Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton last week testified at a Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., that the “record of financial discipline and self-reliance” of the consolidated city-county government has been “undermined by circumstances beyond our control.”
In a hearing on the condition of the nation’s infrastructure, Peyton said that mandatory tax reform measures imposed by the Florida Legislature in 2007 resulted in a $65 million shortfall in the city’s budget. Additional reforms imposed by voters earlier this year decreased the budget by another $50 million, forcing the city to cut $38.5 million from the budget and for the first time impose fees for several city services to diversify the revenue stream.
“Now we are struggling to sustain delivery of fundamental city services on a daily basis, let alone find local or state resources to address our compelling longer-term infrastructure needs,” said Peyton, who is mayor of an 840-square-mile consolidated government with Duval County in northeast Florida.
Jacksonville has its own bond programs, such as the voter-approved $2.3 billion Better Jacksonville Plan, a comprehensive capital program that began in 2000 to fund various infrastructure and economic development improvements. But Peyton said the city still has critical infrastructure needs that have “tremendous regional and national impact,” such as the build-out of the transportation network surrounding the city’s expanding marine port terminal, the expansion of the sewer system, and a septic tank phase-out initiative.
Peyton said Jacksonville is a leading transit and distribution center with millions of tons of raw materials and manufactured goods moving through the city each year, and it has the fastest-growing port on the eastern seaboard.
“A major transportation infrastructure overhaul will be necessary to divert port traffic away from our local neighborhoods and roadways directly to the interstate system,” he said. “We are working on a technical and financial feasibility plan to be completed in September, but based on preliminary estimates we anticipate the necessary highway improvements to total at least $326 million.”
“While this type of investment in publicly owned rail and goods movement infrastructure is not currently identified as an activity for the proposed National Infrastructure Bank, I respectfully encourage the committee to consider other means of transit which would offset the cost of roadway infrastructure and alleviate congestion,” he urged.
Additionally, the water quality of the St. Johns River — designated by the federal government as one of 14 American Heritage Rivers encompassing 2,750 square miles surrounded by two million residents — is “gravely threatened” in large part by failed septic systems that require major investment to replace with sewers, Peyton said.
While the city established the Water and Sewer Expansion Authority to help finance needed infrastructure in neighborhoods, the cost of connecting to a central sewer system is at least $15,000 per home. The city has provided $80 million and the state has granted $12 million to convert septic tanks to sewers, but Peyton said it will cost between $400 million and $800 million to address additional conversions. And another $200 million in wastewater treatment plant improvements are needed.
“There is no local or state funding source that can address a need of this magnitude,” he told the banking committee members. “Thus, I believe that financing models like the National Infrastructure Bank would help major metropolitan areas such as Jacksonville address the critical challenges facing our nation’s aging infrastructure by leveraging resources in a more efficient and effective manner, and enabling more local resources to be allocated to local responsibilities.”
Peyton appeared before the Banking Committee along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to discuss funding for the estimated $1.6 trillion in infrastructure improvements needed across the country over the next five years.
