mayor and the budget

[Gloria]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR1brYTH ... e=youtu.be

Mayor unveils his budget on Monday to the city council.

Now is the time (over this budget process) to make our voices heard.

Online: COJ.net or see it live.

Let's educate ourselves on this budget.

FYI

Budget Address

July 16, 2012

9 a.m.

City Hall, Council Chambers
117 West Duval Street
Jacksonville, Florida 32202

Mayor Alvin Brown will unveil his fiscal year 2013 budget to the Jacksonville City Council on Monday, July 16, 2012 at 9 a.m. Residents can watch the presentation live online or by turning to channel 99 on Comcast or U-Verse. Residents can also watch the presentation in person by coming to City Hall, 117 West Duval Street in Downtown Jacksonville.



City Council Special Meeting - Annual Budget Presentation

July 16, 2012

9:00 a.m.

City Hall

117 W. Duval St., 1st Floor

Council Chamber

Notice is hereby given that a Special Meeting of the Council will be held on Monday, July 16, 2012 at 9:00 a.m., in the Council Chambers, 1st Floor, City Hall, St. James Building, located at 117 West Duval Street, Jacksonville, Florida. The Honorable Alvin Brown, Mayor – City of Jacksonville will present the 2012-2013 Annual Budget address to the Jacksonville City Council at this time.

[Gloria]

Jacksonville mayor's proposed budget includes hundreds of job cuts
Posted: July 13, 2012 - 4:23pm | Updated: July 13, 2012 - 9:18pm
By Timothy J. Gibbons

Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year calls for at least 300 city employees to lose their jobs.

The budget — balanced, as is required by law — projects a $12.7 million drop in city revenue, a decrease of 1.3 percent from this year.

That number was somewhat buoyed by revenue projected to come in from red light cameras — which the city does not yet have — and by an increase in sales taxes revenue, but hammered by a $22.8 million drop in property tax revenue.

The budget proposal was submitted Friday afternoon, although it is not officially due until Sunday. The mayor will present it to the City Council at 9 a.m. Monday.

Brown kept the property tax rate at 10.035 mills and did not raise fees, adhering to pledges he made for the past two years. Declining property values mean the same millage rate brings in less money.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012 ... z20awfsgN2


http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012 ... s-job-cuts

[movedsouth]

Code officers don't make a lot of money. But what people overlook is the damage done to the cities tax base by code hindering development of Springfield and discouraging home owners working on their houses. How many more stories of home owners giving up do we need? Not giving up because they demolish and destroy. But giving up because they get assessed daily fines after being found to be "too slow" ? The current practice of code and the formal track is destroying our downtown tax base. Mayor Brown keeps talking about increasing the downtown tax base to a level comparable to where it was in the past I think to achieve this, a number of issues with code need to be addresses:

- A "formal track to mothball" houses, to preserve the downtown tax base.
- better oversight of code enforcement, possibly via a community board addressing code issues in historic areas.
- reduction and an amnesty for daily fines in cases where the owner will commit to addressing code's concerns on a schedule acceptable to the community board.

None of these steps would cost significant money. The fines will in most cases never be recovered, and having a home owner restore a house will increase tax revenue substantially. The formal track to mothball will even save some money as it can be cheaper to mothball then to demolish. And in a few years, we will have a restored house adding to the revenue side.

I think this is a pretty great win-win situation: The city will get more revenue without having to raise tax rates. It will spent less money on code enforcement actions and allow more private money to be invested in Springfield.

[Gloria]

If code enforcement were to mothball houses, instead of merely boarding, it could lien a house for the hard cost involved and perhaps get that "investment" returned.

Code could have a more "permanent" temporary solution and could have the historic planning commissioners take the burden of monitoring these houses off its hands.

The city and the neighborhood would save the house for a future owner and many future owners after that.

Code Enforcement and the city of Jacksonville could turn a major liability into a significant investment.

Nothing else could as significantly rid the neighborhood of blight and safety issues like mothballing the condemned properties.

And it could be done with a policy change. And it could be done with less money than is currently spent. And it could be done tomorrow.

Save the houses.