thank you. Legislative services, maybe tomorrow I can sit down closer to the group and feel like I'm a part of everything, you know, so that'd be great. Mr. Vice Chair, or Chair, I'd like to, because I think this is important, to ask Diana Donovan to come up and explain why. Can I have my time put back up, please? I want to say, yeah, you don't need to start, I must say. You don't need to stop if someone's talking. If there's two or three committee members talking to one another, I want to be listened to by the whole committee. But you're being recognized. I've seen you numerous times do the same thing when someone else is talking, and that's okay. So let's be consistent. I saw you early today doing that when we had this process going on. I'm just saying. But I'm not a committee member. You can continue. You don't need to wait until everybody. I'm going to stop until I have the attention of every committee member, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry. There's no need for that. There is. There is not. Otherwise, I'm only capturing half of the committee. I'm sorry. That's the way I feel about it. But I would like to ask for the courtesy of having Diana Donovan, if she would, to come up and explain why 60 to 65 percent of the funding would be of value and be of great help to the cultural council, if you would, please. And everybody else has had that privilege afforded to them. I'd like it afforded to me, please. Yeah. Well, please come on up for the rest of his time. That would be fine. Ms. Donovan. I just would like to know from Ms. Donovan, I guess you had to be quick, but would 60 to 65 percent of your funding help you as opposed to 50 percent? And why? Well, we first want to start by saying that we're very grateful for the consideration of funding and the intentionality of the finance committee. We understand that there are hard times that we are planning proactively ahead and that there's contingency funding across the board that is being considered. So I first want to start by saying thank you for the active communication around this. When it comes to the 50-50, we appreciate the starting space. If it's above 50 percent, it would be helpful and beneficial because we do have children's programs we work with, to the good point of Council Member Freeman. But I also want to share that as we're championing forward, we think about future-proofing, hurricane planning, those sort of things. For our sector, we want to make sure that we're intentional about how we fund and transition. If it were to not pass and it comes back above the line, we're grateful for the sustained funding and we'll come back to you with the ROI that we've promised and we'll deliver in taxable revenue and small business activation, et cetera. But I think from this point of view, if there's an option to be able to have above 50 percent, it would be grateful and beneficial. We do understand the hard conversation around this and we want to make sure that we're standing in the gap as an economic driver to say that whatever you decide to give us, we will give you back in tenfold. That's only three seconds left. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And I've also noticed committee members have gone way over their three-minute time. Ms. Donovan, I appreciate that. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but I did want to make sure that the committee had the same understanding that I did, that a little over 50 percent would help. And that's what I'm asking is for this committee, if somebody would make that motion to at least consider that and debate it. And if you shoot it down, fine. But I'd like to have that considered with a motion and somebody to give me the courtesy of that with a second. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go next to past president. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. My apologies, guys, for just even going down this rabbit hole. I was basically saying I would roll up my sleeves if you are willing to prolong this process just a little more. And I was willing to offer something at some point if I had the factual base to go with it. So the question that I, and I don't want to put anyone on the spot in the industry because that's just, in my opinion, that's not fair to them. But I also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So there's that saying, do no harm. My other question that I was going to ask was, is how many organizations will we be putting out of service by doing this? I love, I mean, that's something that will impact how I sleep at night. And I think without that answer, it makes it even harder for me. I'm going to support this because I believe in the finance chair. I know they can't say you're being political. I know for a fact, they will never say you're being political. You are doing what you feel is fiscally responsible. Our president has shown us from the very beginning that we can disagree without being disagreeable. I know it's not coming from a bad place. So this is one of my little, this is one of my aching points here. And so I was willing to, in my little space, roll up the sleeves, but I get it. There's no appetite for it. But if, if there's some way someone can maybe give me a white paper or, or give me bullet points on what groups are going to be closing their doors and which demographic and population potentially, because if, if it may be to be none, if it's none, that makes it easier for me. And I would love to hear that. Thank you. Through the chair to council member. Oh, sorry. Yeah, please. Mr. Peterson, you recognize. Through the chair to council member, I can't tell you, organizations, because those are still in the scoring process. So I don't know which ones would be cut out or whatnot. As far as the PSG is concerned, the max grant that an entity can receive is 125,000. So if every application was for $125,000, which that is not the case, but if it was that three and a half million rough number would equate to 28 organizations not receiving funding pending what happens in November. If November fails, those 28 would then receive the operations. I don't know how the cultural council, I don't think there's a max on there. So to project that number would be a lot more difficult. Okay. Um, Mr. Vavilas. No, there's through the vice chair to council member Freeman. There's also a couple other things and I can go into more detail with you, um, offline, but if you recall, there's been a number of changes over the years to the public service grants specifically to ensure that what the city is providing and grant funding is not the only thing keeping those entities afloat. So for instance, they have to have been in existence for a number of years before they can qualify to receive grant funding. It can only equate to a certain percentage of their overall revenues. It also is only funding. Mr. Boylan may have some additional information he could share. It also can, we're only talking about funding specific programs. Now, a specific entity may have multiple programs, one in each category, but to the extent that it would be the type of funding that would cause them to close their doors, those were safeguards that the city put in place. And it also is to protect the city's dollars to ensure we're not funding and then having entities that do close down and then we're not seeing a continued return on that investment. Okay. Thank you. I'll, I'll go lastly to, uh, the council member Johnson. You're recognizing them where the intent is to go to a vote. Thank you, uh, Mr. Vice chair for recognizing me. My question, uh, is this possible? Would, uh, the, uh, amendment sponsor be open to at least tabling this? I tend to, uh, agree with council member Freeman when we don't know what organizations would be adversely affected in so many ways. There's no way I can support this. Okay. I'm, I'm told by general counsel. This is the only time this is coming up. I, you can Mr. Bob, let's go up again later. So you can table it or you can take it up today, but still it could be moved again later. As Mr. Peterson has said, all the way up through that second budget hearing, we can readdress these issues. But with respect to there's a timing in October, we won't know the full, the entities until the budget is we will, but at least I think since they're going through the scoring process now, what I was saying is they're still, for me at least, um, while I understand and I hear, uh, the same statement, I don't have the same belief. And, and while I understand fiscal responsibility, I just don't believe that this is the most fiscally responsible thing to do. That's why I won't be supporting it. However, my question then comes back on my main, my, you know, the biggest question for me is if we can table it until we get more information, that way we can at least know what entities are, have applied. We don't even know specifically that they can present us that while they are getting those scores done and just hold off on this and not rush to put it in this, you know, in that space until we get more information and then make a decision. That's my request. Mr. Chair, we recognize. Uh, thank you, Vice Chair. To Councilman Johnson, no, we need to vote on this and we can always come back and revisit if you want. But again, we are hours behind now on budget hearing day one. And, uh, again, I, I said I was open to 65%. I did throw that out there, but if not, there's no more speakers. So I say we, we vote on this, Vice Chair. We just got one more, um, Council Member Boylan records. And this is it. We will vote after you. Appreciate it, Mr. Vice Chair. I just, uh, help, this should help in the process. Number one on the PSG side, it can be no more than 24% of their operating budget collectively. Realize, too, that, and even with the scoring process is approved by October 1, it'll take at least two months before the grants can, an application, the grant applications or contracts can be executed. So I think the 34 days before we know the answer to this question will be resolved even before the possibility of this. So I think where you're landing is, is the right place right now. And I appreciate, I love my PSGs, I love my CSGs, but I think you're moving in the right direction. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Mr. Chair, one more, one more comment to that. Thank you. And again, we've been talking a lot, uh, well over an hour now, but my amendment is simply saying, let's wait 34 more days before we commit another $7 million of taxpayer dollars. That is what my amendment is. And you cannot tell me that is not a financially responsible decision. So, uh, Vice Chair, I think, uh, I was the last speaker. Yeah, we're going to take a vote. Um, do this by hand so that we're clear, um, all those in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand. All those opposed. So we have one opposed, uh, Council Member Johnson. Uh, the amendment passes and I'll move it back to the chair. Thank you, Vice Chair. Did not intend for you to have the gavel for half the meeting. Uh, so with that, Mr. Peterson, uh, I think we're on page 49 or 48. Through the chair, can you move our amendment on page 47 to reflect the action? I have a motion. Can I get a second? We got a motion of second on the auditor's recommendation. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment passes. Council Member Freeman, you are recognized. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I, I asked for you all to hold that, that last vote, but what was it? I, I, I was rushing to get back. I don't even know what the vote was that it passed. All right. Page 49 in your handouts are, uh, the next few pages are a review of the ordinance code, or I'm sorry, the ordinance code. The budget ordinance has presented to you and comparing it to prior years. Um, so page 49 are waivers that remained the same. This is related to the annual adoption of the stormwater management assessment, just making you aware that it remains the same. Um, there are, uh, this waives the requirement for preliminary rate ordinance since the rates will stay the same as the prior year. No recommendations. Okay. Thank you. Page 50 are waivers that were removed from the budget ordinance. This relates to downtown economic development fund and the Lynch building and the Carling building, um, redirecting dollars towards the downtown economic development fund. This is no longer needed as the, um, buildings are set to be sold, I believe tomorrow. Um, if they are not sold, we will need to revisit this and add a waiver to the ordinance. Page 51 are deletions of additional provisions. Uh, the first is 1114 related to the zoo and the capital contribution to the zoo. The city met its full, um, $20 million towards that. So that's no longer needed. And then 11.15 is related to the $300,000 towards the Vest Core Family Foundation, uh, Jack's Classical Academy project. Uh, that's no longer a project. So that was removed. Page 52 is amending the Better Jack's work plan. Um, that is no longer needed because there are no amendments to the work plan as a part of the proposed budget. 