JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The City Council Finance Committee has potentially accomplished a goal they attempted last year: nixing the mayor’s chief of diversity and inclusion.
The council successfully lowered Mayor Donna Deegan’s staff budget last year in order to cut the position, but she transferred money internally to retain her hire of Parvez Ahmed in the new role. This year, they cut the salary and lowered her staff cap by one position. Council member Rory Diamond said he will also introduce an amendment next week to prohibit any use of funding for the position.
Diamond said he proposed the change because the impact of the role, and similar initiatives to diversify boards, divides the public.
“People of Jacksonville don't want it,” Diamond said. “I mean, it's been very clear. Everywhere I go, people just don't like this [diversity, equity and inclusion] stuff where they're separating people by their immutable characteristics. They just want people treated the same based on the quality of work that they do.”
Deegan and her administration have repeatedly defended the position, along with the creation of the African American Advisory Board and the LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, as a way to include all citizens in government operations.
“It is incredibly important to me that one of the most diverse cities in the country, which is our city, really makes everyone feel welcome here,” Deegan said in a news conference Thursday. “I don't know why that threatens people so much.”
Council members said Friday that they were not against Ahmed, but against the position itself.
Council member Nick Howland said it was duplicative of the work of the Human Rights Commission and reminded the committee that the salary transfer last year paid for a position within the commission and in the public works department.
Darnell Smith, the mayor’s chief of staff, defended the role to the committee and pointed to Ahmed’s work to bring the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. breakfasts together, to improve the advisory boards and honor the diverse groups of people that make up the city.
The office could change the name of the position, Smith offered. The Human Rights Commission reacts to complaints of discrimination, while Ahmed acts proactively through his background as an economist, he said. To that end, they would change his title to the chief of analytics and strategic engagement if necessary.
Transfers could become limited, however, because of legislation Diamond introduced this week that would cap the amount Deegan could transfer internally to under $100,000. He said Friday that council could potentially establish a subcommittee to monitor the movements and make hasten the process when necessary.
For Ahmed’s position, this would stifle her ability to repeat what she accomplished last year to fund the role.
On a larger scale, Deegan said it would impact the power to accomplish projects efficiently. She moves money when necessary for big projects on the riverfront and septic tank removals, she said, and having to go through the council would slow the process.
“It's an insult to the voters who put me into office,” Deegan said Thursday, referencing the bills put through council this year to limit her authority. “People put me here because they trust me to do what I believe is best for the city. And look, I have no problem with counsel taking that fiscal magnifying glass and looking through it. All good. But at the end of the day, let me do my job.”
Council member Ju’Coby Pittman plans to reintroduce the position when the budget goes to the full council, she told the Times-Union. She said she found the removal as “insulting and very divisive.”
Two-thirds of the council would have to vote to re-incorporate the position.