City Council doesn’t support Duval School Board’s push for independent attorney

City lawmakers on Tuesday rejected the Duval County School Board’s request to support its effort to hire its own attorney who’s not under the supervision of the city’s Office of General Counsel.

The Jacksonville City Council voted 8-9 against a resolution endorsing the school board’s effort to get the state Legislature to change the City Charter to allow it to hire an independent attorney.

A debate over the plan started in May, after the school board’s city-appointed attorney Ray Poole resigned.  

School board members argue they should be allowed to seek someone with education law expertise. And because their attorney has city benefits, they argue Duval Schools is at disadvantage because it can’t offer retirement pension benefits through the Florida Retirement System like the other 66 school districts in the state do.

“We are a constitutionally elected body that approves their own budget, that reports to the Florida Department of Education, not the city of Jacksonville,” school board Vice Chair April Carney told the council on Tuesday. “We deserve the right to be treated the same way that any other elected body in state government is treated.”

For the council majority, their rejection boiled down to protecting Duval County’s consolidated city/county government model and not setting a precedent for independent city agencies like JAXPORT or the Jacksonville Aviation Authority to try to hire their own attorneys.

Council member Ken Amaro praised the school board’s recent success improving Duval Schools to an overall “A” grade academically, but he said the charter change would be “bad precedent, bad policy, bad move.”

“It’s a dismantling of the 57-year-old foundation that we call the consolidated government. I know they don’t see it that way, but it opens a Pandora’s box if it’s permitted to go in this direction,” he said. 

Amaro also agreed with council member Jimmy Peluso, who suggested the school board could appeal for the change during the city’s Charter Revision Commission process, which happens every 10 years.

Council member Rory Diamond, part of the minority who supported the change, said the charter needs to “evolve with the city.”

“And if we don’t do this now, the wedge between those who like consolidation and those who are really just plowed under by it, is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said.

Council members Raul Arias, Ken Amaro, Michael Boylan, Joe Carlucci, Matt Carlucci, Tyrona Clark-Murray, Reggie Gaffney Jr., Rahman Johnson and Jimmy Peluso voted against the J-bill request. 

Council Vice President Nick Howland and members Will Lahnen, Randy White, Rory Diamond, Terrance Freeman, Mike Gay, Chris Miller and Ron Salem sided with the school board majority. 

Council President Kevin Carrico, who filed Resolution 2025-0695, was in London on city business and was not present for the vote. Council Ju’Coby Pittman was also absent.

Mayor Donna Deegan came out against the school board’s effort on Tuesday.

“We are grateful for the City Council members who voted to protect our city’s form of consolidated government that has existed for more than 57 years,” the mayor’s office said in an emailed statement. “Our partnership with the Duval County School Board remains strong, and we continue to be in communication on a solution that achieves their goals for legal representation.”

The birth of the bill

After Poole resigned, the school board voted 5-2 in August to petition the Duval delegation to file what’s known as a “J-bill” so the Florida Legislature can consider the charter change. The only other way for the board to change the charter would be through a referendum to Duval County voters.  

The city charter currently says, “the General Counsel may employ, supervise and terminate assistant counsels to assist with the efficient provision of legal services for the city’s independent agencies.” That includes Duval Schools and the school board. 

The general counsel’s office received four applicants when it advertised the job to replace Poole. It hired Will Spillias, who is now the board’s acting attorney and most recently was general counsel for the Alachua County Public Schools.

“Looking at the quality of applicants and the number of applicants, we just really didn’t have the depth that I felt like as a large urban school district in the state of Florida that we needed to have,” school board Chair Charlotte Joyce said in August.

Resumes obtained by Jacksonville Today through a public records request show the other applicants for the job were former city council and school board member Brenda Priestly-Jackson; Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. Vice President and Assistant General Counsel Whitney McGuire; and Flagler County School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin.

General Counsel Michael Fackler told council members Tuesday that his office consults with the school board during the hiring process but he makes the ultimate decision on the hire, a point that council member Ron Salem said concerns him.

The general counsel’s office declined Jacksonville Today’s request for further comment on the issue.

Next steps for the school board

Despite lacking the council’s blessing, the school board’s proposed charter change will still move to the Duval legislative delegation, which will decide on Oct. 22 whether to take the J-bill to Tallahassee.

The school board’s push for its own counsel is not unprecedented in recent history. It already has the ability to hire its own attorneys in the case of a legal dispute with the city. 

That stems from a January 2020 circuit court ruling that said the board had a right to independent legal counsel in its lawsuit over the city council’s refusal to allow a half-cent sales tax referendum to raise money for school facilities improvements on the ballot. 

City spokesman Phil Perry said in an email Tuesday that the general counsel’s office will “remain committed to meeting the obligations of all their clients and following the law, whether it changes or not.”