JEA employees happy on the job, but survey rates leadership lower

JEA has released an employee survey, giving the first snapshot of morale inside the public utility since the start of a City Council workplace investigation in March. 

The survey shows 49% of employees who responded have confidence in the chiefs at JEA while other markers, like overall job satisfaction and direct supervisor care, scored higher — in the 70% to 80% range.

According to the utility, 59% of its roughly 2,200 employees participated in the survey. 

JEA does similar employee surveys regularly. The data released Monday is separate from a second internal investigation sparked in March by an employee complaint in the wake of Jacksonville City Council President Kevin Carrico’s claims of anonymous reports of workplace toxicity and racism linked to the leadership of CEO Vickie Cavey. 

Carrico himself is under investigation by the State Attorney’s Office related to JEA. On Feb. 5, the council president sent a text message to JEA board member Arthur Adams saying Adams would not be reappointed because Carrico “owed a big favor to a friend and opted to put him of the JEA board. Days later, Carrico nominated his boss — Paul Martinez, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida.

Martinez has since withdrawn his nomination, and Carrico’s latest appointment remains on hold.

A City Council Special Investigatory Committee on JEA, formed by Carrico, is conducting its own survey of 144 JEA employees who work at the utility’s corporate headquarters and interact with Cavey.

According to City Council Secretary and Director Jason Teal, those survey results won’t be available until the end of June.

But the data released by JEA on Monday shows administrative staff speaking more favorably of JEA’s work experience than JEA employees on the whole.

Cavey has pushed back against Carrico’s toxic workplace assertions — a claim Mayor Donna Deegan in February called a “smear campaign” against the utility executive.

The survey’s highs and lows

The survey, conducted in April by Pennsylvania-based human resources firm Energage, compared JEA employees’ collective responses to workplace experience data gathered from other eclectic and water utilities with 600 to 2,200 workers.

The highest three categories show: 

• 83% –  “My manager cares about my concerns.” 
• 80% – “My manager helps me learn and grow.”
• 80% – “Overall, I am very satisfied with my job.”

Those answers matched responses to the same questions by other utilities.

The three lowest marks were: 

• 46% – “Directors, VPs and Chiefs understand what is really happening at JEA.” 
• 47% – “I feel well informed about important JEA decisions.”
• 49% –  “I have confidence in the Chiefs of JEA.” 

About 55% or respondents feel the utility is going in the right direction, and 57% said JEA encourages different points of view. Those were 17% and 15%, respectively, below the industry average.

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In the results above, the dark blue bar represents the percentage of positive responses of JEA employees. The light blue bar on the pages marked “All JEA” is workplace survey data from comparatively sized utilities.

In the next seven sets, the dark blue bar indicates responses from JEA employees in that department and under the named chief. They’re compared to the light blue bar showing the total positive JEA employee responses.

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JEA officials will officially present the findings to the utility’s board of directors June 30.

“JEA is analyzing the survey results, and senior leadership is developing action plans to address key employee concerns,” JEA Public Information Office Karen McAllister told Jacksonville Today in an email Tuesday.

JEA has been conducting the survey since the late 1990s. According to a utility spokesperson, the employee poll was conducted by the same firm who surveyed JEA workers in 2024.

When will the investigations wrap?

It’s unclear when JEA’s second investigation by outside law firm Jackson Lewis will be complete. 

Carrico’s charge authorizing the City Council’s Special Investigatory Committee is set to expire at the end of June, the same time his one-year term as president ends.

The committee subpoenaed Cavey and other JEA executives to testify about the workplace allegations. Cavey is scheduled to go before the committee June 22. JEA Chief Administrative Officer Jody Brooks and its former chief legal counsel, Regina Ross, testified June 8. 

Some city lawmakers, including City Council member Matt Carlucci, say the investigatory committee’s probe into JEA personnel issues goes beyond the council’s oversight of the utility.

To date, the utility’s former chief of staff, Kurt Wilson, has offered the only testimony that implicates Cavey in what he considered toxic workplace behavior. He alleged that she would pound the table and raise her voice during executive team meetings. 

Brooks said June 8 that she had not witnessed this type of behavior. Ross said in her testimony that the JEA headquarters can be a high pressure environment but that she did not know of anyone quitting because of a demanding or toxic workplace.