JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Special Committee of Duval DOGE is looking into more than $100 million of taxpayer dollars that appears to be sitting in limbo.
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In the committee’s second official meeting Tuesday, members continued digging into more than 170 capital projects that either haven’t spent money since October 1, 2023 or have been listed as complete but still have money in the bank.
Of those completed projects, committee members identified 36 totaling $17.25 million that could be immediately closed out.
They also indicated they’ll be looking into 65 projects totaling $81 million that haven’t spent any money over the past two budget cycles, especially those that have never spent any money since their inception.
Committee Chair Ron Salem (R-Group 2 At-Large) pointed out some of those projects have been stagnating for more than a decade.
“Well, we have turnover on the council, as we always do every four years. Do some of these projects still make sense to the district councilmen? If not, let’s close them, and reappropriate those dollars. Some of it is Paygo, which is cash. Some of it is debt that we can reappropriate to other projects. Just potentially tens of millions of dollars in savings here,” said Salem.
The committee will also soon dig into city facility usage, travel policies, and overtime along with the city’s relationships with independent agencies and the use of city credit cards by city employees.
In the end, Salem said he hopes to return any savings identified by Duval DOGE directly to taxpayers.
“If we can to do that, I’d like to do that, but right now I’m just trying to maximize the savings,” said Salem.
The committee will meet again three weeks from now.
Its final report is due June 25th, but Chair Salem said he expects the committee to continue its work past that date when the new Council President takes over.
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