53 are additions of additional provisions. Uh, first is section 9.7, approving the non-advorm assessment for solid waste services. Uh, this was handled through separate legislation last year. This does increase the, uh, solid waste assessment fee to $29.50 per month or an annual rate of $354 as approved in, uh, prior legislation. Um, this does just follow that stair-stepping of the solid waste fee. And then also section 9.8 is the annual public hearing related to the non-advorm assessment of solid waste services, adding this because previously it was done through a separate legislation. No questions. 54 gets into our direct contracts and pages, uh, 56 through 73. Um, there is a singular page on items 1 through 18 on page 54 that lay out an overview of the applicable term sheet, uh, with various notes, technical amendments, and then also recommended amendments from our office. I'll draw your attention to the bottom of that page, direct contracts to be discussed later. There are a number of direct contracts as it relates to KHA and Journey Forward. Uh, we've already discussed the direct contracts, uh, with JFRD, and then also we'll discuss shortly a direct contract for MHOP. So, Mr. Chair, do you want me to walk through each of the individual pages? And, uh, yes, I think we should go, uh, page by page to, uh, uh, to make sure when everyone's comfortable or if anyone has an amendment. I think we can go fast on page 55. This is what I referenced this morning. When we reduced council contingency from, uh, 10 million ish to a 2.2, uh, the items on page 55, I'm sure we'll revisit some of these on wrap up day, but these were what council had in the budget last year that were not included in this year's budget. So again, not a today discussion, but we'll probably reference 55, uh, page 55 from day one, uh, on wrap up day to review those, to see, uh, what was one time or what items we want to, uh, continue to be funded in the future as well. So if you want to start on a page 56, uh, Mr. Peterson, I think you could probably just read the title to us. And if I have people in the queue, I will call on them. And in fact, I'm going to recognize council member Salem right now, just to clarify, you're going to go through all the items on page 54 individually as we on page by page. Correct. So starting on page 56, there's a page for all 18 of those items. Okay. So some I think will be fast. Some will probably have more conversation. Can I just make a quick comment? Absolutely. All the items on page 54, the one 66, six 67s were all those clinics that were added at the very end of the budget process last year. Uh, I know my good friend, council member Boylan was pushing those. Uh, those were what first year that they were in there. And I just, uh, I mentioned that. Thank you. So that's a good point. Uh, customers Salem, we can probably, we may be able to take all those up together rather than separate pages. But, uh, with that, uh, Mr. Peterson, if you want to start on page 56 and council members, if you do want to speak or ask questions, uh, I'll call you when I see your name pop up. Okay. Page 56, item one's the Agape Community Health Center for $121,724. This remains flat year over year. Um, we do have a few technical amendments to authorize the funds not distributed, uh, to the state as part of the city's federally qualified health center, a low income pool that they could then be distributed to Agape Health. This matches the term sheet from last year. And we need to attach a revised exhibit 17, which is the term sheet to reflect the intended use of the funds not dispersed to the state. Can I get a motion on the technical amendment? Got motion second on the technical amendment. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The technical amendment passes and I see no one in the queue. Uh, so on to item two. Item two is for I am Solzbacher Center for the homeless. This is the continuum of care urban rest off at 400,000 remaining flat year over year. We do have a technical amendment to correct the budget schedule. So I got motion second on the technical amendment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Amendment passes and I have no one in the queue on to number three. Number three is a direct contract within the word international for an out east community center at $300,000. Uh, we do have a couple notes that this waves section 118 201 F7 to authorize four advanced installments of $75,000 each contingent upon delivery of support of expenditure of the prior advances. It does also authorize two one-year extensions, uh, that is authorized contingent upon future funding. And then the initial contract is eligible for a no cost extension of up to six months. We do have a technical amendment if you want to move forward with this. And then we also have recommended amendments. Moved in second. Uh, we'll pass, uh, I got a question first. I think I should ask my questions before we pass the, uh, technical amendment. Uh, I was just wondering how come this isn't included as part of the CBA dollars? To the, or to the chair, the CBA dollars have to meet one of four categories, um, and out east that is economic development, workforce housing, affordable housing, and the mitigation of homelessness. Uh, this does not fall into one of those four categories, therefore would not qualify. Okay. I got a council president in the queue. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, to Mr. Peterson, could this be funded by district seven council members, um, CBA money? Through the chair to, uh, Councilman Rahalan, I don't think so because it still has to meet those four same categories. Oh, I take the back. No, CBA dollars do not have to meet. Council district CBA dollars do not have to meet those four categories. So it could because it is within his council district. Okay. Interesting. Thank you. Councilman Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm fine with removing this one. I, I, if memory serves, we did that last year. And then I see another, uh, community center as number five, which is another thing we removed last year. And so I, I, I, I'm just kind of looking at these together. I still think this community center thing, we had a whole long conversation in council. Um, then vice president Nick Holland was like, you could walk to this one from that one. So if we're doing this community center discussion again, I would like to have it. I'm not personally inclined to fund any of them, but, um, at least we should be taking these, these things up together or as part of the cohesive discussion of which of any of these direct contracts we want to do for community centers. So Mr. Diamond, let, I mean, let's talk about three and five right now. Cause I do think you are correct. Both of these were in last year's budget. I think I know number five definitely was. Um, and did you make a motion? Let's stay on three. I'll stay on three. I'll move to remove three. Uh, and that's completely out of the budget. Um, but if I can get a second, it's for purpose of discussing these, these, uh, these issues of community centers. We have a motion and second on removal of line item number three. I'm going to go to council member Johnson first and Freeman. Is there someone here from in the word, anybody, uh, anybody from in the word international? If not, Mr. Weinstein, do you know what the, I know it's 2.3 million. That's the cost of this project, um, to the chair of Mr. Weinstein. Do you know what specifically, obviously they're not going to, you know, do it all, but what specifically is in the word putting into this project? Do we know that? And of course they'll be raising some funds. Do you know that number? I know, I know that this was again, um, from last year and the 300,000 was for design and preparation of the construction. Um, but that's all I know about the community center at this point. Got it. Thank you. I don't have enough info. Thank you. Councilman Freeman. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. And this was another part of the budget, um, hearings last year that I showed up for and I showed up only because I, uh, and this is dealing with separating and I'm glad we separated the two items, three and items five. Um, and so we're on item three now. I am not in support of item three only because I want to take those dollars. And if item five does not get approved, put it towards it and then try to find 700,000 more to bring item five to life. Uh, and I'll talk about that at the appropriate time. I just think that how it was presented last year was a little misleading to what the intent of that, that center was to be. And it caused, it caused confusion on this body because we had several veterans up here. Um, and I don't think that the intent of that building was to be a veteran center. It was to be a place in the community for people to come and get resources and to recognize and acknowledge the veterans there. So that you're going to see me try to move three, move money around to make sure that stays hold if we try to take that out. Thank you. I do not have any other speakers. So the motion on the table is to remove item number three. So all those in favor of the diamond amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Uh, council member, let's hold the vote. Council member Freeman got back in the queue, right? As I was calling, uh, through the chair to OGC or to auditors. If we take this vote, because it's going before item five, like right now I'm, I'm identifying money that's already in this budget that hasn't been, it's allocated to something. And is it, or do I need to make an amendment to try to add it to? And I'm just trying to figure out a way that, cause I got feeling five is not going to make it. And I definitely want to try to make sure that I'm building a foundation to it. Um, through the chair to council member Freeman, if you just flat out cut it, those dollars would get added to special council contingency, that give and take bucket that we keep track of. At the end. And then how many votes to get out of that special contingency? Majority of those present. And then the past legislation that was filed, what those are for incentives, uh, through the chair to councilman, uh, to Mr. Peterson that go towards saving debt. I just want to make sure that I'm not dropping it in a bucket that all of a sudden those, which I agree with, like saving as much money as we can. Will those dollars still be accessible? These 300,000, if we put it in some. Through the, through the chair to council member Freeman, these dollars will fall to special council contingency. So through the whole budgeting process, they are available to be added to whatever programs, projects you would want to. Um, I think that answers your question. It does. And I would make an ask then, can we take up five before three? Can we take it out of order before we take a vote? I mean, I feel like I know where the vote was heading on number three. Do, uh, is that, that's fair. That's fair. If we already think we have it, but, uh, I, I am strongly in support of five because of promises that were made and understandings. I don't know anything about three and there's nobody here from three. So it's easy when someone's not here to represent themselves for us to say this budget cycle, you wanted money, you're not here. What I'm trying to say is, is I see representatives from the urban league here. And so if we have someone here that can make the case, I would rather hear, and we're talking about cutting them before I take 300,000 that's already in a budget, I'd much rather hear, hear what they have to say. And if it's something that moves this body to support it, then by all means, three, the, then item three is gone. But if not, you're going to see me say, okay, item three, whatever ones we cut, because I think that how they were led to present this to us last year, put them up against a veteran center that the city was already doing. And it was two, it was two conversations taking place in silos, but the only consistent entity was the administration. And they didn't share that with you all. And so all of a sudden now you say, why are we spending money on this one? And this one's over here and they're not a veteran center. So I'm going to leave it at that. I do agree with you that since people have, I've heard votes already, it's a little unfair per se. Um, so I don't know how to get in the proper posture here because we did start calling for a vote. Um, but maybe we table it since they're not here and give them a chance, someone a chance to get here, um, or not. And I mean, through the chair to Councilman Diamond, I, I see the frustration. You see where I'm going with, with the urban league. Yeah. Uh, through the chair, back to my colleague, personal preference. I think this one's going down no matter what. I understand that you want that you see 300 grand that's floating around. I'm tracking. I would like to understand more about what happened with this veteran center. I don't even know that I could vote on this one today because I've asked so many questions about