Jacksonville City Council members split over $70,000 for new City Hall office furniture

Jacksonville City Council is set to vote Tuesday night on whether the city needs to spend $70,000 on new office furniture. Council members are not seeing eye to eye on how to spend the city’s money on their own office furniture.

Councilman Ken Amaro presented a bill to take $70,000 from the Council Operating Contingency account and put it toward buying new furniture for City Hall. Amaro said the furniture hasn’t been updated since the 1980s and needs to modernize.

“The furniture hasn’t been replaced since 1989. It’s falling apart,” Amaro said.

“They’re in bad shape. I mean, and they need to be replaced,” Amaro said.

Some of the furniture they are looking to replace includes chairs and tables inside conference rooms and council member office desk chairs.

Amaro says the fund consists of $100,000 and is designed to be spent to meet the City Council’s needs.

“The money is coming from that fund, which is dedicated for this purpose,” Amaro said.

During last week’s Finance Committee meeting, city leaders voted 3-3 to defer the measure. One of the most vocal critics of the bill was Councilman Rory Diamond, who says the city needs to save money with Amendment 3 passing.

“It’s totally ridiculous,” Diamond said.

“We shouldn’t be spending any money we don’t have to spend with Amendment 3 having passed. We should be cutting salaries across the board in the city. And the City Council and the mayor should take pay cuts immediately to show that we’re serious about saving money and protecting services,” Diamond said.

Action News Jax asked Amaro what would happen if the money in that fund isn’t spent during this year’s budget. He says the money would then roll over into the general fund for the next fiscal year.

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