This is the October 8, 2026 meeting of the Taxation, Revenue, and Utilization of Expenditures True Commission for the City of Jacksonville. It's apparently determined we do not have a quorum, so we will not be able to take action on the backlog of minutes. The only other item is, I guess, do we have any unexcused absences? Last month, she might be out. Yes, and her replacement was just confirmed in committee this week and will be approved by council next week, so I'm not sure if maybe that's why. That could be. And on that note, then we will introduce ourselves, starting with Mr. Tyson. Bruce Tyson, Southwest CPAC. Blake Bass, Council President. Raymond Day, Southeast CPAC. Dr. Keisha Ann Chambers-Hargrove, City Council President, Representative. Thank you. All right. We have a presentation today from our council auditor, Mr. Phillip Peterson. Mr. Peterson, the floor is yours. I don't think we have a lot on the agenda today other than to hear from you. So, we are going to give you extreme latitude, about 30 minutes and 10 minutes for 15 minutes for questions. How about that? Can you entertain us for that long? I can entertain you for a while. I will be honest. I was not aware I was making a presentation, and I thought I was here to answer questions. Oh. So, I'm happy to do that. I'll, I guess, give you the high level of the budget, and then we can go from there. Perfect. So, council approved the budget, I guess we're at two weeks ago on October, September 22nd, $2.027 billion. It's a smidge higher. I think they added about $200,000 above an additional revenue above what the mayor proposed. There were a number of actions that were taken throughout all the finance committee hearings and can go into various detail, depending on how you want to discuss those. Excuse me. If you followed along the process, the finance committee had set aside about $23.4 million in a contingency in past years that would have been referred to as the special counsel contingency. It's the pluses and minuses of all the cuts along the way, or ads. This year, they deemed that the public safety contingency. The mayor, so let me take you back a year. At the end of 2025, when the city council was looking at cutting the millage rate, the public safety unions had some hesitancy towards that because they knew that a cut in the millage rate would more than likely impact future collective bargaining room that they would have, which they are now entering into discussions for their next collective bargaining agreement as we speak. So as a measure to somewhat appease the unions, the council set aside $26 million out of reserves for those future negotiations, but the legislation that appropriated those dollars only carried them over through September 30th of 2026. So when the mayor went to propose her budget, those dollars had not been utilized for anything, and at the time, there were no proposed uses for those dollars. So she proposed to use that $26 million to fund three public safety projects that were of one-time nature. They were a $2 million JFRD CO2 removal system, which basically cleans their gear after they come out of fires. It was supposed to help with future cancer rates. There was a $10 million JSO warehouse consolidation project that JSO was requesting. JSO has multiple warehouses scattered around the downtown area, and they want to try to bring them all under one roof. And then the last was a $14 million lease buy-down for improvements that were made to the Florida Blue Building for JSO's ultimate move over there. That was additional tenant leasehold improvements that were made to the Florida Blue Building at JSO's request fit in line with their lease. But if we were to pay those down, that would have saved the city about $1.5 million per year over the life of the lease. So it was a pretty smart financial move. Excuse me. I'm trying to go into a cough. So the mayor included using the $26 million that had been set aside for the unions to fund those $26 million worth of projects in her proposed budget. Once the unions became aware of that, they kind of raised some red flags because they thought that that $26 million was going to carry over indefinitely for them, even though that's not what the legislation said. And so council was trying to get to meet both sides, funding the $26 million, again, that the unions were requesting, and then also funding the $26 million worth of projects. Through all of their cuts and adds, that number ended up being $23.4 million. So they set that aside to fund the $26 million of projects and then decided to leave the $26 million for the collective bargaining discussions intact. At the final budget night, a little over $5.2 million was pulled out of that $23.4 million. So that took it down to, let's call it, $18.3. And so that's what the budget was approved with an $18.3 million public safety contingency. And then this week in committees, council took that $18.3 to fund the $26 million worth of projects. That number ended up being a little bit higher after some other information came along. And so those projects are expected to be funded via council action next Tuesday night. Other than that, the budget, there were a lot of actions that were taken by a finance committee. But the, I would say, 99% of what the mayor proposed and probably a higher percentage ended up being funded along the way. That did include the $4.9 million for affordable housing. Council rearranged the split of those dollars into the three various programs that were requested, but the full amount was approved. JSO, JFRD were fully funded at their requested amounts. And then high level, probably high level, what was done? Happy