JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After a debate that turned heated and slightly personal at times, Jacksonville city leaders approved an amended version of a bill to adjust how city council raises are handled.
The original plan would have done away with automatic pay raises for council members and forced them to vote each year on whether to take salary increases.
The NOPE bill stands for “No Obligatory Pay Enlargement,” but after a debate centered around a cost of living increase, the city council passed an amended version of the bill that removed the original language.
“If you look over the past 10 years, the cost of living adjustment has only been 1.52% over the past 10 years, so I ask you all to support the amendment,” Councilman Garrett Dennis said. “We’ve vetted it in finance. It allows each one of us to make the decision for ourselves.”
Councilman Rory Diamond, who introduced the bill, promised to keep fighting for the original version “until it passes.”
“People are asking me why I’ve been so fired up about this,” Diamond said. “It’s rare there is something so clearly right and so clearly wrong.”
Rather than removing the automatic raises, each council member will need to submit in writing whether they are accepting or rejecting an automatic cost-of-living salary increase for the upcoming fiscal year.
Going forward, those forms will be posted on the city’s website.
The conversation surrounding the changes grew heated Tuesday night as council members reacted to something Diamond said on The Morning Show last week, referring to those opposing the bill as “swamp creatures.”
“Our neighbors put us up here to work in their best interest. And I, too, must say that I was extremely challenged with Councilman Diamond’s allegations of swamp creatures,” Councilwoman Brenda Priestly Jackson said. “Though the flipside of me, as a UF Gator, thought maybe it’s not a bad thing.”
Councilwoman Randy DeFoor also took exception to the comment.
“I’m going to take a page from my grandmother’s book, and with as much grace as I can muster simply say, Mr. Diamond, bless your heart,” DeFoor said.
City council salaries make up only a small part of the city’s $1.3 billion budget.
Last fall, council members approved a 4.6% increase, bringing salaries for most council members to over $52,000 a year.