Jacksonville committee votes to defund Deegan’s chief of diversity & inclusion proposal

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (FLV) –  Members of the Jacksonville Finance Committee voted to remove and shift Mayor Donna Deegan’s proposed salary budget for her appointed position of Dr. Parvez Ahmed as chief of diversity & inclusion during a hearing Thursday.

The Finance Committee voted 4-2 to reduce the newly proposed position of the chief of diversity & inclusion salary of $232,000 and transfer those dollars to the Human Rights Commission and the Public Works Department.

Council members are not allowed to eliminate the position, but they are able to eliminate the funding for the position.

Councilman Kevin Carrico made the motion to remove the chief of diversity & inclusion salary of $232,000 and place $145,000 to the Human Rights Commission and $87,000 to the Public Works Department.

“This is not a shot at the mayor’s office at the budget, this is just us trying to do what we think we need to do because we have a say in how the city runs as well,” Carrico said.

The chief of diversity & inclusion is a new position created by the mayor. According to Deegan’s newly appointed Chief of Staff Pat McCollough, Ahmed would be responsible for “implementing the mayor’s vision” to ensure that her administration maintains an environment that is “welcoming, supportive and promotes collaboration across differences.”

Prior to the vote, questions rose from councilmembers as to what the new chief of diversity & inclusion would do that is not already being done by the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission.

Councilman Nick Howland said he “can’t help but to see that there’s duplication” with the new position and what the Human Rights Commission already does.

“Jacksonville is a growing city, we have a perception of having a diversity problem here, we have to have somebody overall looking at that issue,” Deegan said during the hearing.

Deegan explained the job of the Human Rights Commission is largely to deal with internal complaints within city government and the job of the diversity & inclusion director is “really more of an outreach position.”

“We want to be seen as a city that embraces diversity,” Deegan said. “We have a city that looks more like a melting pot than just about any city in the country and yet, we do not have a forward looking diversity program in this city as so many other cities do.”

Councilman Ron Salem asked if this can be done within the Human Rights Commission versus the new separate position.

Ahmed served two terms on the Human Rights Commission and said the commission has been “fairly limited” as to what it used to do through community engaged conversations, “particularly around racial inequity issues.”

“The mayor had made a commitment during her campaign that she would address this as a priority for her administration,” Ahmed said. “So, that’s the role that I primarily see myself as a person who is executing the mayor’s mandate to build a culture of collaboration across our differences, both within city hall as well as across the city.”

Councilman Matt Carlucci said Ahmed is “desperately needed” if Jacksonville wants to be the “inclusive city that the majority of people wanted when they voted in the election.”

“I believe that this particular outreach and department will blossom into something even bigger and it will bring greater results for Jacksonville as a whole to be what a big city not only should look like, but what we should, in fact, be like,” Carlucci said.

Howland said the city general fund expenditure increased. He pointed out that the mayor’s office salary budget is $850,000 higher than the last salary budget.

“To me, we don’t want to grow government just to grow government, when there’s redundancy, we need to do the fiscally responsible thing and we need to cut back,” Howland said.

Councilman Reggie Gaffney Jr. asked Deegan what impact of removing the $232,000 for the position would have on the city and her administration.

“It would cause me not to be able to retain Dr. Ahmed in that position and I think, you know, that’s really what we’re looking at here,” Deegan said. “The position can stay, but if I can’t fund it, it would be very, very hard for us to have a director of diversity in the City of Jacksonville.”

Howland noted that removing the money for the position would bring the mayor’s budget down, but it would “still be higher than every mayor’s office budget before it.”

The decision will head to the full city council for a vote in September.