Duval County

JEA CEO says employee bonus plan was ‘error in judgement’

By Courtney Cole, Action News Jax
JEA
By Courtney Cole, Action News Jax

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There is turmoil inside the utility in charge of keeping the lights on for a half-million homes in our area.

JEA leaders are under fire over a bonus program that could have cost customers millions of dollars.

Now, at least one board member wants the CEO, who came up with the plan— fired.

JEA CEO pressured to step away JEA CEO pressured to step away

Action News Jax Courtney Cole was inside the meeting, Downtown in City Hall, where City Council questioned Aaron Zahn.

Cole says Zahn apologized to the Council, saying the Performance Unit Plan was an “error in judgement.”

If it had gone through, it would have allowed higher-paid employees to make a pretty significant profit from the sale of the public utility.

Motivating employees and keeping them long -term.

That's what Aaron Zahn, JEA’s Chief Executive Officer, said was the goal of the "Performance Unit Plan" or "PUP.”

Employees would have been able to pay $10 to participate and invest in the company.

Initially, it was thought the plan was going to cost $3.4m, annually.

City leaders are skeptical...because of the way the plan came about.

They say plans and calculations for the PUP— were made without the city auditor or city council being made aware.

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In fact— the JEA board voted unanimously to pass the plan...at the same meeting where they began to talk about selling the utility…on July 23RD.

Councilman Ron Salem said the plan would have benefitted 37 highest paid employees at JEA.

JEA leaders deny it.

City leaders and JEA went back-and-forth for hours— with JEA unable to answer many questions about the origin of the plan and its approval.

JEA already pulled out of the plan, but it will officially be terminated on Tuesday.

What’s being perceived as a continue lack of transparency from JEA, some city leaders are still searching for answers about the potential sale of JEA.

One councilman is calling for a Grand Jury Investigation.

“I believe it is imperative at this point that we cast a large net over the entire city of Jacksonville government—and have a third party take a look at what's going on,” Councilman Carlucci told Action News Jax Courtney Cole.

Carlucci started working on a resolution on Monday. He’s calling for a grand jury investigation into the way JEA has handled a potential sale.

The councilman told Action News Jax the investigation is necessary for several reasons: he’s critical of the secretive ITN process JEA choose to collect bids from prospective buyers— a process without city council or the city auditor approval.

JEA is also chose to hold negotiations in Atlanta, he also points to possible conflicts of interest by JEA CEO Aaron Zahn.

"If the council were to pass some major transaction with the JEA—2 weeks later, 6 months later, a year later— turns out whatever we passed, had been corrupted at an earlier stage, not necessarily by council but by somebody else, I would feel like I missed my fiduciary duty to the citizens of Jacksonville."

This comes almost two weeks after Councilman Carlucci called on Aaron Zahn to resign.

Now according to a letter sent by JEA board member Henry Brown , he will ask for that resignation during Tuesday’s JEA board meeting.

When Action News Jax asked Zahn if he has any plans to step down. Here's what he had to say:

“I haven’t made that decision. I do respect the will of the board, I certainly hear the ire of the people and I respect that well. At the end of the day, I serve the pleasure of the board and I’ll do what they ask me to,” said Aaron Zahn.

Councilman will present the resolution to city council in January.

© 2019 Cox Media Group

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