BRADENTON, Fla. – A majority of voters in Jacksonville, Fla., agreed to keep a local half-cent sales tax for an additional 30 years to help pay down nearly $3 billion in city pension obligations.
Some 65% of voters supported the sales tax referendum on Tuesday's ballot, according to the Duval County Elections Office.
It is the first time in Florida that a local sales tax has been used to fund a public pension system.
The win came amid a hard-fought campaign by Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican, who said pension debt posed "one of the greatest threats" to the city's future.
A lawsuit filed by five local voters asking a Jacksonville judge to pull the referendum from the ballot was still pending as the referendum proceeded. Hearings on the suit have yet to be scheduled.
The pension funding plan is based on extending a half-cent local option sales tax enacted in 2000 to fund the Better Jacksonville Plan, a pay-as-you-go and bond financed infrastructure program.
The BJP tax is scheduled to expire in December 2030.
In 2031, the same half-cent sales tax will continue in effect for up to 30 years or until the city's pension plans are fully funded, whichever comes first.
Now that the referendum has passed, city officials must enter collective bargaining with unions to close at least one of its three pension plans to new hires.
As required by a state law passed earlier this year authorizing the sale tax extension, the city must also require employees to pay a minimum of 10% toward their pensions.
