Shortly after the launch of a website meant to “take the politics out of arguments” in addressing the city’s strengths and deficiencies, the City Council’s Finance Committee voted to cut funding for the State of Jax initiative from the city’s next budget.
Mayor Donna Deegan announced the State of Jax initiative at an Aug. 5 press conference.
“This is about sharpening our tools for change,” said Deegan. “Just as a builder needs a blueprint, a city needs good data to build a future that works for everyone. The State of Jax gives us a clear, transparent view of where we’re doing well – and where we can do better. This is what separates the good cities from the world-class ones.”
The site utilizes MySidewalk software to gather hyperlocal data from numerous independent sources to identify strengths and opportunities across the entire city. It offers information on economics, education, health, and social issues, and reports include topics on life expectancy, labor force participation rates, and poverty rates among college-educated and non-college-educated residents. The site plans to offer annual competitiveness reports later this year, which will benchmark Jacksonville’s performance in key areas against peer cities, regional norms and long-term goals.
Finance Committee Pushback
One of the finance committee’s recurring themes during the latest round of budget hearings is to eliminate redundant spending. District 13 City Councilman Rory Diamond made the motion to remove the initiative’s $237,300 funding request from the budget because the Nonprofit Center for Northeast Florida had already created a website with similar information.
“Not only is this bad policy, and something that the people of Jacksonville have said they don’t want, it’s redundant,” said Diamond. “The Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida has a ‘MySidewalk’ dashboard that is already built with 400 nonprofits contributing.”
The Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida launched its Catalyst Northeast Florida dashboard last October. It combines the data collected from 400 nonprofit, public and government leaders with the software platform MySidewalk to define the strengths and weaknesses of Jacksonville and Northeast Florida. Topics include youth and education, health and wellness, prosperity and opportunity, housing and neighborhoods, older adults and people with disabilities and community and civic vibrancy. This information can then be compared on local, state and national levels. Information is also collected from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Florida Department of Education.
The Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida plans to relaunch the Catalyst dashboard at its 2025 Nonprofit Works Conference (Charting the Course: Bold Leadership for a New Era) at the Florida Blue Conference Center on Oct. 16.
United Way of Northeast Florida is the fiscal agent for the MySidewalk contract that the website uses and Melanie Patz, United Way president and CEO and a State of Jax advisory committee member, explained that the contract that the State of Jax had with the software company allowed them a deeper level of access to the data the company offered.
“This contract allows analysis and disaggregation in a way that the Catalyst contract does not,” said Patz.
Deegan’s Chief of Analytics, Dr. Parvez Ahmed, said the administration was aware of this difference because Nonprofit Center for Northeast Florida CEO Dawn Lockhart is also on the data advisory committee for the State of Jax.
“We were aware of Catalyst and held several meetings with Dawn Lockhart before conceiving of the State of Jax,” said Parvez Ahmed, Chief of Analytics for the Office of the Mayor, in a statement. “We have had a longstanding partnership with the Nonprofit Center, and these programs are complementary to each other.”
Committee Chair Raul Arias addressed another issue with the State of Jax budget request.
“You’re asking for $200,000 for the licensing fee and $37,300 for the website design when everything is already built. You got ahead of the curve without knowing if we would approve it or not and, at this point, you guys are out of luck,” said Arias. “It’s about the process. You have to respect the process. I’m the finance chair and I had my first meeting on this a week and a half ago.”
Finance Committee Vice Chair Nick Howland and members Joe Carlucci, Will Lahnen and Ron Salem agreed with Arias and Diamond and voted for the motion. Committee Member Ju’Coby Pittman voted against the motion.
Mayor Deegan looked at this setback as the beginning of negotiations with the City Council.
“The cuts being made are simply recommendations of the Finance Committee to the full City Council. We are in the first inning of the game,” said Mayor Donna Deegan in a statement. “We look forward to discussing these adjustments to a well-developed, balanced budget with all 19 council members.”
After receiving the proposed budget from the mayor in July, the City Council’s seven-member finance committee can amend it during its budget hearing process. Following these hearings, the amended budget is presented to the full, 19-member city council, which will hold at least two public hearings to collect resident feedback. The council must approve the final budget before Oct. 1, which marks the start of the new fiscal year. The final vote typically occurs in the council’s last September meeting.
State of Jax History
Deegan first discussed the idea behind the State of Jax initiative at the beginning of the year, when she pledged to those in attendance at the Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast to “make change for good.”
“From the day it was established, my administration has been fully engaged with the Jacksonville Transformation Coalition – a coalition of the willing that is working across Jacksonville’s public, private, and philanthropic sectors to create a city that is not only a destination for businesses and families, but also equitable and inclusive across our many neighborhoods,” Deegan said at the breakfast.
The Jacksonville Transformation Coalition was created in response to the August 2023 shootings at a Jacksonville Dollar General store. Its efforts are intended to create a safer, healthier and more equitable Jacksonville for all residents. The State of Jax is a coalition initiative, and its goal is to provide data to identify, measure and report Jacksonville’s progress toward shared economic, educational, health and cultural goals.