to answer any questions. The JSO and JFRD collective bargaining agreements had increases at 5% for rank and file officers. I believe corrections was at 7.5%. We were attempting to get our corrections officers brought to a more competitive statewide level. All other unions and non-union employees are scheduled to receive a 3% increase, effective 10-1. That's kind of where I see the high level. So, if you have questions, want to talk about anything specific, happy to do that. Mr. Tyson, questions? Mr. Bass, questions? Questions? No. Again, can you tell me again, who do you represent again? Oh, absolutely. Sorry about that. My name is Phillip Peterson. I'm the council auditor. Okay. Thank you. So, historically, it seems to me that every year at budget season, we have a lot of political grandstanding, certainly in the last three years since the new mayor has come in, where the council takes positions on trying to stake out a questioning of the budgetary priorities of the administration. But I never seem to pick up on any in-depth discussion during that time frame after the budget's adopted as to really what are legitimate needs of the city, where they say, is housing affordability, is that really a responsibility of city government? Is public service grants, are those really a responsibility of city government? The cultural council, are those really the responsibilities of city government? You've been on the council auditor staff for a number of years. You're relatively new in this position. Utilizing your institutional memory, can you recall where the city council has ever had really an in-depth philosophical discussion about what we should be prioritizing versus what we should not be prioritizing? So, to the chair, I do think those discussions have occurred. Cultural service grants, and I'll try to hit all three of those items, cultural service grants are outlined in the city's ordinance code, and it lays out how they will be handled, how the cultural council will handle them, the administrative fee that the cultural council can take of the total amount that's appropriated for those purposes, and then the reporting and what's required of the entities that receive those dollars. So, given that that is outlined, it's a specific section of our ordinance code within Chapter 118, I do think that that has been discussed. Now, whether it's discussed on an annual basis, maybe not, but given that that's a specific section of our ordinance code, I do think that that has been deemed by council along the way to be a priority. The dollar amount was changed within the last eight years because it was led by Council Member Matt Carlucci to increase the minimum, I think it's $5 million, it may be $6 million, to fund cultural service grants on an annual basis. The dollar amount that was included in this year's budget was $7 million, which was flat year over year with last year. As it relates to public service grants, those have been around as long as I can remember. I've been with the city a little over 21 years, and those have been handled in various different ways over those 21 years. And the process that we now follow was created or approved by council in the 2016-17 timeframe, where the public service grant council scores the all applications. That has been going on for as long as I can remember. But they would make recommendations to the council on their scoring process. And so whoever scored up to the dollar amount that was approved as part of the budget would get funded. And if you were below that line, you wouldn't get funded. Well, what we found prior to the 2016 timeframe was that entities that were below the line would then employ lobbyists or begin making phone calls and argue that they should also be included. So in that 2016-17 timeframe, council approved a different process where they're removed from deciding who gets funded. It's based on the scoring of the public service grant council. They just approved the dollar amounts. So because that is something that has continued, I would argue that council has deemed that to be a responsibility of the government. That's a philosophical, political debate that I'm not going to get into, but that is, I would, based on their actions, I think that that would be a response. And then you mentioned a third item, and I'm drawing a blank. Led with that. Oh, affordable housing. Affordable housing. Given that that, I think, I believe there are members of the council who would argue that affordable housing is, or addressing affordable housing is not a function of the government. And then there are others who would disagree with that. And that's why I think this was one of the hot topics this year, is that $4.9 million that the mayor had put in her proposed budget for affordable housing. Members of the finance committee, based on their actions, would say that it's not a function, or that we shouldn't be considering funding that in the current year. But that was added back in at budget night. There was an amendment proposed by one of the council members. It was further amended how to allocate those dollars, but ultimately was included. So I think as the council as a whole would say that it is a function of the government based on their action. But I think that is a hot topic that we could sit here and discuss for days on end on whether or not the government should or shouldn't be funding something like that. Any follow-up questions in light of Mr. Peterson's answers? Ms. Roundville, Mr. Peterson, the council auditor, has just made a high-level overview. Would you happen to have any questions you might want to ask him about city budgeting or the city budget that was just