City Council committee cuts DEI chief from budget

In a 4-2 vote, City Council members on Friday tentatively approved a move by Councilman Rory Diamond to cut the $189,625 salary and benefits package for the chief of diversity and inclusion.

Efforts by City Council members to chop the position failed last year, when the position was funded by an internal budget transfer — a loophole that Diamond suggested council will try to close this time around.

But some say the committee’s vote isn’t set in stone and could change as the budget evolves.

“Either way I vote, I’m gonna get a phone call,” said Councilman Terrance Freeman, who ultimately supported the amendment to pull the funding — at least temporarily. “Let’s just be clear. I want my friends to know in the city that today, when I take this vote — regardless of how it goes — it’s not over.”

Diamond — who has filed several amendments this week to cut the budget — initiated the amendment to chop the DEI chief out of Mayor Donna Deegan’s proposed $1.92 billion budget proposal. According to the council auditor’s office, the total compensation for the position is $232,121. The position is currently held by Dr. Parvez Ahmed.

Diamond said the cuts his office is recommending, including this one, are an effort to balance the budget. He blasted the mayor’s office for what he sees as needless attacks on the council.

“Yesterday the mayor’s office had a gaggle where they essentially attacked members of this council specifically for doing our job,” Diamond said. “I just want to be 100% clear, it’s incredibly cynical to attack elected officials who are simply trying to get to a balanced budget.”

He said many of the actions taken by the committee Thursday and Friday reflect what voters want council members to do. He said he wanted to “lower the heat for the day, so we can just focus on policy and getting a balanced budget.”

“I think we need to just get rid of that cynicism in this debate and this discussion,” Diamond said. “We have a difference on policy when it comes to DEI. I think the people of Jacksonville want a colorblind city government. I think they want a city government that doesn’t care what gender you are or who you go home to, but just — what kind of work are you doing?”

Councilman Nick Howland agreed, adding that the conversation was the same when the DEI chief’s position was created during last year’s budget season.

“Last year, why we took the funding out and created the additional caps at Jacksonville Human Rights Commission in planning was because we thought the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission already covered all the activities that this new DEI office was supposed to do,” Howland said.

Quoting the city’s website, Howland said the commission “sponsors and facilitates community conversations on a variety of issues that serve to foster a deeper understanding of other racial, ethnic, religious and cultural norms.”

“We all share the same goal, and it’s unifying our city,” Howland said. “But we don’t want it to be redundant.”

Darnell Smith, the mayor’s chief of staff, defended the DEI director’s position.

“We get it. In the state of Florida, focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion, quite frankly, has become something that is very bad,” Smith said. “We are evolving our thinking such that (the position is) more than just about diversity, equity and inclusion. At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, it’s really about how do we unite the city and how do we make certain that everybody in this city feels like they belong in the city.”

Smith said the role is about creating a sense of belonging in the city. He said he disagreed with Howland’s assertion that the DEI chief and human rights commission do the same thing.

The work of the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission focuses on “things that have been done in this city that harm people” — it is more reactive than proactive, he said.

“They make decisions on that. That is their primary focus,” Smith said. The DEI chief’s work “is to be able to go outward … in every sector.”

In an email, city spokesman Phil Perry shared a list of efforts by Parvez: unifying traditionally “dueling MLK Breakfasts” into a single unity breakfast; increasing outreach in the Hispanic community with a new position and heritage dinner; creating African American and LGBTQ+ advisory boards; and creating a host of other city events aimed at celebrating the contributions of diverse cultural populations in the city.

Freeman, for his part, said he feels the DEI chief’s position is more of a “community guy,” and he wants the city to reconsider the definition of the role.

Smith told council that Parvez has economic skills the administration hopes can be leveraged in the DEI chief’s role.

“This young man is an economist, an excellent economist at UNF,” Smith said. “We don’t have analytics in our particular organization. We’re looking at actually leveraging that particular work, while also focusing on the belonging work.”

But Freeman said even suggesting reconsidering the position’s goals will garner criticism for him.

“Very few things will anger me in this space,” Freeman said. “If I don’t support this, people are going to go out and say that I’m against it, just like they did with the hate bill and everything else. And we, as a city, gotta get beyond that.”

The post City Council committee cuts DEI chief from budget appeared first on Jacksonville Today .