Some Hard Truths about the Budget Crisis in Jacksonville
First, the good news: Crime is down. Jacksonville is experiencing record reductions in violent crime and overall crime, through the end of June. Naturally it is too early to tell if this will be a trend, but regardless, the decline in violent crime of 13.8% for the first half of the year is historic. Why? Because what we have been doing IS WORKING.
Operation Safe Streets began covertly in early 2006, and with the advent of city funded overtime pay for officers, we flooded the streets with officers focused on community policing – "knock and talks" – sharing information with citizens and encouraging tips and information. We have visited more than 75,000 homes and businesses personally, and to date, our Gun Bounty Program has removed 221 really dangerous individuals from our streets and put them in jail.
We have focused on Prevention, Intervention and Enforcement. This is the three-legged stool strategy that I explained to the community three years ago; when the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. murder study showed that Jacksonville raises more killers than any other city in Florida. As I've often said: these people aren't coming from Mars to kill us, we are raising them right here in Jacksonville.
With an agreement from both the Mayor and the City Council that our long range staffing plan would be implemented, we have been able to add officers in 2007 and 2008, to fill some of that manpower shortfall that was "bridged" by the OSS overtime. Today, we have 120 of the needed 225 sworn officers on the street. And crime is down. There is a correlation. With the award of 50 more officers from the Department of Justice COPS grant program just last month, to be added over the next two years, I have been optimistic that we were finally positioned to shed our reputation as the "Murder Capital of Florida."
We know that Jacksonville has the lowest citizen to police ratio in the state, but worse, Jacksonville invests the least in public safety per resident, through taxes.
Which brings me to the bad news: We are in a financial crisis in our community. But please know it is not entirely the result of the global economic crisis. That is partially the problem. But for Jacksonville the problem is more complex. And before you rush to make any judgment, you should know some of the facts:
- We rolled back the ad valorem property tax rate for 13 years. This was popular "politics" but the move was lacking in wisdom. It made Jacksonville a desirable cheap place to live and people were able to get "more house for less money." The population of the city was growing, and there was a demand for more services.
- How was government funded, with such a low property tax rate? Off the RESERVES of the city employees' pension funds. That's fire, police, and civilian workers. All of whom paid into these funds, expecting the proper payments from their employer, the city. But since the funds were making money in the "golden days" of great Wall Street gains, that money was used. And the interest owed on the pension plans, which were underfunded, increased the city's unfunded liability to the funds.
- We now sit with an unfunded liability in those pension funds. Of course it's unsustainable. There are no reserves left. Those funds helped pay for the already low property taxes to be reduced even more. And with the crash of both the financial and housing markets, there aren't any increased property taxes to pay the pension back. We funded our low cost way of life off the backs of the city workers.
So as we search for solutions to our financial crisis, let me make a few points that I would ask every thoughtful citizen to think about:
- Please remember; the average city worker has worked in public service for less in compensation than people in comparable jobs in the private sector. They are loyal, dedicated public servants. REMEMBER: employees enrolled in these pension funds are not eligible for Social Security or Medicare. So for many, this pension – which is a MODEST, very middle of the road pension – is all they have. It is wrong to vilify these individuals – from our fire fighters, to our officers, to our communications workers, to the men and women that mow the fields in our parks.
- City workers will pay twice. They have spouses and family members who are hurting, financially. They support aged parents, just like everyone else; they want to make sure their kids who need braces have them, just like everyone else; and they enjoy the occasional meal out or a ball game with the family, just like everyone else. And they are sacrificing along with everyone else. They will pay with a salary cut, if that is mandated. And they will also pay in the realization that their pension fund's earnings were used for 13 years to pay for everyone else's lower taxes. The same fund that today may not be able to provide adequately for them in their retirement. My question is this: WHEN THE 2009 PROPERTY TAX ROLLS SHOW EVEN GREATER LOSSES IN REVENUE THAN WE ARE NOW FACING, what will the city council advocate we cut then?
- Remember what the Blueprint for Prosperity showed us. From 1990-2000 the number of people working in Duval County, but choosing to live outside Duval County, increased 45%. Our tax base is moving out, for a quality of life; not in for lower taxes, which they already have. They don't want their family members murdered in their neighborhoods and they don't want their children dying in the carnage on our roadways. They also want their children in school to be educated and not bullied. Again, they want a quality of life that currently we don't provide. And they will leave here, and pay higher taxes, to get it.
- We couldn't arrest our way out of a murder problem…and we can't cut jobs and services as a remedy to this financial crisis. We can't do that and expect to have any chance of sustaining these important crime reductions or sustain any semblance of a quality of life.
Please call your city council members to voice your concern.
Thank you,
John H. Rutherford, Sheriff
Duval County, FL