adopted? Okay. I have a question regarding the authorities. The first authority that I remember, I was actually not born when it was adopted. I was born a few years after that. It was the Jacksonville Expressway Authority, I think created in 1947 or 48. And it was to create a basic network of limited access roadways inside Jacksonville. It was championed by, I think, then Governor Fuller Warren, and it was operated perpetually as the Jacksonville Expressway Authority until about 1971. And lo and behold, the Jacksonville Coach Company notified the – it was in the consolidated city of Jacksonville. They notified the consolidated city of Jacksonville that they would be ceasing operations as they were no longer a commercially viable operation. The Jacksonville Expressway Authority, at the behest of council members, this was when Mayor Tanzler was the mayor, they assumed that responsibility and then they created the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to begin operating the bus system. That morphed into the skyway system in the mid-'70s as a response to the Urban Mass Transit Administration, maybe Urban Mass Transportation Administration under the Federal Department of Transportation. And there were a series of grants. And Miami built their Metro Rail. They built their Metro Mover, which is the inner-city downtown urban loop. And we built our automated Skyway Express, to which many people refer as the Skyway to Nowhere. And so – and now we see where we are. And I don't know why the city council is surprised, because, Tommy, I've been on this commission six years. Every quarter you present a report, and every quarter the JTA is the poster child for mismanagement, incompetence, and just – I don't know how else to characterize it other than that. So it leads me to think, really, is there a need for a transportation authority? We no longer have toll booths to finance the bridges and the expressways. We did way with that in 1988 when we implemented the half-cent sales tax. And the Skyway has never made money. I think at one point they even just stopped charging for it, and it's just free to use, free access. And although there is some operational cost, and then we started into this pipe dream of the something – NAVI, what is it? What does the N stand for? Do you remember? Honestly, I don't know. The neighborhood. Neighborhood Automated Vehicle Initiative, I think that's it, which I'm just bewildered as to why the city council is suddenly at a loss as to where does all this money go from, where has all the money gone to, because it's been coming from primarily the local option gas tax, which was approved by the city council, and it's like they approved it, and they just said, well, this is an independent authority with an independent board, but nobody really bothered to monitor the ability of that board to oversee an agency of that nature. And I see, you know, I could go on and on and on and on with all of the authorities. I'm told there are problems at the Housing Authority. I'm not aware of those, but I've picked up on it in the news media and social media. The Aviation Authority, that argument came to the surface within the last year when now Council President Howland negotiated a new agreement with the Aviation Authority, which was originally part of the Port Authority. And under consolidation, prior to consolidation, it was actually a city department. Imus and Airport was one of the city commissioners under the old city government. That individual had responsibility for running the airport. Another commissioner ran the parks. Another commissioner ran the police. So under consolidation, our philosophy changed. And, but it just leads me to wonder, are the authorities actually functioning in the best interests of the citizens, or have they become so independent that they deem themselves to be above and beyond accountability? Has the council auditor ever addressed anything other than are the debits and the credits equaling, and if not, what are the shortfalls? I know, what, where's the negative variance on revenue or the negative variance on, on, you know, increased expenses that creates a financial shortfall? Have y'all ever addressed any of that, to your knowledge? So, to the chair, we have, we have audit rights at all four of the authorities, all five, all five of the authorities, including the Housing Authority. But, and we have performed audits at all, all of them, not the Housing Authority, I'm not aware of us having done anything over there. But the, the main four that you, when you, someone says an independent authority, J-E-A, J-T-A, P-A, and A-A, we have performed audits out there. Um, and so, it, we do go beyond the, um, just the debits and credits, uh, just the financials. Um, I, I do think it's important to step back sometimes and look at what's the city's relationship with each of the authorities. Um, J-E-A, the city owns, and so we have a 100% vested interest in what is going on there. Um, and there's a, uh, large financial contribution that J-E-A makes to the city on an annual basis that's part of, uh, the interlocal agreement with that agency. So, I did, that one is, kind of stands out above the others. When it comes to, uh, J-P-A, um, the city does make a contribution, uh, to them that was negotiated back in, I believe, 68 as part of consolidation, uh, where the port, uh, which was, as you're right, the single port, um, gave up their taxing authority. Um, and there was negotiation on, on dollars that would be contributed, um, but that's based on a, it's based on a formula. It's very laid out, clearly defined, um, um, how this, the dollars that are contributed. J-E-A does not make