The Duval County School Board will vote Monday whether to close two more elementary schools: the urban core’s 108-year-old Long Branch Elementary and Anchor Academy, which serves many military families stationed at Mayport.
Officials say the district has 30,000 unfilled seats and they needs school closures in order to “right-size” the district — in other words, to operate with enough students to break even with state funding. The district has too many small schools, Superintendent Christopher Bernier says in an oft-repeated slide presentation, and each school needs at least 700 students to recoup the cost of keeping the doors open.
While those reasons have remained consistent, the language that Bernier uses while talking about the financial urgency of school closures has done something of a 180 — from needing to fill a $100 million budget hole to “truly balancing” the budget a year later — though the savings from school closures do not come close to $100 million.
Last year, when the board voted to close six schools, Bernier warned the district was facing a “$100 million debt” and needed to scale back costs or risk cutting jobs. And the superintendent repeatedly raised the specter of a state takeover due to depleted reserves.
“We have a better fund balance than we’ve had in the past,” Bernier told the board this November. “We’re moving away from that critical factor of state takeover.”
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At the time of last year’s vote, the meeting agenda showed the district’s “ending fund balance” was 4.04% of revenue, above the state’s 2% takeover threshold. That was down from previous balances of 8% in 2020 and 2021.
What happened to the ‘$100 million debt’?
A year ago, Bernier came back again and again to the “$100 million” talking point.
On the eve of a round of school closures that rallied communities, Bernier said Duval Schools had a “$100 million debt” that would not go away unless the board made cuts like closing schools.
A week later, the board voted to close three schools at the end of that school year and three more at the end of this one. This spring, the district announced most secondary schools would cut one of their eight daily periods, which it said would save as much as $10 million. Leaders floated eliminating bus transportation to magnet schools but later decided against it.
During Duval Schools CFO Ron Fagan’s presentation to the board last month, District 4 School Board member Darryl Willie — who voted against half of the 2024 school closures — asked Fagan what happened to the “$100 million” debt.
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“One of the conversations we kept coming back to was this number, about a hundred million dollars. That was a number the public knew,” Willie said.
Fagan chalked up the shift, in part, to a change in the district’s accounting methods.
“That original $100 million was basically looking at your prior years…we kept seeing a fund balance continuing to go down. At the same time, [COVID-era funding] was getting ready to go away,” Fagan said. “We were projecting, if we continue on with this trend, we’re going to have a $50 [million] to $70 million problem.”
In previous years, Fagan explained, his predecessor underfunded some categories to balance the budget — like using salary averages instead of actual figures, for example — and then used reserves to make up for any shortfalls at the end of the year. Fagan says his approach fully funds all categories, and so eliminates the potential for large transfers from reserves to cover shortfalls. And, a one-time bump from leftover federal COVID funding is helping pad this year’s reserves.
“So now the objective is to control that spending moving forward and make sure we budget sufficient reserves to handle any hiccups in the future regarding an unexpected expense or a decline in the reserves,” Fagan said.
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Fagan tells the School Board the district’s finances are steadily improving.
For one, the state Department of Education recently notified the district it would receive an additional $1 million based on student enrollment, in addition to a belated $2.3 million payment the district was already expecting.
And, Fagan said, an incremental increase in the district’s reserves “shows a very strong, stable financial structure.”
School closures and saved dollars
Consolidating schools to save money is complicated by the fact that not all students choose to attend their assigned new school. Projected savings can be negated by the loss of state funding for students who leave the district altogether.
Corey Wright, Duval Schools’ chief of accountability and assessment, told the board in November that student retention after closures averages somewhere in the mid-80% range.
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If a school has 300 students, and 15% don’t stay, those 45 students represent nearly $400,000 lost in state funding.
Another danger of leaving the receiving school under-enrolled comes from the state’s Schools of Hope program, which allows certain independent charter operators to open in low-enrollment or vacant schools.
“It still leaves the consolidated school with too many open seats,” District 2 school board member April Carney said. “And that, to me — especially with all these Schools of Hope letters that we’re getting…How do we bring more people into those open seats once the school is consolidated?”
R.V. Daniels Elementary, which served students in Northwest Jacksonville since 1964, closed this year. Its students were rezoned for R. L. Brown Elementary, as the students from Long Branch Elementary will be. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Carney said she’s received feedback that the current consolidation process creates “animosity” and pits the two schools against each other.
