Mayor Deegan presses Jacksonville City Council for diversity and inclusion chief

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mayor Donna Deegan pressed the Jacksonville City Council for a diversity and inclusion chief after members of the Finance Committee voted to remove and shift her proposed salary budget for that appointed position.

The Finance Committee voted 4-2 during an Aug. 24 hearing to reduce the newly proposed position of the chief of diversity and inclusion salary of $232,000 and transfer those dollars to the Human Rights Commission and the Public Works Department.

In response to the committee’s vote to remove and shift Deegan’s proposed salary budget for her appointed position of Dr. Parvez Ahmed, the mayor’s office ​​released a comparison of staffing budgets with the current and previous administrations.

“I am asking the City Council to give the same deference that they have to the Sheriff and previous administrations,” Deegan said.

In the mayor’s press release, she pointed out that city council “did not raise any concerns” when Deegan “increased the salaries” of Sheriff T.K. Waters’ executive team “by 44% and boosted the number” of full time employees by 19 in her proposed 2023-2024 budget.

However, according to the sheriff’s office, the 44% increase referenced by the mayor comes as a result of 19 full time employee positions “incorrectly factored” into the Sheriff’s Executive Office fund. The sheriff’s office told Florida’s Voice the funding for those positions “will not not be utilized to increase executive staff salaries.”

The chief of diversity and 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.”

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

During the Aug. 24 hearing, Councilman Nick Howland 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.

The mayor’s office compared previous mayor’s office positions that were funded by other departments and said the Deegan staffing budget, “adjusted for inflation, is only about 3% higher” than the 2021-2022 mayor’s office staff budget when former Mayor Lenny Curry’s team was fully staffed.

“Any comparison between administrations should account for the impact of general inflation and higher wages in a tight labor market,” the mayor’s office said.

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.”

Ahmed also sent a letter to the city council about the Finance Committee’s vote, urging them to “reconsider and restore funding” for his appointed position.

Ahmed pointed to similar reasons Deegan did in her press release, including Deegan’s staff budget being “nominally higher” than previous administrations due to inflation. He said a diversity officer is “commonplace in corporate America and local governments.”

Prior to the Finance Committee’s vote, questions rose from councilmembers as to what the new chief of diversity and inclusion would do that is not already being done by the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. In Ahmed’s letter to council members, he said there is “little overlap between the roles and responsibilities” of the two.

Ahmed also pointed to the recent, tragic Jacksonville shooting at a Dollar General where the suspect allegedly intended to target Black people.

“Targeting CDI for defunding, is the wrong message at the wrong time while our city reels from a racist mass shooting underscoring the need to reduce polarization,” Ahmed said.

Deegan also pointed to the Dollar General shooting and said the chief of diversity and inclusion position is “especially important in the wake of the horrific, racist mass shooting we recently experienced.”

“Now is the time for Jacksonville to join the ranks of our peer cities and Corporate America who find value in a chief diversity officer,” Deegan said.

Councilman Kevin Carrico, who made the motion to remove and shift the chief of diversity and inclusion proposal, said during the Aug. 24 hearing that this is “not a shot at the mayor’s office.”

“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.

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.

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

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