any contributions back to the city other than on the occasion when we will fund a, uh, a project for them, um, and they, or they borrow dollars from us. And they do their own internal financing primarily through revenue bonds, is that correct? That's correct, yes. Or just revenue cash. Right, and, uh, so J-P-A and the J-E-A probably have the greatest, uh, analogous operation to a private company of all of the city operations. J-A-A. I, uh, I would throw J-A-A into that same argument, uh, because the city doesn't exchange dollars with J-A-A at all. We don't provide them any funding. They don't provide us funding. They're probably the most business-like, um, J-E-A is business-like other than the fact that, uh, we somewhat control, uh, given that the city council and the mayor appoint all board members of J-E-A. J-E-A, whereas at the, um, airport authority, Tommy, you might have to remind me, I can't, it's a 4-3 split. Right, governor, I think, is 4 and the mayor is 3, same as the port authority. And the J-E-A, very similar, except the district secretary occupies one of those positions. So, yeah, I was going to say, I think the port is 4-3 city and the airport is 4-3 governor. Um, so there is a little bit of a split there. Um, and then at the transportation authority, um, the city provides direct funding out of city revenues for paratransit operations. That's the, um, transportation for people with disabilities who can't make it to a bus. Um, there's an interlocal agreement that was entered into with J-E-A in the 2004-05 time frame, uh, that outlined how much the city would contribute. And that amount of increases by 3% every year. I believe we're up to about $1.9 million currently. Um, that's the dollars that flow directly out of city revenues. Now, the city also contributes, uh, while we have agreed, uh, the half cent sales tax, um, which is worth, we'll just call it $120, $130 million. And then also local option gas taxes, uh, which are, uh, to JTA, uh, 40 plus million, maybe closer to 45. Um, which those are two of JTA's, uh, heaviest revenue streams. I believe their budget this year is, uh, let me back up a step, uh, out of the local option gas tax and out of the half cent sales tax, we, uh, pay down bonds, um, that JTA issued or that the city issued on behalf of JTA as part of the better Jacksonville plan. And they received the, um, net, um, net from those two. So JTA's, um, total budget for the fiscal year 27 that we just entered into is about $132 million. Um, the half cent sales tax and the local option gas tax make up, if memory serves me, $110-ish million of that $132. Um, so JTA is very reliant on the cities, uh, on funding that comes from the city. Now that the interlocal agreement, uh, for the half cent sales tax was entered into in, uh, 88. It's been amended along the way, uh, related to their participation in the better Jacksonville program. Uh, but changing that would require, uh, agreement from the two entities. So the city can't just go and change it unilaterally. So, um, I say all that to, um, they're very independent in that the governor appoints four of the seven, or three of the seven board members. This, uh, is it four now? Um, the city only appoints three, um, but a large part of their operations comes directly from the city. So, uh, you had a question on whether or not we should be providing or they should be providing, um, a transportation system. Without the JTA, there's a number of folks that would not be able to get to and from work, to and from visits, uh, hospital visits, doctor's visits. Um, visiting friends and relatives, um, so I, I do think grocery store. Yeah, JTA runs a grocery store program in the, uh, Northwest area. Um, I believe it's free of charge. It's free of charge to the citizen. The city has made contributions in the past to run that program. Um, so I do think that it is a very, um, very important system to the citizens that is needed, uh, whether it's being run the most effectively. In an effective, efficient way, I can't, um, just, uh, pine on that. Um, but I do think it is something that is absolutely needed, um, because not everyone can afford a car and insurance and $4 gasoline. So, um, I do think it is something that is, is valuable to the citizens. Any follow-up questions at this point? Please proceed. Is it on? And I believe I've heard in the past, is the, do you guys do the, um, the audit maybe quarterly? What did you? So we, uh, we don't do an audit quarterly. We do receive, um, financial reports from each of the independent agencies and also the city on a quarterly basis. Those, um, financials are, provide the, the budget for the year, where they are on actual spending as of that quarter, where they project to finish the year, and, uh, any positive or negative variances. And you've probably heard Mr. Carter talk about those. Um, what we have, uh, we've always known this, what I believe has come to light in the past quarter is that, um, we have full access to view the city's financials. So if this, this financial, uh, finance department makes a report to us, we can go into the city's financial system and verify that everything in that report is accurate. We can tie those numbers out to the dollar. When it comes to the independent authorities, J-E-A-T-A-P-A-A-A, we don't have access to their systems. So we are reliant on the information that they provide to us. Um, if something looks off, we ask about it, we inquire, and sometimes we make comments in the quarterly summary. If their projections don't seem reasonable based on our knowledge, uh, what they have shown as of actual. So six months through the year, if they've spent three quarters of