Mayor Donna Deegan speaks with City Council member Rory Diamond before signing his Heroes Act bill into law on Friday, March 29, 2024. | News4Jax
Published on March 29, 2024 at 11:41 am
Mayor Donna Deegan signed legislation Friday that provides increased benefits for municipal employees who also serve in the military.
The mayor said Jacksonville is a “proud military town” where one in four residents is connected to a military member or veteran. The legislation, sponsored by City Council member Rory Diamond, is big step for them, she said.
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“This first-of-its-kind legislation will ensure our 40 active duty city employees will be better compensated when they are deployed,” Deegan said, flanked by numerous veterans and city staff. “Our employees and military families will have the time to take care of loved ones when their spouse is on duty.”
Diamond, who serves in the Florida Army National Guard, filed the bill after his recent return from an eight-month deployment to the Middle East as a judge advocate general.
He said the Jacksonville Heroes Act helps bridge the gap for deployed service members and their families by tripling — from 30 days to 90 — the amount of time the city will pay employees who are called for duty overseas. He said he was unaware of the gap until he was deployed.
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“I was literally in a tent in the dirt in the middle of Saudi Arabia, and you are this close to the people next to you,” Diamond said. “You are hearing these kids — they are 22 and 23 — they’ve got families at home and you hear them on Facetime and on their phones, and you hear the struggle that they are going through. And you hear that they can’t pay for their families. That can’t be true in America.”
Diamond said he told those neighboring soldiers that he was a politician and would do something about that gap when he got back to Jacksonville.
The bill also creates eight hours of “flex time” a month for spouses of deployed service members to help them in the care of their families while the other is deployed.
