JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville City Council Member Ron Salem will hold a meeting on Tuesday at City Hall to discuss a possible effort he’s referring to as “Duval DOGE.”
The meeting will come as DOGE’s efforts at the federal and state levels to eliminate “unnecessary” spending to ensure government efficiency are already underway.
Though Salem did not want to share too many details ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, he did say cutting back is necessary going forward.
“We are looking at some very difficult budgets going forward,” Salem said. “We’re looking at deficits anywhere from $70-$100 million dollars over the next two, three years. And I think it’s time that we put forth an effort to try to tighten our belts and try to save some money.”
DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, is a special commission originally headed by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who jointly vowed to cut billions from the federal budget and usher in “mass headcount reductions across the federal bureaucracy.”
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Salem noted though discussions have only just started, his idea for a Duval DOGE contains one significant difference.
“We’re not bringing anybody from the outside, like an Elon Musk or anybody,” Salem said. “This will be an internal process basically run by the council auditors and with the council, so there will be no dollars expended, extra dollars expended in order to try to save these dollars.”
Salem also said his recommendation for the effort is to leave out what many consider to be core government, including police, fire, and garbage collection.
“Outside of that, we’ll be looking at all the other departments,” Salem said.
News4JAX Anchor Ashley Harding asked Salem: “Do you see any possibility of people losing their jobs within government here?”
“Well, depending on the extent of the deficits we have, there might be some belt-tightening that could include people,” Salem responded. “When you’ve got deficits like that, it’s hard not to make that kind of balance the budget, as we have to do in Jacksonville. We have a balanced budget, sometimes without involving people. They may be vacant positions that aren’t filled or various ways that you can cut positions without necessarily cutting people.”
News4JAX also talked to Mayor Donna Deegan about the possibility of Duval DOGE.
“We are we are still waiting to find out what our budget numbers are going to look like, what our property taxes are going to look like, what our revenue is going to look like over the next year, and just like we did last year, we’ll present a balanced budget,” Deegan said. “A responsible budget that continues to move us forward in the way that we have promised citizens in this city.”
Deegan also said government efficiency has been a priority of hers from the start.
″From permitting, where we’ve taken our permitting time down from 100 days to 40 days, the Lean program that we implemented last year that’s already saved 125,000 staff hours,” Deegan said. “We will obviously do everything that we can and have been doing everything we can to be as efficient as possible. This feels more political than practical to me, but we’re always happy to have more people looking at ways to be efficient.”
Salem said Duval DOGE would not necessarily interfere with the way the mayor does her budget.
“This will be a process that you’ll hear about Tuesday, that will be potentially a post-budget process,” Salem said.
In late February, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a DOGE task force to review and improve the state government’s efficiency.
“A state DOGE task force that will implement a multi-pronged approach to eliminating bureaucratic bloat and modernizing our state government to best serve the people of Florida in the years ahead,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis said he is proposing to eliminate 740 state government positions but will add positions in other state agencies that need more staff, like the Department of Corrections and Florida Highway Patrol. The task force will also review over 70 state boards and commissions to eliminate them.
Meeting Details
What: Meeting to discuss DOGE efforts on a local level
When: Tuesday, March 11 from 4 to 4:44 p.m.
Where: Lynwood Roberts Room at 117 West Duval Street, 1st floor, City Hall St. James Building
