JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In December, JEA held a holiday party at the Florida Theater for its employees. There was catered food, an open bar, magicians and the total cost was $72,000. The space was free, but the party supplies, entertainment, food and alcohol was not.
Some JEA whistleblowers have recently called attention to what they believe are spending problems by JEA’s management. The CEO was not available to discuss the party with us on Wednesday, but the head of communications said it was a holiday event to thank employees.
“For those people who see the story about this, what we want them to know is that we are saying thank you to our workers for a number of key things -- keeping bills, the lowest in the state in terms of metropolitan utility services, for continuing to provide 24/7 reliability and and resiliency and putting this utility back on a firm, independently verified financial footing. Those are some remarkable achievements in the face of three years of adversity,” Mark Stultz, VP of Communications at JEA, said.
Sound off 📣: How do you feel about the publicly-owned utility, JEA, spending $72,000 on a holiday party?
We asked Stultz if he thought the price tag was out of line. “Again, we will look at it on a per head basis. We do not think at the holidays, providing $70 per attendee or $30 per employee is unreasonable to mark the holidays,” he said.
Michael Boylan is a city council liaison to the JEA board. He says this party and the money spent just sends a bad message.
“I can understand and appreciate where management is looking at the saying, we want to kind of celebrate the challenging couple of years we’ve had, howe we overcome those. But at the same time, it’s a lot of money, and it’s being paid by the ratepayers. So you, you have to question a little bit, the judgment to do that,” Boylan said.
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JEA has been under fire recently for the way it handled some of the top management with huge raises and the fact that some don’t even live in Jacksonville. Much came to light after our investigation looking into those pay raises, and Boylan says we could see some major changes soon at JEA.
“Absolutely, I think things are going to change because it was made very clear by chair Bobby Stein at the last meeting just last week is that they’re bringing in a consultant to do a little more oversight to build a greater bond between management and the board,” Boylan said.
One customer sent us this reaction to the party, “That’s about $32 per head. I think they received a very nice deal and employees should be rewarded once in a while!”
Another customer disagreed with the party saying, “I think that it’s insane to spend that much on anything that has no value to it. I mean I bet they didn’t consider customers who couldn’t afford to pay their electricity bill during the Christmas time.”
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