One City Council Member’s entry was a stock Democrat plan: take money from some and give it to others.
Council Member Jimmy Peluso wants to take money from the city reserves and give it to some JEA customers who have racked up high bills.
One problem is that the JEA gives the city money every year. Why should the city give some back?
The “solution” would add costs. Peluso wants $2.3 million — $2 million to give away and $300,000 for the bureaucracy needed to handle the giving away.
Add that to other problems, such as who is going to determine who should get free electricity, or water and sewer service, and the absurdity of the plan starts to become evident.
JEA gave the city general fund $150 million last year. It is considered a “contribution in lieu of taxes.”
What that means is that a private utility would pay taxes the city-owned JEA does not, so the city makes its profit from what a private utility would pay government anyway.
Decades ago, the council would spend weeks each year during consideration of the budget trying to calculate this amount. Finally, they put it on automatic by making it a percentage of the utility’s revenues.
Here’s the rub. The payees and the beneficiaries are the same people, for the most part.
Most Jacksonville residents are customers of JEA. Built into their rates is the amount JEA pays the city. Cut JEA rates and property taxes should go up, and vice versa.
One more likely scenario is that if the voters approve of property tax relief in November, the politicians likely will try to squeeze JEA even harder to help make up lost tax revenue.
Peluso’s idea is a bad one. Robbing Peter to pay Paul may get you Paul’s vote, but it accomplishes little else.
Later, the head of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority weighed in with his contest entry and it rivaled Peluso’s bad idea.
Maybe we should bring back tolls, he said.
Long-time residents remember when they had to pause at the Mathews and Warren bridges, and other points on the Expressway, to pay tribute to the highway god.
One year, the JTA decided to raise the tolls, and many people were annoyed.
Signs at the toll booths at the time sternly warned drivers not to put pennies in the toll basket.
The signs seemed a bit haughty and rude to me so I wrote a column advising people the machines actually would accept pennies and using them might be a way to protest the toll increase.
Next day, the head of the JTA and my good friend Wes Paxson called the paper asking them to fire me. He said drivers were clogging the machines with pennies and causing traffic jams.
Eventually tolls were removed. Those opposed said bondholders never would accept it but when the bondholders found out how much cash the tax that replaced tolls would generate, they were quite happy to make the change.
People who use the First Coast Expressway are eaten up by tolls, which are collected automatically rather than manually. I can’t imagine any of them, or any long-time resident of Jacksonville, being excited about going back to tolls on top of the current tax.
What fascinates me is the sheer audacity of the JTA director to suggest an unpopular remedy at a time when the agency is under fire from local and state officials for its over-spending on such frills as “driverless” buses that require drivers.
One Response
You are right about robbing Peter to pay Paul and how much would it cost to build the new toll booths and where would they put them would they put them at all the bridges. I’m glad in the meeting yesterday that mayor Donna Deegan said no to the toll boost to raise money. Didn’t the city just take some of the money that JEA gave them and give it elsewhere to a couple of the big projects that we have going on here in the city. Plus now JEA has raised their rates on water and electricity and they’re going to raise it again next year. Unfortunately we have a no win situation going on for the property owners and taxpayers of Jacksonville.