Jacksonville at-large councilman Ron Salem, who chairs the City Council Finance Committee. | Casmira Harrison, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 20, 2025 at 4:30 pm
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City Council members on the Special Committee on Duval DOGE say they’ve found another $1.869 million in unspent capital project funding, bringing the committee’s total to $19.684 million since April.
Directors of the city Departments of Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Community Services worked with the City Council auditors to find a handful of additional projects with no expense active since October 2023 that could be considered closed.
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Older, dormant projects in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan have been the focus for the Duval DOGE committee, led by council member Ron Salem.
The two department heads spoke in front of the committee Tuesday at City Hall. Daryl Joseph, city parks director, told council members his department would continue to look for projects that can be considered closed and “get creative” if it’s determined in the future that those projects need additional dollars.
“By closing these, that doesn’t mean there’s not a need, Joseph said. But a lot of these projects are older projects that our original scope has been completed and we were looking to try to get creative, but there’s other ways that we can get there.”
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The largest of the parks department projects that Joseph told the committee could close has $1.426 million available for a regional rowing center project in council District 1. Conceived in 1999, the project has been held up for years due to a pending land swap with the state of Florida, said City Council Auditor Kim Taylor.
Other money from closed projects includes $94,380 for the 103rd Street Sports Complex Renovation; $50,080 for Criswell Park planned improvements; $55,097 for lighting at the Ray Greene Park football field; $45,079 for Woodstock Park; $46,713 for a Pine Forest Park Jones Community Center; $16,375 for a Cedar Point trail and parking project; $15,958 for community center rehabilitation; and $12,131 for Adolph Wurn Park.
Department of Public Works Director Nina Sickler says her staff found $107,177 related to a 2002 settlement agreement with CSX Corp. for a railroad crossing at Old Kings Road that was no longer needed. But those are the only two project line items the Public Works official says can be closed as of Tuesday.
Public Works maintains one of 13 public transparency dashboards launched by the Deegan administration meant to allow the public better access to the city’s financial data.
Salem’s committee intends to file legislation soon that would drop all funds it has cataloged since April 1 into an account marked in the city budget to indicate that it was money located by Duval DOGE.
Auditor Taylor says it will take more work to determine the city revenue source each dollar came from and if there are restrictions on how it could be spent in a future budget.
Some of the project money could be cash, which would give it virtually no restrictions, while other money could be debt, local option gas tax dollars or other sources that would limit how council members can use it.
Salem proposed the DOGE in March after President Donald Trump had launched the controversial Department of Government Efficiency effort with billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musks. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also established a state-level DOGE, which is also reviewing Jacksonville’s city finances.
The committee also heard Tuesday from Mayor Donna Deegan’s deputy chief administrative officer, Kelli O’Leary, who said the administration is working with an outside firm to gather data used to reduce the number of procurement credit cards used throughout city government.
She said the Deegan administration has recently dropped eight cards, leaving 108 in service. The mayor’s office also is looking at consolidating bank services and finding cards with better rebates, O’Leary says.
Salem has said he was concerned about possible abuse and unnecessary spending on the cards.
Committee member Joe Carlucci praised the administration’s review and suggested the $1,000 per month to continue the contract was worth the investment.
Libraries and senior center stats
The council auditor also reviewed data showing how frequently and for what services people are using the city’s libraries and senior citizens centers.
The committee didn’t take action or offer specific recommendations based on the numbers, but Salem and others say it could be used in future budgets to determine how modernization of services and programs could change the space needs for senior centers and libraries as they come due for renovations and replacement.
Salem’s committee mirrors a council ad hoc committee’s work from 2007 at the start of the Great Recession. He tells Jacksonville Today that the five-member DOGE committee, composed of all Republicans, could continue beyond its final report due June 23.
“We’ll continue to look at all aspects of the government like we are with libraries and community centers trying to prepare the (Council) Finance Committees that go through the budget,” Salem said.
”As I suggested here, we’re going to have probably an hour or two of libraries during the budget process. You can’t possibly do the background work like we can do here to prepare that committee for what maybe needs to be done with our libraries.”