their budget and they say they're going to be able to meet budget, that's not realistic. And so we'll inquire and make comments. Um, but we are fully reliant on their projections. Um, and so I think that is, that was made clear, uh, by a presentation that J-E-A gave this week to all of the, uh, council committees, um, when the, their new CFO who came on board in late July blatantly said that projections were not realistic, that were communicated to city council. And, uh, what, uh, has been come to light, if you will, in the, in the past three to four or five months, um, was probably known by J-E-A back in March to an even greater extent, but what they were communicating to council was not realistic. So. So it sounds like they need some checks and balances. And I believe that is what the financial audit and oversight committee that has been established by council president. Howland for related to J-T-A, uh, that we will, um, be going over those type things. Um, their new CFO, uh, has been much more open and, uh, believe honest than prior, um, people we've dealt with. Um, but it's just a single person. If he were to leave, you can't say that the next person is going to be that way. So we've got to figure out a way to, um, get more into, uh, their operations. Um, and that's something that will be, I believe, looked into over the next 60 days as this select committee, which starts tomorrow. Awesome. Any other questions? All right. My last two questions. Yes. We'll have more of a comment than a question. Um, what Mr. Chairman Day is alluding to is, I think, big, this goes into big government and over an extension of what the government is supposed to do. And I have a lady at my church that uses Connection Plus. And when they raised the rates, she was affected by that. And we should let the private sector do what the private sector does and let the government do what it's supposed to do. And the Navi Autonomous Vehicle Project is something that the private sector is supposed to handle. That is not necessarily something we are supposed to get involved in. What we're supposed to do is make sure that the people can get to the grocery store. And that my young lady that goes to my church can get to church when she can't drive. And so I just wanted to put that comment out there. Where it's more of a big government thing, pull back the curtain, stop lying to us, like you were saying. The CFO, we want clarity from these independent authorities to tell us exactly what's going on. So we don't have to deal with these big issues. I'm a younger guy, and our generation is going to have to pick up what these broken pieces that these authorities are breaking all around us right now. And so I appreciate you and your time and that presentation. It's very helpful to us. And so I'm assuming that I'll be done here. Is that your boss? That would be your boss? Okay, awesome. He does a great job here. Yes. Thank you. Velma. A quick comment. Do you think it would be valuable if perhaps you had a JTA board rather than just one person that's kind of responsible financially? That there were a group of people, and so you have to communicate and make changes and plans together, not just one person. Through the chair to Ms. Roundsville. So JTA does have a board. They have a seven-member board where four are appointed by the governor and three are appointed by the mayor. What also came to light this week that I don't think anyone knew was that the projections for where JTA expects to finish the year were not being made to the board. They were only receiving actual numbers as of whatever month they were meeting. So that is something that is now being changed moving forward, and so I think that will be helpful. But you also have to have a board who wants to question, and I'm not saying that the prior board wanted to. I'm making no insinuations there. But you can't just have a rubber stamp board, and once again, making no comments there. But they do have some people who are overlooking them, but I think the changes that have now been put in place by the new CFO will at least step in the right direction. What type of financial assistance does the Aviation Authority receive from the Federal Aviation Administration, and what is the nature of that relationship? They keep pushing back on, oh, well, we can't do that because we're regulated by the FAA. Is that a smokescreen, or is that a legitimate? No, that is 100 percent legitimate. They receive grant dollars from the FAA for capital project-related items, but they don't receive operational dollars from the FAA. All revenues are generated at the airport, and that's from the airlines, travelers, parking. There's a couple other ancillary, but those are the majority of their revenues. The claim, and it's not a claim, it's true, that all revenues generated at an airport have to be spent at an airport. That's a FAA regulation. Is that a federal statute? I don't know if it's federal statute or not, but it's referred to as airport diversion. There's diversions in the word, but it basically is that revenue generated at an airport have to be reinvested back into the airport. And so the ideas that have been tossed around previously by Council Member Halland, now Council President Halland, when he first came on board, he backed off of the ideas that he was bringing once he became aware of the diversion revenue provisions. So they are governed by the FAA. The FAA tells them how they can use their money as long as it's – doesn't tell them how they can use their money as long as it's spent at the airport or for airport-related purposes. But they don't receive any operational dollars from the FAA. And then my last question, how are we sitting financially in terms of our general obligation bonds? The city does not have any general obligation bonds. In order to issue those, it has to pass a public referendum. Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. All right. No further questions. Any more? All right. We're going to rearrange the agenda just a little – I'm sorry, Mr. Tyson. Regarding the JAA, the airports, do the airport authority receive any federal – I mean, a state Department of Transportation funding? I think in the past I've heard they get – they've got a lot of funding for their space port areas from the Florida Department of Transportation. Do you know how much that is and what they have to do with it? So, while I'm flipping, they do receive state dollars, but it's – the state dollars they receive are similar to the federal dollars. They're for capital-related items, not for operational items. Oh, flipped to the wrong tab. A whole notebook for the JTA? No, no. This is all budget-related matters. While he reviews those notes, I'll make a comment here. We're going to rearrange the agenda so we can wrap things up. We don't have a presentation from the council auditor staff. The public service grant subcommittee or committee, we will defer that item until November. Discussions about Amendment 3, we will defer that until November, and we will pick up at the next item after Mr. Peterson finishes from Commissioner Bass regarding his presentation on this tier system for evaluating things in the city of Jacksonville. All right. So, yes, to Mr. Tyson, they do receive state dollars for capital projects at the various airports. For the fiscal year 27, that amount is budgeted at $1,080,000, so not a lot in the grand scheme of what JAA is doing. For other purposes, they are budgeted to receive $6.3 million from the federal government for capital purposes. The majority of their capital plan comes from their operations and or various tenants will make improvements at the facilities because they want to expand a hangar or whatnot. But since it's on airport property, it ultimately is an airport asset. All right. Okay. So, I've made enough comments. I'm not going to make any more. We will move next into – I do want to call everybody's attention to the information regarding the impacts of Amendment 3. You have two sheets that show the impacts of if it should pass. So, we can defer any detailed discussion of this until November. But I would like to move over and allow Commissioner Bass to have a presentation on his research. And then we will wrap up with Commissioner comments and then public comments at the last item. Chairman Day, are you finished with Mr. Peterson? Okay. Thank you, Philip, very, very, very much. Thanks so much. Absolutely. And I just want to tell Ms. Hargrave, go Jags. Good evening, Commissioners. So, last commission meeting, I spoke a little bit about the tier system and an idea that we use at work and that we have implemented. And it's been awesome. And I thought this would be a great system to have here as more of like a guideline for future commission meetings and specifically what we would cover as a commission and how we would do that. And so, on the second page, it's not the cover page, the second page, it says our lane is focusing on the expenses others overlook. So, what I was asking myself when I was kind of writing this up was what would it look like if we could seriously save the city millions of dollars? And how could we do that? What if we could go to the commission semi-annually, and that's on here, semi-annually, go to the city council, my bad, the city council, and say, hey, city council. I'm just going to jump over to the last page there. I'm going to be all over the place. This is the finding. These are the things we uncovered. These are the savings, what our work has helped save. So, we had meetings. We did what we were supposed to do. And now, this is our next focus, the next tier one issue. This is what we want to work on next. And so, I'm going to cover that briefly. I'm going to try and get through it. But the focus here with this tier system is to break the things up into three tiers. So, when we have an issue arise, I'm going to use the example in this presentation of the FDOT amount of money that I found that this FDOT wasn't reimbursing us for landscaping work that we were doing. It was right around or near $600,000. So, I'm just going to use that figure, $600,000. So, instead of going after a project that's $10 million, $1,500,000, or whatever, we go after these smaller, not saying we can't have meetings or discussions about these bigger projects, because we do. That's part of our role as a commission. But hammering down on these smaller projects, these smaller expenses or transactions that we see through the auditor's reports and trying to make a difference in outcome with that. So, let's cover tier one. A tier one issue would be something we can change. This is typically an expense between $100,000 and a million. We create a POA, which is a plan of action for addressing each area of concern. So, we say, this is what it is. This is who we are going to meet with to make this change. So, when I was looking at the $600,000, I said, okay, I need to meet with the director of landscaping and mowing, and I need to meet. Then he basically referred me to the director of public works. And then we were able to work that out. Then she referred me to some FDOT folks. And so, we were able to get stuff worked out that way. And so, after we create our plan of action, we will send a joint letter from the commission expressing our concerns to the city council and or relative