Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, July 18, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 176 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Curry adds 40 cops in tight budget No added library hours, fire stations; Friends gets $250,000
Mayor Lenny Curry unveiled his more than $1 billion budget this morning at City Hall.
Twitter can be troublesome if used incorrectly. Last week, it forced CSX Corp. to scramble its plans to release second-quarter earnings. Jacksonville-based CSX was planning to release the numbers shortly after the stock market closed at 4 p.m. Wednesday, as per its usual practice. The company follows the late afternoon earnings release with an early morning conference call with analysts the next day, before the market opens at 9:30 a.m. Most companies do something similar, releasing and discussing earnings reports when the market is closed so investors have an opportunity to digest the information before the stock begins trading on it. However, CSX sent an inadvertent tweet about earnings at 2 p.m. Wednesday that forced a change in plans. Because of conWard cerns that the market might act on information in the tweet, CSX took the unusual step of releasing its full earnings report early at about 3 p.m., while the market was still open. The news was good — CSX’s earnings of 47 cents a share were 9 cents lower than the second quarter of 2015 but 3 cents higher than the average forecast of analysts, according to Thomson Financial. So CSX’s stock jumped up in the final hour of Basch
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Photo by Fran Ruchalski
Twitter forces CSX to scramble
Photo by Max Marbut
By David Chapman Staff Writer
Mayor Lenny Curry unveiled his budget Monday, laying out a more than $1 billion spending plan that adds 40 police officers and 40 community service officers and pays off almost $15 million in debt. But it’s a tighter budget, which meant saying “no” to a lot of requests and other needs, he said in City Council Chambers. Curry declined to fund some higher-profile asks, such as extra library hours, more mowing of city-owned rights of way and adding fire stations. Friends of Hemming Park will receive only half of its $500,000 request.
Public safety, though, and those additional officers remain in the budget. It’s been Curry’s No. 1 priority and an area that he said couldn’t do more with less. Curry’s senior staff spent more than a month crafting the budget. It’s now up to council to determine how the city should proceed in the coming year. The backdrop for this year’s presentation to council was one of tightened purse strings and the all-important Aug. 30 vote on a sales-tax extension to pay down the city’s $2.7 billion unfunded pension liability. Curry has said with an affirmative vote and additional positive steps, the city could stand to gain at least $40 million in pension relief annually — money
that could be spent on everyday services. The trade-off, according to fiscal models, is paying off more over time with that dedicated revenue source. Curry in his budget also set aside $3.5 million in reserves for future pension costs, less than the $5 million discussed during his staff’s budget meetings. The council Finance Committee, led by Anna Brosche, will begin its typical monthlong review in the next few weeks. The group generally concludes its work for a full council review in the middle of September. dchapman@jaxdailyrecord.com @writerchapman (904) 356-2466
Sliding into some relief from the heat The 1,000-foot Urban Slide let riders find a way to stay cool Saturday and Sunday in Downtown Jacksonville. The slide was in the urban core last year but didn’t provide enough of a slope to keep riders moving. This year, it was moved to Riverside Avenue, leading into Downtown. See more photos on Page A-9.
Long-term Downtown parklet debuts Sept. 16 By Max Marbut Staff Writer
On Friday, Sept. 16, Jacksonville will join about 200 cities around the world to celebrate PARK(ing) Day, when metered parking spaces will be converted into temporary public amenities. By the next morning, the more than 1,000 spaces will return to service as parking places, but one of them — along a street Downtown yet to be determined — will
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remain a “parklet.” It will be a Downtown Vision Inc. demonstration project. The model is intended to educate the public about the parklet concept and recruit businesses to participate in the initiative. “Once a parklet is in the ground, it will be easier for people to understand,” said Jake Gordon, CEO of the Downtown advocacy organization. He said it’s not a case of “reinventing the wheel,” since many cities established
parklet programs years ago and have developed best practices and navigated around common regulatory obstacles involved in installing a small park between a sidewalk and a busy street. What’s worked in other cities will be adapted to Jacksonville’s unique environment, Gordon said. Working with Jack Shad, principal of Windmill Consulting and former city director of public parking, a “how-to manual” is Parklet continued on Page A-7
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