Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico hold a news conference with Council members Ron Salem and Ju'Coby Pittman on March 11 at City Hall.
Published on March 11, 2026 at 6:21 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Jacksonville city lawmakers have created a special committee to back a city Inspector General’s investigation into JEA, City Council President Kevin Carrico announced Wednesday. The dual probe is prompted by claims that some of the largest commercial customers are exempt from millions of dollars in water and wastewater fees.
Carrico’s JEA Special Investigatory Committee will also go further than the IG’s to look into recent allegations Carrico raised of a toxic workplace culture and racism that he says may be pervasive at the city-owned utility — claims that JEA’s board of directors declined to investigate recently.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Carrico says he created the three-member committee after receiving a memo from city Inspector General Matthew Lascell that asks for a “limited-scope project” and the help of the City Council Auditor’s Office to determine if JEA has not adequately collected capacity fees from several commercial customers going back decades.
The largest single example that surfaced before Carrico’s news conference Wednesday came in a December 2024 memo from JEA to the Mayo Clinic, saying the hospital could owe $18.9 million in water and wastewater capacity fees. That was based on how much more water Mayo has consumed due to its growth since 1995.
Mayo Clinic claims it’s exempt from paying for the additional water and wastewater usage.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Carrico says JEA’s response, that it’s developing a policy to address the commercial exemptions — which he says could total more than $100 million — “is not enough right now.”
“If you build a mother-in-law suite in your backyard, I guarantee JEA is going to charge you for that,” Carrico said Wednesday at City Hall. “But for a giant organization, a multi-hundred-million-dollar organization, to just get away with not having to expand their capacity and pay those fees, those are ratepayer fees that we owe the people. So, all these things didn’t just come to light now, but now that they’re on my desk, we’re going to do something about it now.”
Carrico has named two Republicans and a Democrat to the special committee: council members Ron Salem, Rory Diamond and Ju’Coby Pittman. The council president has stated these five objectives for the panel:
- Determining, with the council auditor, the extent to which capacity fees may not have been collected in recent years and identifying the amount, if any, that may be owed to the city and JEA;
- Investigating and ensuring that JEA and the city are in compliance with bond commitments and reporting requirements;
- Based on recent allegations made to the JEA Board regarding racism and the toxic culture existing at JEA under the leadership of the current JEA Chief Executive Officer, conducting an independent review of recent employee allegations regarding workplace culture at JEA;
- Evaluating JEA compliance with whistleblower protection laws and policies;
- And proposing legislation as appropriate based on the committee’s findings.
The committee is expected to begin its work in the next couple of weeks.
Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico Announces JEA Special Investigatory Committee Following Inspector General ReportDownload
Investigating JEA workplace culture
Carrico, Salem and Pittman spent much of the news conference talking about the committee’s charge to investigate what Carrico says are allegations by about a dozen anonymous JEA employees who have reached out to council members about a toxic workplace.
To date, the water fee issue and workplace complaints appear to be unrelated.
At their last meeting, JEA’s board of directors gave CEO Vickie Cavey a vote of confidence despite a call by Board Vice Chair Rick Morales’ call for her to resign amid the alleged workplace culture complaints and after her decision to eliminate the position of longtime chief of staff Kurt Wilson.
Pittman detailed a phone conversation she said she had with one JEA employee.
“And she shared that there are some serious concerns regarding the internal staff working at JEA,” Pittman said. “The allegations were very toxic. They felt like they worked in a hostile environment, a culture that must be addressed with transparency, accountability and a commitment to improve. The employees want an outside survey conducted to review internal issues by a third party because they feel like they can’t go to the staff.”
Salem said Wednesday that the committee will identify 40 to 50 “top-level” JEA employees and send them workplace morale surveys to their private emails to keep their anonymity.
The council members have said little about the so-far-uncorroborated allegations of racism at JEA. Salem says the survey will help examine those claims.
“We want to be real careful to not dive too deep in the weeds, as a lot of people have come forward and said they’re scared and they’re concerned,” Salem said.
Forming the committee allows the city lawmakers to call witnesses under oath and issue subpoenas. Salem, who is the council’s JEA liaison, led hearings into the inside attempt sell the utility in 2019.
Salem said Jason Teal, the council’s legislative counsel, will aid the investigation.
Carrico’s conflict?
As Carrico began to levy allegations against JEA’s CEO last month, Mayor Donna Deegan came to JEA CEO Cavey’s defense. On Wednesday, she was critical of the committee’s charge and questioned Carrico’s ability to oversee an impartial investigation of JEA.
“The Inspector General asked for a ‘limited-scope project,’ not the spectacle of a politically charged council committee weaponized against our JEA. That this effort is being driven by the Council President, who is himself the focus of a State Attorney investigation around his own JEA board appointment, further calls into question its legitimacy,” Deegan said in a statement emailed to Jacksonville Today on Wednesday.
“This is just more of the same power play that traces back to the people who tried to sell off our publicly owned utility the first time. JEA has a professional board, the majority of whom are appointed by the City Council. It is the board’s job to provide oversight,” Deegan said. “This new committee is an overreach that will only waste taxpayer dollars for personal political gain.”
The council president formed the investigatory committee while he faces his own investigation by State Attorney Melissa Nelson’s office, which has subpoenaed Carrico’s texts and emails related to his failed attempt in Feburary to appoint his boss, Boys & Girls Club Boys & Girls Club CEO Paul Martinez, to the spot to repay what he called “a big favor” in a text message to outgoing board member Arthur Adams.
Carrico said Wednesday he’s been granted an extension to fulfill the prosecutor’s office’s records request.
The committee’s charge also does not mention allegations made by Cavey and the mayor that the JEA CEO was pressured and threatened to renew a lobbying contract with Ballard Partners, where former Lenny Curry is a partner and his former chief of staff, Jordan Elsbury, is a manager.
When Jacksonville Today asked Carrico if the committee would also look into those allegations, he said, “I want to dismiss any thoughts or concerns that this is politically motivated. As you see behind me, this is a bipartisan committee. The inspector general’s office is not political at all. This is stemming from facts that’s reported, and we’re going to see if indeed there was any wrongdoing, and if we need to charge companies for their usage and that needs to be returned back to the citizens, that’s what we’re going to do.”
Not all council members are convinced the committee will be apolitical. At-large member Matt Carlucci told Jacksonville Today he spoke with the inspector general and was told the office did not ask Carrico to form a committee. Forming the committee is also not mentioned in the inspector general’s memo to Carrico.
The council president said he decided to form the committee after in-person, one-on-one meetings with the IG’s office.
