Like any organization or institution, Eye on Jacksonville can make mistakes.

We also treasure reader input.

So when a couple of readers pointed what they thought were typos in a recent column, we quickly checked.

They were not errors.

One reader claimed the city budget was $1.9 billion, not $8.6 billion, as we wrote.

I’ve been reading and writing about city budgets since 1970. I may not be an expert, but I’ve learned a little.

On Page 9 of the Mayor’s Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2024-25, it says the total budget for general government is $3,907,293,552. This number, combined with the budgets of the city’s independent authorities adds up to $8.6 billion and not a dime of it can be spent unless authorized by the City Council, which it did Sept. 24 by passing Ord. 2024-504.

Fifty years ago, the media reported the size of the budget correctly but politicians apparently began worrying about the size of the number as it grew and persuaded the local media that the only part that really mattered was the general fund. Today, virtually all the media report only the size of the general fund and refer to it as “the budget.”

The other item was our reference to diversity, inclusion and equity programs as DIE.

The government insists on listing the parts of it in different order and calling it DEI.

We don’t have to use the government’s preferences – yet.

They could have ordered the pieces any way, so that it could be IDE, EDI, EID or IED, which indeed would be more fitting because it could blow up any time.

DEI is just a little too close to “Opus Dei” – the Word of God.

To democratic socialists, it is just that. To most of them, God resides in Washington, D.C., and when he hands down a program it is The Word and must be followed reverently.

But, when it suits our fancy, Eye will use DIE to describe this execrable government program that by definition seeks an outcome promised by communist states.

Along with critical race theory, reparations and the whole pantheon of NLI (Nutty Liberal Ideas) it should meet with stiff resistance by normal Americans of all races and religions.

We also will use “City Haul” to refer to the seat of city government when we take a notion, always with a nod to the late Jacksonville Journal columnist Bill Pinney, who used it in the 1950s, when it was worthwhile to read newspaper columnists.

In short, we do our own thing, baby.