this. Uh, number five, and I understand you want to support it. So I would like us to do three. Let's do four. And then I'm all ears on five. All right. So let's just do our council president. You're, are you good? I'm okay. And I'm going to call for a revote on three. Uh, just real quick, Mr. Chair. I mean, it, my feeling on community centers, if I'm going to vote for funding for a community center, I would rather have it come as an enhancement through the parks department, you know, because they've recognized that, Oh, we need a community center here. We need one there. So if it's not coming through that parks department has controlled community centers in the city of Jacksonville, I'm, it's going to be really hard to get me to support it. It'd be like, you know, trying to organize funding for a new, you know, fire station outside of JFRD's budget. Um, so thanks. Okay. With that, we're going to redo the vote on amendment three. I'm sorry, on not amendment three. Uh, item number three, the motion is to remove the funding. Uh, so a yay vote on the diamond amendment is removing the 300,000. All those in favor of the diamond amendments say aye. Aye. Any opposed nay? We have one nay. So the amendment does pass. And with that, Mr. Peterson, what do we, can we ignore the technical and recommended amendments? Yes, sir. They're not needed if there's no funding. Okay. Item four. Item four is the Jacksonville historical society, uh, history campus renovation, history center campus renovations for 200,000. Uh, in prior year's budget, you funded a different $200,000 project at the history center. Uh, this does include a waiver of 118.602 to allow the Jacksonville historical society to receive this grant and continue to participate in the cultural service grant program. Uh, technical amendment would be to attach a revised exhibit, uh, 13 to correct various scriveners in the term sheet. And then if you want to move forward, we do have additional recommended amendments. I have known in the queue all those in favor of the, I'm sorry, can I get a motion in a second on the technical amendment? Got motion in a second on the technical amendment. All those in favor of the technical amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Technical amendment passes. Can I get a motion on the recommended? Okay. I got motion in a second on the recommended amendment. I have known in the queue all those in. Mr. Chair. So there's, there's two options under the recommended amendments. Um, I do appreciate you moving those. Um, we either need more definitive terms to the term sheet, uh, to be consistent with prior grants related to capital projects, which this is, um, so either defining those and coming back at a later time or putting the funds below the line, giving the, uh, entity the opportunity to work with the administration. And then that can be brought back above the line either during the budget process or through separate legislation. I move to put it below the line, sir. I was going to ask a question, uh, real quick. Uh, my preference is that we wouldn't have to place it below the line, but to do the first option, would that essentially be you had to work out a term sheet during the budget hearing process? Through the chair, we can work on if, if you approve the top one, we will work with the administration and the entity to get the necessary items. We just have it moved. Thank you. So Councilor Diamond, that'd be my preference to give them a few days to work it out. Okay. So we have a motion on the first option. Uh, all those in favor of recommended amendment, uh, the first option say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. The amendment passes. However, I see that Councilmember Freeman and Johnson both got in the queue. Councilmember Freeman. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually got in before the vote because I wanted to make sure I'm on record saying this met with the historical society, have zero problem with what they're presenting, but they also know, and I won't say it on the record. There was a question that I asked them specifically, um, in that conversation. And yet again, I feel like we're going to have competing, um, interest here. So I'm going to through the chair to the body. How is it that we're okay with a historical society, which I don't think is a city building that we're putting money towards every year that will add up to a million dollars, but, but, but we're still voting for it. I get holding our noses and voting, but I just want to know the difference in our, in our thought process when it's, when it's one entity coming for a dollar amount. And then there's another one. I get the philosophical of things going through parks. I don't disagree with it. Maybe that's the conversation that we can shift the urban league to is getting with parks, but then who do we shift the historical society to? It's like, we, we, we kind of are, and I just like to be consistent and I'm going to support this, but I'm also going to support the urban league because I still think that had they been introduced to you all last year as the option of being a community center slash IE veteran center that you all were excited about, they then as an organization that is being a part of our community, whether you agree with them all and I don't agree with them all the time. And so if anybody's up here that's kind of in a different space, but I don't like when I see people going through this process of government, following the steps that they're told to follow, and then all of a sudden meeting, running into a brick wall and that, and they ran into a brick wall this time because they had veterans attached to it. And you all were already two laps into a four lap race, and it's not right. And so for me, when I see things that are injustices and they're not right, then by all means, I'm going to try. So somebody, please answer me on this body. What puts the historical society in the different category than when we're looking at the urban league or any other one? Councilman Diamond wants to respond and we're going to have Johnson and Carlucci. I'll just give you my answer. I didn't think I have the votes to kill it, but I would love to vote no on that. That's the only difference for me. I don't, I didn't want to support any of these ones for the most part. So that's where I'm at. I would have gone down the entire list and made the motion on every single one of them. I just kind of eyeball where I think I got the votes. Mr. Fopolis, we did the vote. We did counted, correct? So anything we, we would have to undo that at this point. Through the chair, yes. The vote you took on item number three and item number four counted. So three is out or we're going to revise the term sheet to attach to the budget. Okay. And so we are on item number five. Councilman Carlucci, we are done with item number four. Are you on item number five? Well, I heard a pretty big question on number four and I'm not sure I totally understood the question, but I was concerned about the question and I felt like the question deserved to be answered. And I think I can answer that question probably better than anybody else up here. And I don't want to see that answer, that question go out unanswered, but I wasn't sure what the question was. Uh, council member, uh, council member Freeman says he is good. Now that council member Diamond answered his question, I believe. So, okay. Let me just state this. The history of the Jacksonville Preservation Society is now referred to as the Jacksonville history center and it has a campus over on Palmetto street, which is behind the Jacksonville arena. They have raised well over three or four million dollars privately. And this, these dollars go into improvements each year into the, uh, history center building. And it's a fabulous place that houses so much of our archives and it has event space and it has so much of Jacksonville's history. It's a museum. Dr. Bliss is here. Somebody wants to talk to him afterwards if he can survive it. And, um, so it is an actual place and, uh, and I appreciate the council. Oh, well. All right. Thank you. And I will say, uh, I had some questions and concerns on this, but this always comes up every year that sometimes people reach out to us on their initiatives. Sometimes they don't. Dr. Bliss, uh, was very aggressive in reaching out and answering all of my questions and concerns. So I appreciate the education to get me to where I could be a yes on that. On to number five. And I have a feeling the key is going to light up here. It is not lighting up. Number five is a, uh, community and veterans empowerment center with the Jacksonville urban league. Um, $1 million, a couple of notes for you. While not reflecting the term sheet, the estimated project funding includes a million dollar request from the city in next year's budget. Uh, there are three one year extensions and a, um, a no cost extension of six months. We do have technical amendments to remove the requirement in section 1216 of the budget ordinance, uh, that the agreement be executed in accordance with chapter 118 that does not reflect the term sheet. And then attaching a revised term sheet to remove the authorization for the 10% administrative budget change. Um, if you do choose to move forward with this one, we have, uh, received correspondence from the urban league that they are in agreement with our first part of the recommended amendment as it relates to, um, adding more definitive terms to the term sheet, they are in agreement. So this one should be able to be worked out as well. Thank you. Councilman Diamond. All right. For purpose of this discussion, I'm going to move to remove the million dollars because I don't want to spend the million dollars or the million dollars next year. Right. Uh, but the context of that is I want to know what's going on with where this lines up with the veteran center. We've all been trying to fund and get done. And then let's assume that there's another veteran center out there that we agree is going to get funded. I would like to know where this matches up with other community centers that we're also funding going to the council president's point about parks and whether or not we need to actually have a map to see all these community centers because there's a bunch of them. And so that's my, that's my motion. I'm open-minded to sporting and I have no idea if this makes sense given the context of the veteran centers and the community centers. That's my motion. If I get a second it, we can discuss it. The motion is to remove and we need a second for discussion. Correct. Am I allowed to second, Mr. Fopolis? I'll second it. Councilmember Johnson. Testing. Okay, there we go. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, as I look at this, I certainly am not going to support this. Um, if you could, since there seems to be, I know, uh, Mr. Stone, Ms. Danford, Dr. Danford are here. Could someone from the Urban League come up and help us understand? Uh, I, for me personally, I've been involved with the Urban League since far before Richard Danford came on board, um, through, uh, Ronnie Ferguson and, and knowing Clanzell Brown and the others that were there. This is an extension of the good work that the Urban League has done for decades in this community. I know this council passed a resolution honoring the decades of service of the Jacksonville Urban League. Dr. Danford, if you could help us understand the word veteran seems to have confused some of my colleagues. So through, through the chair, if you could give us an understanding how this empowerment center will empower the community as a whole, including veterans. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you all, uh, very much for allowing us to say a few words. Um, we're somewhat frustrated, um, as well, because it seems as though we've been thrown under, under the bus because we want to serve veterans. Actually, this center, this is not a veteran center. You know, I attended the, um, the ceremony on this past Friday, uh, where we honored, where we honored the Purple Heart, um, members, veterans. And as, and as I looked at the wall where many women from this community who have been killed in battle and to walk from that point to the Purple Heart Trail and to see the people, some of the parents, some of the loved ones who lost their loved ones in a war. It's been 58 years since I left Vietnam. And I want you to know, like many of us, many soldiers, I carried the same trauma that I received in 1968 with me today. The reason I've been at the Urban League 34 years, the way I have been able to manage a lot of my trauma is through helping others, helping the community and helping veterans. My father who served in World War II, I served in Vietnam. My son currently is in the Marine Corps. Will you allow me to continue? I believe so. I have, I think my colleagues won't have any problem with that yet. Please do. Thank you. So in terms of, um, the fact that we want to honor, we want to honor those who served, that's only a part of this establishment. This is a business. We are no different than what we're doing in this entire community. We're making this city better. And we're making it better because we're providing access and services to the entire community. It seems as though, it seems as though that there are other veterans programs and centers in Jacksonville and we don't need another one. Well, ask the people in Kings Road and Myrtle Avenue and the Northwest side, ask them what do they need? I want to mention that fortunately during these times, we received support. We have received support from the federal government of $2 million. We have an architect here who has spent the last year working on our plans. We've gotten support from the Jacksonville Urban League organization, as well as the foundation. We're talking financial support. We're getting commitments from the business and the philanthropic community to add to this. So we have, quote, two thirds of the money. So we're bringing to the city of Jacksonville an opportunity to do an economic development project in an area that is underserved. And we witnessed the trauma in that area. And people say, well, what's the ROI, you know, for a project like this? Yeah, there are other community centers, but this is a new facility that will serve as the hub for the hood or for part of the hood. And as we look at, as we look at what we're doing in this community and how it's growing and the money that we're spending to make downtown better, to make the stadium better, to help us with the east side, we would love some respect in terms of what we're trying to do and seeing that as important for the community we serve. And people say, well, what's the ROI? And please give me a minute. Sir, we are going to give you one more minute because we do have a lot of speakers to, I believe, ask you questions as well. So I'm going to put one minute on the clock and then we'll go to the council members. Let me yield to my architect to give him an opportunity to say a few words. Yeah, I'll be very brief. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Can you say your name and address, sir? Yes, please. I'm Donald Gray. I'm with Pitchell Collaborative Group Architects, offices at Tallahassee and Atlanta. My address is 1410 Albin Avenue. Thank you. And the next time you speak, sir, if you could start off with your name and address, we have it on the record. Yes, please. Will do. Sorry about that. Thank you again for this opportunity to speak. I'll be very brief. I'm excited about the project, the opportunity to work on it. We've actually worked on it for several years, beginning with community engagement. And really, the part that's been most critical, the beating heart of it, is the empowerment piece. Now, granted, we celebrate and are excited about and respect and will commemorate even veterans, not only in the Durkeeville area, but in northwest Florida, north Florida. But really, the thing that differentiates this from, I'd say, even Veterans Center or maybe even and the traditional community centers is that it's not really about the sports, the pools, the basketball, but it's mostly about the empowerment piece. And so, we're excited to provide that. Thank you. I'm going to recognize Councilmember Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. You all can have a seat. Through the chair to either the auditors or OGC, is this located in the CBA district or boundary? It's in Durkeeville. Through the chair, it's in Durkeeville. So, that's District 7, I believe, isn't it? Oh, it's in the east side. No, I'm sorry. Through the chair to Councilmember Freeman, there's two components to the CBA. There's the east side component, which is kind of think of MLK. Actually, it's 95 might be a better term. That's not exactly right. Going east, north of, I think it's State Street. You got to go quick because the clock, they won't stop. All right. And then, there's the whole county-wide. Yep. So, this- I know where you're going with it, because that was my next question. I'm asking in-loaded questions. So, it's outside of the boundary of the CBA, but it is well within the purview of the district council person to utilize his CBA dollars. That's where I was going with it. Let me just tell you my angst with this, my colleagues. We hear so many times about disparities. We hear so much about, you know, broken promises and what's left behind. And all of a sudden, we have an opportunity, even one of our colleagues through his CBA dollars, to do something that I've not heard. I have not heard about economic development. And I've said this when I go speak in churches, and I go speak, I say, when's the last time you've heard of an economic development deal done in Northwest Jacks? Unless it's the trust fund, and then we'll tap into the trust fund to use dollars for companies to come in. But when is the last time you've heard it? Because I promise you, it'll probably be the first. And I know because I've tried to work on some to get them across the finish line. So, we have a chance. I look at this as an economic development opportunity. I hope that the district council person that always pushes a lot of bills, think about a hate bill, think about a lot of bills. And I've challenged folks in the community that rally behind his bills, show me a bill that talks about infrastructure that leads to economic development, economic empowerment. So, I would encourage the Urban League to go to him. I wish the TV camera was here now again when I'm talking. I'm going to support it today. I know that that's probably not going to be the politically expedient thing to do. But I don't give up on humanity. And as much as we do a lot of talking and rambling about disparities, I'm going to walk it out, because here's an opportunity. But it's not an opportunity just for me and you sitting here. It's an opportunity for the administration, because this could have been taken care of last year. This very well could have been taken care of last year. And it's been pushed down the road, because they know that this type of group we are, we're going to be fiscally conservative, and we're going to say it's redundant. Well, I would submit, show me an economic development project in Northwest Jacks and the redundancy of it. Councilman Johnson. Quickly echoing Councilman Freeman, and thank you for that. I tend to agree with him as well. And I certainly will support this while it seems like I'm becoming Councilman Diamond and having to vote no on the stuff that I see that, honestly, to me, just doesn't make good sense. But I'm going to do the job that the people sent me to do, because I heard earlier someone said, like, I'm here to represent the people. Well, so am I. And I believe the constituents that sent me here, I talk to them every day. I go to my communities, not just in the community that I represent in District 14, but around this city every day. So I, too, am here to represent the people. And I'm doing what they sent me to do and to push these kind of initiatives forward. I just wanted to get on the record, though. They're not coming begging. The Urban League is not. The federal government has already invested. They have been awarded a competitive grant for more than $2 million from the federal government. Besides that, the money that the Urban League has put in themselves, they have put in another half a million plus dollars and committed to raise even more funds to bring this to reality. The reason I say all of these things is they've got money. They're putting in money, but it takes other money to realize this project. So if the federal government can say this is something that's worthwhile, that this community needs, then all they're asking is that we get behind and make this kind of investment. And I agree with Councilman Freeman, this should have been done. I know I proposed, I championed it during last budget cycle. This is something that should have been done then. And I believe that the work that they do with the one of only two agencies in this city that are certified by the U.S. government to have a housing counseling program, they do youth empowerment programs, housing emergency repair programs. So I want you to just, you know, we're all focused on the one word veterans. And I'm so thankful for Dr. Danford and his service to this country in fighting for us. But I also want it to be understood that he has continued his fight, not just him, but galvanizing the community to get behind the great work that the Urban League is doing. And this just underscores that we see them, we hear them and what the Urban League has to say matters. Thank you. Councilman Diamond. Just the last 10 cents on this. I'm going to keep with my no, but I listened to my colleague, Councilman Freeman. I have no idea what this vote is going to be either. My no is based on this, something here seems messy and I don't know what it is. I usually know exactly why I'm voting for or against something. I am, there's something here I don't understand. And so I want to be clear and this is my personal promise to you, however this vote goes, if it goes your way, then no problem. But if it doesn't, I will be open-minded to supporting this down the road. There's a bunch of stuff here that I'm about to vote for. There will be some other no's, but I'm going to vote for a bunch of stuff with some of this health care stuff and all the rest and happy to support it. I want to vote for this. There's something here I don't understand what's going on and I just want to be candid. When it happened last year, there was something messy with it too. So I'm hearing you. I just want to be clear. I'm not saying no forever and whatever the vote is, it is. I'm going to go to the Council President, then Council Member Miller, then Council Member Salem. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm still up in the air on this one, but leaning no. For Dr. Danford, I have the utmost respect for you and your service and we share a passion to help veterans. I just don't know why we got to build a new community center when Emmett Reed is just blocks away and we've been investing in JP Smalls and we've invested all over Durkeeville. Maybe not to the extent folks want, maybe we need to invest more. I've done a lot of personal, not personal, I've done a lot of investments putting money into organizations there that are trying to build affordable housing and workforce development projects. But one thing I asked last year at this time, and it's still not answered. I'm surprised it took a year and I've never gotten an answer, but could, if we need more veteran services there, why can't Military and Veteran Affairs Department, they take their claims processing on the road, why can't they do it at Emmett Reed? Or why can't the Urban League open up a veteran center within Emmett Reed Community Center? I think there's probably ways to do this more prudently. Is this a core function of government? Well, I think veteran services is, I think community centers are if they're run by Parks Department. Is this duplicative? Potentially, because I know MAVD is already talking about having a community center and already offers some of these services. And do we have the money? I don't know if we have a million dollars now, and certainly I don't like to obligate us to a million dollars next year. But I'm not a hard no on this. I mean, I definitely wouldn't want to support it if Amendment 3 passes, because we wouldn't have the money for that. Those are just all my thoughts on this community center. Thanks. Councilmember Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, I'm going to, I'm going to take a little bit different approach than Councilmember Diamond on this one. However, I think, I think we're trying to, most of us trying to get to the same place. I'm going to support this for now. I've had various meetings with Dr. Danforth and his daughter and others. I believe in what they're trying to do. But I also want to make sure, and I haven't been able to, I haven't been able to get where I need to go with how this syncs with Military Affairs and Veterans Department and what they're doing as well as with the parks. And I want to see all those lining up. knowing that this process is not over yet. I want to see them lining up before this process is over. So I'm going to support it now. But if they don't line up, I will probably go the other direction, because they need to be in sync. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Gay for the first time, then Councilmember Salem, then back to Councilmember Freeman, and then I'll have a few words. Councilmember Day. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is where some of the frustration comes in for other district council members that we see a lot of money flowing in a certain district. And then we see other asks come in that this one council district, they have CBA dollars. And, you know, I look at what I'm trying to do in my district where I can't put all my CBA dollars into one project. I try to spread them out and to talk with the community on what the big needs are. And it's just, it's unbalanced where we keep seeing a lot of money just go in one particular area. And I've got a lot of CIP projects that are not being funded. And so that's where the struggle is on this for me. And, you know, we see, and I'm hearing that there's the other departments, military affairs and all is really not weighed in on this. And so it's, it's, to me, it's getting a little unbalanced of what we really should be looking at doing and, uh, seeing that the actual district councilman, you know, their, their dollars are not, not going into this. Uh, thank you. Councillor Salem. Thank you, chair, for recognizing me. I was up to speed on this a year ago. I'm not on the committee, but I just have a few suggestions. Dr. Danford and your daughter, y'all met with me a year ago. I have forgotten what you told me a year ago. Here's my suggestion. I'd like to see a budget. Have we seen a budget? Have we seen in that budget, the money they've got from the feds? Have we seen what they're going to raise? Are our dollars the last dollars to go in? Are they the first dollars to go in? Those are just some basic questions on anybody that was coming to us for a project like this. I'd like to see all that. Number one. Number two, we've talked about, uh, the ballpark being right down the street. We're putting $10 million under that ballpark. If you haven't been out there, go see it. The museum's coming up soon. That'll be a real tourist attraction, we hope, and bring people into Durkeeville. So those are my suggestions. I'm not for or against it. I need to be educated a lot more personally. I don't know what y'all have gotten, but I am, uh, for, for a budget that we're going to be voting on in a month. I am, I am out nowhere on this particular project was educated a year ago, but have not been educated since. Thank you. And council member Freeman. Uh, I'll be brief. I just want to take time through the chair to this body and thank you all. Like we just had a discourse here in a discussion where I know I'm on the losing end of it, but there was no name calling. It was actually trying to find where I was at, trying to find a way to get to yes. And you just couldn't some of you. And I appreciate that. And I really hope that that goes as we continue to move forward in the budget. One thing, a couple of things I did hear, I hear that this body is happy or okay at parks. So I would like to meet with the parks director by himself and ask if, and ask him if we have any buildings, because I know that we've done projects that we've done a lot of things with organizations where they got to take over a building. Um, you look at the health department, you look at the STEM center. There is a new STEM center that was built that I'm a stars in and a hundred black men there in brand new facility built. It was built in the 2019 councilman Brown started before I got in. And I was able to help to get it across the finish line. So I do think that if this doesn't work, there are ways that we can continue to move forward. I, I think that councilman, uh, to councilman Gaye's point, so much has been put into the district seven by vote of this council with the request of the administration. You have a district council person that has CBA dollars. I think he, he, he should step up and put some skin in the game. And maybe if they're asked now is 300,000, similar to the 200,000 that we're giving one, we might've had more of an appetite to go for it than the whole million itself. And I'm just done. And thank you all for how you, how you treated this process. Thank you. Thank you, councilman Freeman. I'll, I'll just add, I will support the amendment. Uh, I said it this morning, it was going to be a high bar to get me to approve anything new. This is not only a million dollars incremental, but it's committing essentially another million next year and who knows what we'll be facing next year as well. So it's basically a $2 million multi-year commitment. So that's why I'll be supporting the amendment. I have no one else in the queue. All those in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Let's do a hand vote. All those in favor of the amendments, uh, raise your hand. All those opposed, raise your hand. It is 4-4. What does that put us in? Mr. Chair, that fails for lack of a majority. So the million dollars is then approved as of now for the budget. Is that correct? So the motion was to take it out. Yes. So it's still pending as part of the budget, unless some other action is taken by the committee. Okay. So I guess, uh, Mr. Peterson, go ahead. I say, uh, given that if you're going to move forward, we still need the technical amendments and then one of the top item of the recommended amendment to be included. Got motion and a second on the technical amendment. All those in favor of the technical, a technical amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Technical amendment passes. And what was the other one? Okay. Can I get a motion on that? Got motion. Second on the first part of the recommendation. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment passes. Uh, so real quick, just some housekeeping. It is 402 and we have a lot to do, including starting on page 110. We have to get through, uh, those departmental budgets today. So what I'd like to do, let's go through, uh, direct contracts until about 420. Okay. We do have a reconsideration. We're going to do real quick. Then we're going to see how many more direct contracts we can do. And then at 420, we're going to switch to page 110 and go through those departments. And then any direct contracts we don't get to, we'll take up at the end of tomorrow, which we should have time for because the aviation authority was rescheduled from tomorrow till later. Okay. Uh, councilman Freeman, you're recognized. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier, we had a great discourse over, uh, the public service grants and cultural council grants. Um, and I had to do something real quick. And so I ran out, but I asked for the vote to be held, um, because I knew that that was going to be very controversial. Um, I stated many times that I saw where it was going and that I was going to support it because of the chair. So there was no, there was no doubting where I was. I've already received text messages from media asking, you know, where were you on the vote? So I am asking my colleagues to please reconsider so I can now validate what I said I was going to do to try to disrupt whatever the media spin will be from it, please. So we got a motion second on the reconsideration. All those in favor of the reconsideration say aye, aye. Any opposed say nay. Mr. Fopolis, can you help me for the right posture for this? We're reconsidering the vote on my amendment as it pertained to PSGs and CSGs. Yes. So the motion to reconsider has passed. So there are now need to be essentially the same motion that was made previously and a second on that, and then you would vote on it again. So the motion that you would be removing was to move half of the PSG and cultural services grants funding into that contingency tied to amendment three or the referendum while the remainder remains in the budget. I got a motion second on that. All those in favor of that amendment say aye, aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment passed. Council Member Johnson, did you have, can you register or vote on this? Let's redo that. All those in favor of the amendment say aye, aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment passes. All right. With that, we are on to item six. And I will point out that really item six all the way down to item 12 are related. So if anyone has any amendments, I see Council Member Diamond, I'll start with you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I promise this is my last, I think it's my last one on direct contracts. I'm going to be yes on all the other ones, but I don't want to do these clinics. So I don't know if I can even get a second on this, but I'll move to remove six through 12. I do not hear a second. The amendment was to remove items six through 12, which as I pointed out, they are all very much linked together. So Council Member Diamond had a motion to remove items six through 12. Do I have a second? Again, my preference would be we take it as a group. Okay. We have a second. Council Member Freeman, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So, you know, this reminds me of the budget cycle we had last year. And we had talking about the life of babies. I mean, that's a, that's a no, a non-starter for me. So I don't think that you can just lump everything in. So I would really like, we're here to do the hard work. And I mean, I get it, it's going to take time. And I know that we all have other stuff to do, but I see six, I see seven. Um, I'm familiar with Agape, um, and, and what they offer to our community. Uh, so I would like to kind of hear, I'm familiar with, uh, with Sauce Barker Center and what they do with homelessness. We've supported them in the past. So I want to hear from my colleagues here, why we, we are against it now, if you just voted for some of these things earlier, um, and even our visiting council members, and I'll, I'll be okay with it. If that's where we end up, I'm, I'll be okay. And I'll probably be a no on some of them, but I want to have the tough discussion and I want to have it in a, in a public setting. So my suggestion is he's doing it lump. I moved it for discussion. I will not, I will then follow behind him if I can. And I'll ask for a general counsel or whoever to get me in the right posture and say, can I do this one by one then? Because I want to have the tough discussions and I want us to be on record talking about these tough things. We're going to vote on them. All right. I have known in the queue, but I think something's going on with the queue. Oh, I got a lot of people in the queue now. All right. So, uh, let's see council member Johnson. I tend to agree. I personally wouldn't have seconded it. And I'll tell you why. I just don't think that, uh, you know, using the analogy of throwing the baby out with the bath water, I tend to agree with you council, uh, councilman Freeman. Um, I don't see how you can just lump all these into one space. I would not be supportive of this one while they are similar. I want to put on the record where they do have to do with Jack's care connect and healthcare. I think it's irresponsible to just say these are all the same. Uh, let's go with council member, uh, diamond. Did you mean to stay in the queue? Okay. Uh, let's see council member Boylan and then Salem, then Carlucci. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A quick history here. Two years ago when we did the, or three years ago, we did the CQLI was that time, uh, through we used funding from the strategic or the council strategic initiative to fund this collective program. And these are intrinsically related to one another in this process. Uh, and it was determined then, and we've proven since that this is an effective program and keeping people, uh, our yards, uh, navigating folks to, uh, primary care physicians, um, last year, because it was not in the mayor's budget. Uh, we addressed it in this fashion here. We ended up with direct contracts. So I think if it ain't broke, I don't know why we want to fix it. Uh, each of those programs, and I've had conversations with most of them, the contribution of the one point of the $166,000 speaks directly to their services provided by the work that we care has done in redirecting patients to these respective clinics for their care, to get them out of the cycle of using our emergency rooms in this process. So I think, uh, it's a worthwhile initiative, collectively $1.5 million over the, you know, this one, two, three, four, five, seven organizations, I think makes good sense. We've proven it to be a successful program and I would encourage you to support it as a collective and as a group. To your point, Councilman or Chairman, these are interrelated in that respect. So I encourage you to direct them that way to each of them, many of them get actually PSG funding as well. So some of the other programs that they do, you know, uh, and services they provide are covered through the PSG program, but specifically these dollars are to use to cover the services they are providing by those patients who are directed to them by we care. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Salem, and then Carlucci, and then a council president. I'll let you go after Councilman Salem. I saw you just popped in. Just to give some history of last year's budget, because I know Councilmember Boyle and I were very much involved. The Jackson Care Connect 500,000, I think, was universally agreed to and accepted. They're sort of the mothership for all this, for lack of a better term. The other clinics here were not in the budget originally, and there was a lot of horse trading and compromising, um, right at the end of the budget. You can probably tell by the dollar amounts that there was a compromise made for these clinics. My biggest concern is what I said, uh, several hours ago. We're, we're getting, I think all of this should be coordinated by UF Health. And, um, if these clinics can stand up on their own and function without city money, that's great. I, I, I encourage it. If they can get PSG money, that's great. They go through a competitive process. I just think we're getting, we're doing more and more outside of our, our lane in terms of health care. And I think that should be better coordinated by UF Health. I've said it from the very beginning. Um, and I still feel that way. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, um, feel that in some respects, the same way as everyone is, uh, as everyone does on this day is, um, I figure that we've already pushed really hard last year to keep it to these numbers. There's not an additional dollar. So, um, I'm just one vote, but I'm going to support six or 12 and I look forward to instead looking at 15, 17 and 18. Thanks. Councilman Carlucci, then Freeman, and then we need to vote and move on. Councilman Carlucci. Thank you. Um, Mr. Chair, I support these. Um, they are a safe haven for a lot of families, children. Uh, it's easy to say somebody else should do it, but getting that to happen is much harder. Oh, this, this, this, this organization should do it. Oh, this organization, look, we're doing it. And this is a major quality of life, uh, clinics for families and for children. We want these kids to have to go to the emergency room. No, we want them to get some primary care at a clinic. This makes sense. Part of the, the reasoning of government is public health and welfare. And of course, public safety is always number one. There's nothing wrong with this. This is, this is a good thing. This is something that we should be happy about. Back in the eighties and nineties, we used to have public health clinics all over, uh, Duval County. And eventually, and many of them were funded by the state. The city has some funding in them too. And they eventually went away and it was a shame because they were really, uh, helping neighborhoods. And there was one over in Pine Forest and it shut down. And those people were very disappointed. It became recently a, a senior center. So these are like satellites of an oasis of, of, of healthcare where people can go and feel dignified when they're taking their family or their children there. So let's, let's do something good here today, along with all the other good things we've done that were proposed by the mayor and her budget. And let's support this. Thank you. Councilman Freeman. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. And so just to make sure I understand the amendment, uh, this is, uh, he's an amendment to remove items six through 12 with one vote. Is that correct? Is that where we're at? I just want to make sure we're good on that. That is correct. All right. And then I think I heard that in last year's budget, a lot of these were all added at the, at the end or towards the end of the process. Um, okay. All right. I just want to make sure we're there on this. And now I'll go back and say again, anything that we, if we take an action now, that doesn't mean it is dead forever. It could come back in at a later point. Um, because I do think that some of these organizations, uh, may need, may or may not need these dollars for matching funds. And I don't want to get into the weeds of that now. I'll just circle back and ask that later. So that being said, I'm ready to vote on it to the auditors. Can we please meet again about some of these organizations and if there are anything, and if you're an organization out there, I would love to hear from you by yourself. And I'm just telling you that. And I hate that I'm in a place that I have to say that now, but I don't want anybody else in that room, but you and I, as we talk through this issue issues, because you have an advocate. Um, but we gotta, it's gotta make sense in the time we're living in. Thank you. All right. With that, no one else in the queue. Uh, I am going to support items six through 12, a last year's council member Salem alluded to, there was some compromise on those dollar amounts to get to where we ultimately ended up. And this is something that is not incremental in the budget since we have been doing it. Uh, so with that, I'll be a no on the amendment. Uh, all those in favor of the amendment say aye. Any opposed say nay. Nay. Let's raise hands. All those in favor of the amendment, raise your hands. Any opposed raise. The amendment does not pass. All right. It is 416. And I have a feeling that items 13 through 18, we will not do in three minutes. So with that, we are going to pivot. So those in the audience that came for items, uh, 13 through 16. Oh, go ahead, Mr. Peterson. Since you did not remove them, could you just approve the technical amendments for items six through 12? And we can count those as handled. Can I get a motion on the technical amendment? Second. I got motion a second on the technical amendment. All in favor of the technical amendment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment passes. All right. With that, so those are the audience that came for any of the remaining direct contracts. Uh, unfortunately, we just ran out of time and we have some items. Uh, Councillor Diamond. Uh, Mr. Chair, if it helps, I wasn't going to make any motions on anything else on those. I don't want to rush you, but you might be able to, unless somebody else had some ideas, you could jam them. So let's pick up on item 13. Then Philip, if you want to quickly read items 13 through 18, and if we get to a stopping point, if I have a lot of members jump up in the queue, we are going to defer to tomorrow. Item 13 is United Ways 211. This is 250,000. Same funding as last year. We have a technical amendment to correct program costs in the exhibit. So no action required on that one. Correct. Oh, technical amendment. All those in favor of the technical amendment say. Okay. I believe Councillor Mayor Diamond had moved it though. Okay. So all those in favor of the technical amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Amendment passes. So we are on to item 14 now. Item 14 is United Way 988. Same funding as last year. Technical amendment. Got mentioned a second on the technical amendment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Technical amendment passes. Item 15. Item 15 is a million dollars for United Ways Eviction Diversion Program. This has been funded in years past. I believe 2023 it was funded. And this is coming back to you. We do have technical amendment on this one. Councilman Johnson, are you in the queue for this? Okay. Is anyone in the queue on this? Councilman Halland. Yeah, this is a tough one for me. It's interesting to know that there's might not be a lot of support to strike or reduce or put because, you know, if you give a family eviction diversion, you house them for another month. If you give a family a job, you house them for a career. I'd rather that money in a game of priorities go towards job creation than one-off eviction diversions. But I'll let the seven person finance committee determine if they're going to make a decision on it. Thanks. Councilman Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Man, Mr. President, I sure wish you were on that side of the folk we just had. That was four to four. No, I don't have heartburn about it. But what I do had questions to this body was earlier in this process when we were talking about eviction and affordable housing, we had heartburn with it. And now we're in the same conversation in the same lane and there's no conversation. And for that, that confuses me a little bit. And so I'm just staying quiet and listening right now. But I just would love to know kind of. Councilman Diamond. Just to be clear, I would vote to remove this one. I just wasn't going to make the motion on this one. So I just want to be clear. If other people have the appetite to talk about it, I'm all ears. Or maybe we hit that magic moment, Mr. Chair, where we got to skip to your other budgets. So again, we have the options. We can make a motion to remove. We can make a motion to put it below the line. I'll move it to your magic contingency. I'll move to move it to your magic contingency fund. All of it or a portion? I'll do all of it. Okay. So that's a motion to move a million essentially to wait and see how Amendment 3 goes. Correct. Okay. So again, the amendment on the floor that Council Member Diamond has put has instead of getting a million dollars on October 1st, it would be on the 34th day of the budget year. So that is the motion. Council Member Freeman, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would offer an amendment to the amendment of 500,000 to stay consistent with what you've done with 50, because that's kind of where we were going with the other ones. So I would say 50% if we're going to go there. Now we're being, we're treating everyone the same if possible. So we got a motion in second on the amendment to the amendment, which is to put 50% or 500,000 available October 1st and 50%, or I'm sorry, 500,000 contingent on November 3rd. That is my understanding of your amendment. I have no one else in the queue. All those in favor of the amendment to the amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The amendment to the amendment passes. I got a motion on the amendment as amended. No one in the queue. All those in favor say... I did get a second. Yep. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. We have one nay. So the amendment passes. And for those keeping track, what we just did, United Way eviction diversion, half of it's available right on October 1st. And then the remainder will be contingent on November 3rd. So in order to what we did with public service grants and cultural council grants. Okay. We're on to item. Any other technical amendments? Can you approve the technical amendment for that? I got a motion. Motion is second on the technical amendment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Amendment passes. I'm 16. I have no one in the queue. Do you have a technical amendment on that one? Got a motion second on the technical amendment. All those in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Amendment passes. Item 17. I got a motion and a second on the technical amendment. Got Councilmember Freeman in the queue. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair to Councilmember Freeman. Yes, sir. This is one of the items we talked about. This is funding that would be provided through ACA's program for Wolfson's to draw down additional dollars for their pediatric and OBGYN graduate medical education program. Is there a contingency on whether this is, these dollars come or not? I thought there was, maybe I'm misunderstanding conversations, but I thought that there still had to be a discussion on if this were to happen or not. Is it allowed to happen? Through the chair. That is related to the $10 million hospital tax fund, which was cut earlier today. This is separate. This is just a direct contract with Wolfson's to send money to ACA through their GME program, but that will allow them to draw additional dollars down. If you approve this and it's approved by the state, then it just happens. Got it. And then last question. Wilson's is amazing. My kids have been there. Are there any other hospitals in our region that provide the same services that Wilson does that could benefit from this? Yeah. Basically, the dollars that we put in, if it was said before, University of Florida Health takes two of their million of the 56 they put it in and then it's matched and it gets to be almost 9 million and it's shared by the hospitals. And if I could, I said this morning it was not a year for new things, especially if it didn't provide hard revenue for the city. This does. For $2 million, we're essentially getting $9 million pulled down, I believe. So for that reason, I will be supporting this because it's hard to say no to $2 million if it's getting you, and this is a soft business case, this is $9 million essentially in hard dollars is my understanding. And it fills a real need with OBs and pediatrics. Chair, my question was more of like, and Councilman Salem said this earlier, why don't they just go to UF if UF is required to put the money up? UF and Wolfson's are both putting up the $2 million dollars is my understanding. Can someone confirm if Wolfson is putting money up or if they're, I don't, that's not my understanding. My understanding is the way these funds work, only UF can capture them. And then the UF is leveraging their dollars to get more, which helps, and I'm in favor of this, but the question is, is someone from UF here? And if not, this again, my colleagues would be one of those scenarios we can move forward, that I would say table, and then I would like to meet with UF, Wolfson, at the same time in my office. By the way, I've already had meetings, and they were compartmentalized. And make sure that everyone is on the same page. Because if not, if UF could do, has the capacity to do this, and that is our indigent care already, they're