Mayor Curry’s re-election budget proposal. Is it designed to bolster talking points addressing minorities, special interests, law enforcement, low income families, and human rights issues or are these just coincidences?
Interesting fact: Mayor Curry’s first three budget proposals did not contain monies for the Ex-Offender Employment program, Florida Recovery School, Groundwork Jacksonville, New Town success Zone, Operation New Hope, Opioid Epidemic Program, Prisoners of Christ, or United Way 211.
Will these programs be headlines in his re-election talking points?
The Mayor’s office developed an interest in art last budget year and created a new budget item for Duval taxpayers: Art in Public Places. I wonder if this new line item will explode in cost just as the Jacksonville Children’s Commission (JCC) did since it’s creation in 1994; last year’s request was $27 million.
Mayor Curry has stated many times that safety is a priority in Jacksonville. His budget requests for the Office of the Sheriff have been $402.3 million, $424.1 million, $410.5 million, and finally the new request is $439.1 million. Why the decrease last budget and a huge increase in this budget? As a skeptic of politicians these numbers make me wonder what’s behind this decision making.
Another question on motive occurred when I noticed that last year’s budget proposal included a government run 501c3, the Stormwater 501c3/Low Income Subsidy, which Mayor Curry requested $1,563,732 and received. This year’s budget request is $1,570,182 to aid those individuals who are burdened by a tax that the city created. If Duval County is looking for a new motto maybe it should be “Earn more, Pay more.”
The Mayor has a soft spot for Human Rights, as he has just requested an increase of $294,999.00 in the budget for Jacksonville’s Human Rights Commission. I am sure there is no connection to the fact that the phrase “human rights” is ubiquitous these days.
Of course, these are just the observations of a non-politician who doesn’t understand how government works, or at least that is what I have been told by politicians.
On the other hand, the question remains…
Will any of these observations show up in Mayor Curry’s re-election talking points?
What do you think?
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://eyeonjacksonville.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Debbie-G.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Debbie a native of New York became a resident of Jacksonville via the U.S. Navy. After separating from the navy she worked for both Grumman Aerospace and later Northrup-Grumman Aerospace. After almost 20 years in the aviation industry, she went back to college to change professions. Going back to school as an adult that had lived all over the United States and abroad she had experience in culture and circumstance, which created an incongruity with the material being taught. At that point she began questioning the validity of the material and made the observation that to pass her courses she had to agree, at least on paper, with the material. She graduated about the same time as the Wall Street crash of 2008 and jobs were now difficult to find. So, with time on her hand she began to look into other areas to see if the incongruity existed outside of the college curriculum as well. This is where her mission for the truth began. Since then she has worked to get facts out to the public.[/author_info] [/author]
