JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Early Wednesday morning, the Jacksonville City Council approved a nearly $1 billion budget for the coming year.
It voted not to cut 2 percent across the board and to restore $4 million in funding for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
The meeting began at 5 p.m. Tuesday with public hearings. The budget debate began around 9:30 p.m. and ended at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"The City Council worked hard for hours and hours last night from when we first started to the wee hours of this morning," said Council President Clay Yarborough. "They approved the budget for the city for the next fiscal year. There is still pain in the budget felt whether in city departments or outside agencies that are used to getting city funds."
By voting down 2 percent cuts across the board, Sheriff John Rutherford is able to keep a drug center open. He will have some vacancies, so he's going to pull nine officers from the mayor's office and State Attorney's office.
"Let me say my hat is off to this council. They did a fantastic job with a budget they were given by the mayor which was not balanced. It was balanced with borrowing of one time money," said Sheriff John Rutherford.
There were no cuts to libraries or fire stations. They will remain open. The fire chief will also get some funding to replace equipment.
"I got fire engines that are 12 to 14 years old. I got one ladder truck that drives around Jacksonville that is 20 years old. There is a point in time when you have to replace those things. We can't keep fixing them," said JFRD Chief Marty Senterfitt.
Senterfitt said "real good stuff happened tonight" and at the end of the day, he's glad no fire stations will be closed and they can continue providing public safety.
Finance Committee Chairman Richard Clark said they came close to meeting their goal.
"I would've preferred not to spend any one time money and to show our citizens what it really looks like. I don't think $3 million would've made a single department dissolve. So it's a little disappointing but they came a long way," said Clark.
The council decided in July not to raise taxes, and although some additional revenue is expected from rising real estate appraisals, the Finance Committee has spent several weeks making cuts to the budget Mayor Alvin Brown submitted at the beginning of the summer.
Some council members said this is typical of any election-year budget -- the administration leaving it up to council to make the hard and unpopular decisions about what programs to cut.
The mayor's budget called for more sheriff's officers, major improvements to the Jacksonville Landing, the Shipyards and the old, riverfront courthouse property. But Council President Clay Yarborough said the mayor's proposal would add $200 million to the city's debt.
"We were handed something that really wasn't workable, obviously," Councilman Bill Gulliford said. "I think the people on the Finance Committee came to the realization that we're sort of in a box right now."
"Being elected is about priorities," said Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla. "You're going to take a million dollars and put it in Hemming Plaza? But yet you're going to cut $100,000 for the homeless people? That is just unbelievable."
Brown told council members during Tuesday's meeting that she has contacted the Justice Department about the planned budget cuts for early voting.
Mayor Brown is not in town for the budget vote. He's in New York at a $10,000 a plate fundraiser for his campaign, which is headlined by comedian Bill Cosby.
"That doesn't show real good judgment to me," Gulliford said of the mayor's absence. "I think it sends the wrong message ... I frankly kind of thought he might show up on the floor tonight and just discuss his budget. I think that if I was the mayor, that's what I would do."
Councilman Bill Bishop is also running for mayor, and he said Mayor Brown is not doing his job.
"We are trying to solve the budget problem for the city for the next fiscal year," Bishop said. "It's a budget that the mayor submitted that the council is now dealing with and passing. The mayor of the city is supposed to have priorities and supposed to be invested in the budget that's presented, and I would expect that the mayor would be here while this process is going on. That is what the job entails."
Because the event Brown is at is campaign related, the mayor's staff could not comment and referred News4Jax to Brown's campaign manager, who said he could not comment on why the fundraiser was scheduled when the budget was up for a vote.