our safety net, and they're a teaching institution, why wouldn't we just send them there? That's my question. All right, so based on the queue, I'm going to make a chairman decision here and table this one. Because we absolutely have to get through certain budgets before we proceed with the budgets we have in the morning. But Dr. Joshi's out there. Mr. Weinstein's out there. I do appreciate the fact they met with me and answered a lot of my questions. But by all means, try to get your questions answered to them as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have my assistant reach out to them. I have met with them, but it was separate. And so one said, the other said this. The other one says, they give me information. I want to vote to my office at the same time. Again, you want to do a notice meeting? That's fine. Thank you. Okay, so if we do a notice meeting, that likely means I will just defer on that line item for at least a week. We'll probably table that for, but to be clear, all my questions were answered. I will be a yes on it, but I encourage all my colleagues to get further educated if they need to get to a comfortable place with that. Council President, do you need to speak on anything? I'll just say to Dr. Joshi, if you could communicate to Wolfson, they should reach out to me. I'd like to have a discussion on it. I haven't, don't have any idea what I'd be voting on here for two million of new dollars for, you know, a healthcare system that I love because my kids have used Wolfson, but I guarantee is making money hand over fist on, you know, writ large across their hospital system. I don't know why the city, in a situation where Amendment 3 might pass, why would we even want to obligate those dollars in that situation? But if there's a return, such as Councilman Landon is explaining, I'd love to hear that. It would change my mind. Thanks. All right. Well, yeah, like I said, I encourage you because it was a very useful meeting because again, two million dollars sticks out as actually the only incremental medical related item, but I did get comfortable and I believe my colleagues will too. All right. So with that, again, there are items we have to get through by five o'clock just because the way the things are scheduled for tomorrow morning as well. So we're going to go with city council now. Our budget, Mr. Peterson, page 110 colleagues. Council member, can I make a simple request? I think the Orlick and then the next item that are the only ones we've skipped, we can get through very quickly before moving to city council. 18 is the Orlick. That's just being placed in a designated contingency. There's nothing for you to do. So we can skip through that one. And then next page 74 is the continual $600,000 for the mental health offender program. No changes, but it does require your approval. We do have a recommendation to update an exhibit as it relates to the Solzbacher, but otherwise the program stays the same. Thank you. So I already reordered my papers here. What is the recommendation we need to move? It's just to attach a revised exhibit five, which is the contract with the Solzbacher Center for the homeless term sheet. I got motion second. All those in favor of the recommendation say aye. Aye. Any nays say nay. We do not have any. Recommendation passes. So the only thing of all the direct contracts, the only thing is Wolfson's. So we did, looks like we're going to get nearly everything we need to get done today. So now we're ready for city council's budget, correct? All right. 110. We're on page 110, and we are done when we get done with page 122. All right. Page 110 of your handout and then page 86, if you want to flip to your budget book, this is city council, $13.9 million budget, up about $1.3 million from the prior year. Within the revenue line, this charges for services, down $108,000 related to the Value Adjustment Board. We do have a recommendation that will partially address this revenue line item. Within the miscellaneous revenue of $299,000, this is the reimbursement from Duval County School Board as it relates to VAB, and this amount will also be adjusted as it relates to our recommendation. Within salaries of $6.6 million, there's an increase of $241,000. It's due to the 3% salary increase for non-public safety collective bargaining agreements. There's various end of probation increases and promotions, and then also other salary increases provided during the year that need to be accounted for. There is also an increase in overtime, mainly related to the JSO security being budgeted in this category. These costs were slightly offset by a reduction of part-time salaries of $57,000. Pension costs are going up $62,000 due to employee turnover and the salary increases noted above. Employer provided benefits, once again, increasing mostly due to the planned increase in group health premiums. Internal service charges are going up $292,000. Most of that's due to OGC legal allocation, but as discussed earlier, OGC, the charges are only based on actual usage. This is just the way to budget. Interdepartmental billings are increasing $15,298. That's related to the 2027 City Council installation event that will be held at the Performing Arts Center. Professional and contractual services are decreasing $56,000. This is due to removing $50,000 in funding that the council moved over here from postage in the 25-26 budget. Contingencies, this is reflective of council member salaries and benefits that are put below the line and brought above the line to separate legislation due to the conflict. There are two items on the food and beverage schedule totaling $12,500. No capital outlay carry forwards, no service level changes, no employee cap changes. The budget only reflects the employee cap of 65. That does not take into account the 19 council members because your positions are in that separate piece of legislation. Page 112 has a breakout by department and slash division. We'll walk through those similar to what we did for fire and the sheriff's office. We do have recommendations on page 113. The first is to recommend that the value adjustment board protest in protest fee be increased by $209,970. This will be offset with a decrease from the reimbursement in from the Duval County School Board by 83,988 total net positive impact to special council contingency of 125,982. We have a recommendation to that the communications allowance be increased for city council staff by $600 due to an employee that was inadvertently admitted. This has a negative impact of $600 on the special council contingency. And then lastly, the salaries within the council orders office was inadvertently understated by $112,725. The budget office has identified a $59,399 item in the courts that can be covered in the current year. So that helps cover part of that salary. And then also part-time salaries within the budget office that can cover another $33,528. That altogether has a negative impact on special council contingency of $19,798. Those three actions all combine to a positive impact of $105,584. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of questions on the recommendations. The value adjustment board, you're just moving the money around. You're not actually recommending we increase the fee. I just want to make sure. Through the chair to Council Member Diamond, the fee revenue was budgeted incorrectly. It's based off the old $15 fee. Yeah, that's what I thought. It was his bill. Gotcha. Okay. And then I think it's shocking and really disappointing that council auditors inadvertently understated their own budget. And then, and then have us take up your budget at the end of the most contentious day. This is a genius plan. I didn't recognize you, Mr. Peterson. You get no rebuttal. All in good jest. And if we need a motion on these recommendations, I'll make it. Go ahead and make a motion, please. I got motion. I didn't get a second. Can someone just say, okay. Motion is second on the three auditor recommendations. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The recommendations pass. To be fair to Mr. Peterson, I did ask a number of questions on that, and it was not the doing. It was essentially the timing of the retirement that was not picked up and the overlap of the timing. So thank you for everyone on our city council staff. Mr. Peterson, if you could, with that amendment, I'm sure it's going to come up tomorrow. If you could just, with that amendment, what the year-over-year percent change in compensation, city council versus the mayor's office. I believe you had that exhibit prior, but I'm sure that'll come up tomorrow. So if you could put that together for us. Tourist Development Council now. Page 114. All right. Tourist Development Council, and I do feel the need to sneak in there. We did not under budget. It was an error in the budget office, just so that's on the record. We're on page 114. 114. 13.9 million budget within Tourist Development Council. That's up 1.3 million from the prior year. This is two cents of the six cents on lodging in Duval County. The bed tax revenue line item, 10.8 million is down 213,000. That reflects what's going on in the current year. Investment pool earnings are projected to increase based on the cash balance in the fund, and then there is a large transfer from fund balance of 1.9 million up 992,000 over the prior year, and that's needed to balance the budget. Salaries are going up by the three percent non-public safety collective bargaining agreements. Same reason for the change in employer-provided benefits related to the group health premiums. The internal service charges are increasing due to usage of OGC, and then a change in the IT computer systems allocation. Other operating expenses are increasing 1.3 million up to 11.9 million. This is mostly due to the inclusion of a million dollars for a sports tourism initiative that had been funded a number of years back. That funding is dwindling, and so the TDC requested that this be included. There's a breakout of the plan components for you right there on the middle of page 115. Draw your attention to item number six, the transfers to other funds is going down 529,000. That's mostly related to funding that occurred in the prior year of the stacked stars sculpture outside of MOCA that was funded out of the TDC. There are no service level changes, no employee cap changes. We do recommend that budget ordinance schedule W be reflective of the budget. There's a change of transfer from fund balance to increase by $5,537,000 up to 1.943,481, and that the expenditures within the administration line be increased by that same amount. This aligns the budget schedule with what's in the budget, no impact to special council contingency. Thank you. I'd also like to acknowledge past president Michael Corrigan in the audience, but even more importantly past district three ECA Carol Brock. Council president and then council member diamond. Uh, thank you, chair Lane. And, uh, Philip, since you were recently the, uh, auditor, uh, for TDC, um, is there still a million dollars in a fund for, um, airport international market marketing through the chair to council president Holland? Yes, sir. So there's a little over, I believe that number's 2 million in, um, the content, what is called the contingency fund within TDC's operations. They have obligated a million dollars for a direct flight to London. And then also I believe an additional $500,000 for a direct flight somewhere else in Europe. It's not specifically obligated, but they have earmarked those dollars for that purpose. Okay. Um, how long has that been earmarked and sitting there? Oh, that has been, uh, quite a number of, I want to say close to two years, maybe a little bit longer is what would the action be for this committee? Or is it a TDC action just to sweep it back to the reserves? And then if the opportunity ever comes up for an international flight or to use those funds, we bring it back, uh, through the chair to, uh, council president Holland and I'll have miss Brock, correct me if I'm wrong. Those dollars are sitting in a, in the contingency fund, which doesn't require further council approval. However, the presentation that was made to the TDC at the time indicated that the ask from the city should a direct flight ever come to Jacksonville to Europe would be more in the ballpark of about $5 million. So I don't think that the TDC could move forward without coming to council because additional dollars would be needed to fund that. Okay. So is that, I mean, I know it's only a million and a half, but is that a pocket of value that we could recognize that this council could pull back if we need it for something else? Through the chair to council president Holland, uh, the, you, the dollars have to be spent for TDC related purposes. So you could do something different, but it still would have to meet a TDC purpose as outlined in the Florida statutes. Understood. Thank you very much. Council member Diamond. Uh, through the chair, just a quick question. Um, so the million dollars for sports tourism, which I fully support, I think, I think it's one of the best values for money we have is to, is to get those events here. Um, is it, uh, guaranteed? And I love my friend, Mr. Corgan, is it, are they going to do this based on this or are they putting it out to bid? Is it possible to put this out to bid only because we've got, um, I only asked this and I mentioned this last year, we've also got airstream ventures down the street now in Verlander, who everyone knows, like we've got so many people who are good at this. Like, how is this being done? Through the chair to council member Diamond, uh, the intent is to contract with Visit Jacksonville based on their, uh, they are the ones who are performing the prior, uh, million that was set aside for sports tourism. Um, Mr. Corgan will correct me if I'm wrong, but they work with the Jack Sports Foundation entity, uh, to attempt to attract sporting events to Jacksonville. Tracking. And I'm, I'm a fan of what they were doing there. I'll just say to my colleagues, we also have, you know, Verlander down the street, who's getting stuff for literally everybody around us. So maybe there needs to be like broader coordination and it's very valuable investments, uh, to bring stuff in, but just food for thought. And again, by the way, you have to say Mrs. Brock, otherwise they'll, oh man, no, he will come here and tell us it's a Mrs. Brock. All right. So I think we're at the recommendation. Okay. I motion a second on the recommendation. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The recommendation passes. On to the next TDC fund. All right. Page 116 is the Tourist Development Special Revenue Fund. Uh, this houses, um, the all years funds of the TDC. Um, the revenue investment pool earnings up 61,000 based on, uh, the cash balance within the fund. And this receives the transfer from the main TDC fund that, uh, was previously discussed, um, of 740,000. And once again, they're down to 521,000 due to last year's Stack Stars sculpture, um, appropriation. Within the expenditures, there's 950,000. And that includes 940,000 for convention grants, sponsorships, and promotions to draw, uh, groups to Jacksonville. And then there's also 10,000 dollars that would be going towards a promotion of the equestrian center. Um, service level changes none. Employee cap changes none. Uh, recommendations none. And then on page 118 is your revised Schedule W that you just approved. Colleagues, any questions? I have no one in the queue. All right. So with no recommendations, I think we can move on. All right. So on page 119 is the Office of General Counsel, um, operation within the GSD General Fund. Um, this is basically the Duval delegation. It's on page 244 of your budget book. Salaries are going up, uh, $12,211. And this is mainly due to employee turnover. Uh, there is one position within this fund. Uh, employer-provided benefits are increasing due to the planned increase in the group health premiums, which are proposed to be covered by the employer for 26-27. Other operating expenditures, uh, this represents, uh, $100,000 for small judgments and settlements under $50,000 as allowed by section 112-307 of the municipal code. Uh, this fund does have a supervision allocation for personnel costs of the delegation coordinator as it relates to their, um, function within the Office of General Counsel. No service level changes, no employee cap changes, no recommendations. All right. I see, you know, in the queue, I do see Mr. Fackler out there. It looks like he's sitting next to a brand new city employee. Uh, Councilmember Johnson, you're recognized. A brand new vintage city employee, Mr. Chair. Uh, Mr. Fackler, may I see you a moment at the stand, please? Uh, my question is about, I know one of the issues that, or the things that are coming up is, uh, us maintaining and retaining qualified counsel for what we need. So through the chair to the general counsel, uh, do we have the funds in based on what you have submitted to ensure that we are paying people enough so they will come to work for the city? Through the chair to Councilman Johnson, um, that's becoming more and more of a struggle. I'll say it that way. So is that a yes or no? It's becoming a struggle. We are struggling to find qualified people. It's, it's not a binary decision. I, could I attract and retain better people with more money? I think so. Was there a reason why you didn't request that in this budget so that we could make sure that we're, cause one of the issues, and I'll bring it up, one of the issues I know I've had in my district with the project, you know, I'm working with on Old Middleburg Road is that we don't have enough counsel to do all the things that need to be done. And so I guess the question I'm asking, could we help that at least by trying to get the funds that we need to get the right attorneys here? Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. If you could, if I could, obviously we still have some working room here and I, I didn't, I was waiting to hear to see if there was something that was brought up. If you could at least give to me, cause I would like to try to enhance it so that when we have projects that need to be done, we have counsel that can help us do it. Any recommendations, I'll be certainly, I'll get with you so we can take them. Through the chair to Councilman Johnson, would love to meet with you to talk about what that might look like. Gotcha. Thank you, Mr. General Counsel. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you, Mr. Fackler. I have no one else in the queue, so we're ready for page 120. All right. Page 120. This is the Office of General Counsel Maine Fund. This is an internal service fund that they bill out all of their time to the customers of the city, which include the school board, independent authorities, constitutional officers, and various boards and commissions. The internal service revenue represents the billings to departments and agencies. The miscellaneous revenue represents charges for copies and litigation cases and various public records requests. Investment pool earnings is down just slightly. And then the transfer from fund, fund balance is flat. This is a $50,000 transfer for the purpose of retaining special counsel as needed, specifically related to section 108.505B of our ordinance code. Salaries are budgeted at 9.5 million, a net increase of $230,000. This is due to the 3% salary increase for non-public safety, collective bargaining agreements, and the net impact of employee turnover, promotions within the office, and other salary changes, which reduce this amount slightly. They do have their own lapse on their budget, which is the same calculation used for the other lapses. Pension costs are increasing $132,000 based on employee turnover and the salary changes noted above. Employer provided benefits are increasing $533,000 due to the planned increase in the group health premiums, which are proposed to be covered by the employer. Internal service charges are decreasing $81,000. Happy to stop talking. I'm kidding. You can keep going. Internal service charges are decreasing $81,000, primarily due to a decrease in the IT allocation method used for 26-27, along with a decrease in computer replacements due to fewer computers being refreshed this year in this area. Decreases were slightly offset by an increase in mailroom usage. Professional and contractual services of $641,000 represent the cost for mediators, arbitrators, expert witnesses, and outside counsel. There is no service level change. The employee cap is staying the same at 77 positions. They do have one food and beverage item, and we have no recommendations. Okay, Council Member Boylan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the Chair, Mr. Peterson perhaps, or Mr. Fackler. Of the professional and contract services, you mentioned outside counsel. Rough idea of what the percentage of that is outside counsel, Mr. Fackler? Through the Chair. Through the Chair, to Council Member Boylan, I see Philip and Brian looking diligently. Hopefully they have that. I don't have that off the top of my head, but I'm happy to get it to you. I think the bulk of it is for paralegals and experts instead of outside counsel. We work very hard not to go to outside counsel. We like to think that we have the expertise to handle most matters. Inevitably, we do go to outside counsel on certain matters. Well, I'm just curious too, obviously it's increased rather dramatically last year and leveling off this year, so I'm just curious to know what that increase was about. Yeah, and I'm happy to discuss this. This is something that has come up. The bulk of that is court reporter cost. That's just the fluctuation of litigation. This year we had a higher than last year expected use. Also some delay in billing so that some of last year's court reporter costs filtered into this year. It's an unusual one that comes out of our budget, then we pass it on to our clients and the users, but it is a budget item for us. But that's the bulk of why we needed extra funds this year. Any additional, Mr. Peterson? Through the Chair to Council Member Boylan, so two-thirds of that $641,000 is in a line item that is for mediators, arbitrators, servicing of process fees, deposition fees, legal advertising, medical records, expert witnesses, and outside counsel. So we would have to pull bills to get to that exact dollar amount. I appreciate the follow-up, not necessarily. I was just curious as to how it played out. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Council Member Gay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the Chair to Mr. Fackler. I would like to get a copy of that detail, break down, if possible, just for my better understanding. Thank you, sir. Certainly. All right. Thank you, Mr. Fackler. Mr. Peterson, last page. All right. Through the Chair to the committee. This is the Emergency Reserve. It's on page 63 of your budget book if you want to turn there. A reminder that the targeted levels for the Emergency Reserve are between 7 and 10% of the operating budget of the General Fund. We will point out that the actual cash balance as of June 30, 2026 was $136,814,264. When we take into account the investment pool earnings that are part of this budget, we will meet the 7%. So these dollars are put into a cash carryover, which is a non-spendable line, projected ending balance at the end of the year of $140,338,671, no employees and no recommendations. And no one in the queue. Mr. Peterson, anything else before I have a few comments to wrap up the day? Not from us. All right. So a few things. Lunch tomorrow, we splurge and we're getting Jimmy John's. So you have that to look forward to. Thank you, Council Member Miller, for splitting that with me for tomorrow. This is the most dressed up I'll be at any of the budget hearings. So I plan on wearing polos from now on since it's 110 degrees outside. Biggest thing I'm tracking is the Wolfson's $2 million. So I see Dr. Joshi out there. I'll trust that the council members who have questions will put up a notice meeting. But realistically, it probably means sometime next week or the week after is when we'll take up that Wolfson's $2 million just for the time it'll take to do all that. And then that's the only thing today, correct, Mr. Peterson, that we did not get to. Is there any other item we do that we did not take up today? Through the chair, there's no other items that we did not take up. We do have a list of items that you want to revisit. But that's the only item that was not taken up. Yep. And so besides Wolfson's, WJCT, what was the other one we tabled? The cooling center. You didn't table anything. But you want to revisit cooling centers at a later time. Lobbying fees. And then we're going to take up the talk, the Jackson Riverfront Alliance when parks comes up. Yep. And then lobbying fees that'll be worked out during the finance department tomorrow. Okay. Well, great. Hey, day one is always the longest day. So thank you, everyone, for putting hard work. Mr. Peterson, I don't know if you have it in front of you. Do you have what the total expenditure number is based on changes made today? Or whatever the easiest way to communicate to us what was reduced? What's the total budget dollar at this point? Because again, revenue is not going to be changed through this process. So I know the focus is going to be on what's the total expenditure line. I would argue the total expenditure number is the same. But the balances in the various pots, if you will, is 7.6 million in what we're calling the Amendment 3 bucket. And then 12.7 million was designated to be sent to reserves. And special counsel contingency has a balance of $889,542. Subject to review. Subject to review, right. So 12.7 is the, was that the special contingency? And then 7.3 is the Amendment 3 contingency? 7.6 is the Amendment 3 contingency. Okay. 12.7 are items that were cut and sent directly to reserves. And then the special counsel contingency, 8.89, 5.42. All three subject to follow-up. Got it. All right. Anything from committee members? All right. See you 9 o'clock.