departments with the POA or the plan of action attached. We will then set up meetings with relative council members and or department heads to get answers and find savings. Now, this is dependent on, obviously, everybody's schedules. But we could focus, this is basically focusing on one issue at a time. So, let's say it was that $600,000. So, somebody could go meet with the director of mowing and landscape. Somebody could go meet with the director of public works. Somebody could go meet with the city council member that, you know, that particular issue or that expense happened in their district. And so, trying to get some push behind it to get it influenced or changed. A tier two issue is something we can influence. This is our larger expense, a million to 10 million range. We can advise and monitor. We can create a plan of action or POA for addressing this transaction or expense. Then, we send a joint letter from the commission expressing our concerns to the city council and or relative department. The difference between tier two and tier one is our time. We are tier one is something we are actually setting up physical meetings with these people because we know we can make a change. Because, in a $2 billion budget, $100,000, $400,000, $600,000 can be overlooked with ease. If you give a department, I'm just going to use a random example. Let's say you give the public works department $68 million for their budget. They have to then take that and then go to all their department heads in the public works department and they spend that money. And what are they spending that money on? And what I call this is an area of financial concern. So, let's say the public works department was having, you know, landscaping and mowing falls under that. Okay, landscaping and mowing, that's an area of financial concern. We found $600,000. That's an area of financial concern. But it doesn't have to be specifically as a commission we're working on the $600,000. We're just working on together that area of financial concern. You see what I mean? So, we all can have a part. You don't have to specifically focus on one particular issue. But we can focus on a relative department. So, we're not focusing on something different every single month and every single commission meeting. And then finally, a tier three is a large project. This would be $10 million or more. This would be like the stadium deal. I just used the reference of $10 million or more, but that can be anything. That could be the stadium. We advise and monitor that we think, you know, this could be changed. And we send a joint letter expressing if we want to do that, expressing our concerns to the city council and our relative department. But that tier one, that is where we can really make a change. Imagine if every single commission meeting, we found $500,000. Let's just use that as an example. $500,000. That's $6 million a year that we could save the city of Jacksonville. I think that's more than this commission has ever saved the city of Jacksonville. And we could do that in our first swing at it because we would all be focusing on one issue. And my concern was, and the reason I put this together, was what I saw. Even though we were taking some action on things, we would have people come speak. We would hear from them. We would write some comments. We'd say, man, that's not good. Wouldn't we? That's not good. And then we'd go to the next meeting and talk about something completely different. And then we would say, man, that's not good. And then it's Colleen. We'd write the notes. And you know what the notes would say? That's not good. And so what I want us to do is be able to have an ability or a tier system where we can take and create a plan of action to address these concerns. I spent an hour to meet with the public works director, an hour to meet with the mowing and landscape. And the guy came to me, the Department of Mowing and Landscape, the director, he came to me. I didn't even have to go to him. And so, you know, if you have an office, he'll come to you. He said he's very open. So that's an area of financial concern that we could focus on. But I'm not saying it can relate to Amendment 3. We can tie it into something. But the point is that we will focus on one thing at a time. And so that third page says, and then I'm going to finish with that fourth page. But that third page says one department and one area of financial concern at a time. Today we work on multiple issues. I covered that and proposed this. We focus on one department and one area of financial concern at a time with every commissioner working together on that area. And finally, one voice to council every six months. We send a single representative. This can be a different person every time. Delivers a semi-annual report to city council. Reports are delivered in line with the city of Jacksonville's physical year beginning on October 1st. So we're in line with everything they're doing. And we cover three things. And we make it quick because we've got two minutes. Findings. What we uncovered. Savings. What our work helped save. And our next focus. What is the next tier one issue we are going to work on as a commission? And so it doesn't necessarily have to be $500,000. We could spend three months on $3 million. I mean, it's totally up to the commission what we want to do. This does not have to be a governing bylaw. This is how we do things. But it could be a document that advises the commission on how we could go about doing our month-to-month business. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. It's a lot of effort we've put into this. The only way this commission functions properly is for the individual members to do homework. And this is a good example of homework. So any commissioner comments above and beyond where we are at this point? I would say great job. Commissioner Blake Bass. That was very good. And I concur with that. It would be more effective. Thank you. I concur with that. And I think it's an opportunity for the city council to maybe take a look and see the true commission. And see that we're actually trying to get some action taken. Because right now, I think they kind of ignore us. So I think this would be an opportunity to put the true commission in the forefront. So thank you. Yes, ma'am. Think about it. Every six months we come there swinging. We got a report in hand. Boom. And give it to them right up front. This is what we found, not what we're going to find. Just building on that, I think also it might go a long way to increasing the number of people that we actually were supposed to have versus what we do have. Because people see that something's getting done. And they'll be a little more inclined to assist with it other than just seeing the same thing over again. Thank you. Colleen, am I correct in understanding that there has been a replacement named for Commissioner Roundsville? Yes, sir. Mr. Leroy Kelly was approved by the Rules Committee on Monday and will be presumably approved by council on Tuesday. So this would be your last commission meeting. Would you like to say a few words about your service? And I truly have enjoyed working on the true commission. I think we have a lot of people that are very concerned about looking at the city's budget and the revenues and making some changes. We just need to get someone to see. And I think this tier program might be an opportunity for us to get started. I've enjoyed working with all of you. I'll tell you, Mr. Kelly will be an excellent replacement. He's been on the true commission before. So he's well aware. So thank you for allowing me to be on the true commission. And good luck as you go forward. All right. We have time for public comments. Do we have public comments? Mr. Nooney? Mr. Smith, do you? All right. You have three minutes. All right. Hello. I am John J. Nooney, Jacksonville City Council Resolution 2023-0819. I'm in City Council District 4, CPAC 3, School Board District 3. And, you know, I just want to start, you know, with the agenda. You know, congratulations, Commissioner Bass. You know, discussion about Amendment 3. I put right on here. True tier system. So what I want to, you know, and with Amendment 3, you know, yesterday I attended the noticed meeting on data centers with Monet Holder right here. And I put on here, Northeast Florida Regional Council find in the true tier system. So, now, with the data center, you know, I'm going right next door, Amendment 3, there's a meeting. And it's a noticed meeting with JEA, Utility Assistance Programs, I put on here, true tier system. And, you know, with the data centers right here, too, it's the JEA overview. Now, the reason I'm mentioning that, you know, is with the data centers. I've been to lots of meetings. And I put on here the Monet Holder Data Center Park on Pottsberg Creek in District 4, CPAC 3, School Board District 3, next to a Noah Ray FEMA house. And, you know, I was interviewed yesterday, you know, for the data centers. And here's the thing with the data centers, watch all three television networks, we're talking about data centers. It's almost like in the tier system, the biggest ones. But what about the smallest ones? What is the smallest data center in the country? And I'm looking into it. And so that is an opportunity. And right here, and I wrote about it. And what is the size of the data centers? We hear of the large data centers. What is the size of the smallest data center currently in operation in the country? And so here is St. John's County. I'm going to all these counties. This was two days ago. I was in Clay. I'll be going to Clay County next Tuesday. And so I'm wearing my Byron Donalds shirt. Yeah, because it's national. So we are right now in a scenario where we will lead the state of Florida with this data center. And I'll be picking up on that tier system. I'll take any questions. I mean, all right. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Chairman Day. Thank you to the commission for allowing me to speak. I just want to give an update on the Urban Corps CPAC and our representative. They are on the way, again, going through the legislative process. We have a person by the name of Terry Canty. She's going to be more than likely our new commissioner once she goes through, of course, the process and rules confirms her. To Ms. Brownsville, thank you for all your hard work on the true commission. And I know you do so much work in the community. So, again, thank you for that. And to Mr. Bass. Excellent job, young man. Excellent job. I would say you should take this a little bit further. When you go to the city council, I think this should be presented to the city council to let city council know that the true commission is doing the work that it's supposed to do. And this represents that. You know, I commend you for that. And with that, like I said, I have brief comments. Thank you all for all the work that you do. And, again, thank you for taking up Amendment 3. It's going to be very important if that passes. So, with the work that you're doing, I know we haven't discussed it in this meeting. I plan to be here November 2nd. However, again, thank you. Thank you for taking heed to my recommendation. And, again, thank you for all that you do. Any more comments? All right. Take care. Under the table there, too.