“It’s such a sticky, uncomfortable process that nobody wants to go through,” she said. “How do we help communities change those attitudes and come together so that we end up having the right amount of utilization in the consolidated school?”
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Wright said two schools with low enrollment numbers are a bigger risk than one.
“If you keep two schools open that are really low-utilized, then you have opportunity for Schools of Hope to operate in two schools. Until we get to a point where our district is really right-sized, this is going to be a battle,” Wright said.
Jacksonville’s schools are not evenly distributed geographically. District 4 has two-and-a-half times as many schools as District 7, for example, but less than 20% more students enrolled.
“We can’t talk about consolidation without talking about the history and the inequities that were built before — because some students could not go to school together, so you had two schools right beside each other,” District 4 rep Willie said, referring to mandatory racial segregation.
Duval Schools only achieved unitary status — a designation from the federal government signifying that its schools are no longer segregated — in 1999.
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“That’s why we’re in this place now,” Willie said. “And we haven’t rectified that or come to a place where we say, ‘You know what? Let’s figure that out.’”
Parents who live in his district notice “there’s a lot of schools within the North and Northwest side that are closing,” Willie said.
“We have to figure out on whose back are we building this?” he said.
The $537,000-a-year office created in 2014 to advise the City Council on financial issues and avoid a repeat of the parking meter fiasco has failed to deliver on that mission, the city’s chief watchdog said Tuesday.
Days before concluding her four-year term, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said a shortage of both adequate staff and financial information closely held by the mayor’s office prevents the Council’s Office of Financial Analysis from helping the Council be the the “co-equal branch of government” it aspires to be.
In a budget rebellion not seen since “Council Wars” in the 1980s, a majority of alderpersons led by conservative and moderate Democrats rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax and approved an alternative budget, including several revenue-generating items the mayor’s office adamantly opposed.
But Witzburg said the renegades would have been in an even better position to challenge Johnson if only their financial analysis office had been “equipped and positioned to do what it’s supposed to do” — provide the Council with “objective, independent financial analysis.”
“We are entering new territory where the City Council is asserting new, independent authority over the budget process. It can’t do that in a meaningful way without its own access to financial analysis,” Witzburg told the Chicago Sun-Times.
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Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s latest report focuses on the Chicago City Council’s Office of Financial Analysis.
Jim Vondruska/Jim Vondruska/For the Sun-Times
But the Council’s financial analysis office, she added, “has never been equipped or positioned to do what it needs to do. It needs better and more independent access to data, and it needs enough staff to do its job. It has a small number of employees and comparatively limited access to data.”
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The inspector general’s farewell audit examined the period from 2015 through 2023. During that time, the financial analysis office budget authorized “either three or four” full-time employees. It now has a staff of five .
Witzburg is recommending a staffing analysis to identify how many people the financial office really needs — and also recommending that the office “get data directly” from other city departments, “ rather than having it go through the mayor’s office.”
The audit further recommends that the office develop “better procedures to meet their reporting requirements” in a timely manner. As it stands now, reports are delivered “sometimes late, sometimes not at all,” the inspector general said.
“We find that those reports have been both not timely and not complete in terms of what they are required to report on and that those reports therefore have provided limited assistance to the City Council in its responsibility to make decisions about the city’s budget,” she said.
The Council Office of Financial Analysis responded to the audit by saying it hopes to add at least three full-time staffers in the short term and has made “some progress” over the last three years in improving their access to data, but not enough.
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The office was created in 2014 to provide Council members with expert advice on fiscal issues.
For nearly two years the reform was stuck in the mud over whether former 46th Ward Ald. Helen Shiller had the independence and policy expertise to lead the office.
Shiller ultimately withdrew her name, but the office was a bust nevertheless. In an attempt to breathe new life into it, sponsors pushed through a series of changes.
Instead of allowing the Budget chair alone to request a financial analysis on a proposal impacting the city budget, any alderperson was allowed to make that request.
The office was further required to produce activity reports quarterly, not just annually.
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Now former-Budget Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) then chose Kenneth Williams Sr., a former analyst for the office, as director and gave him the “autonomy” the ordinance demanded.
Two years ago, a bizarre standoff developed in the office.
Budget Committee Chair Jason Ervin (28th) was empowered to dump Williams after Williams refused to leave to make way for a director of Ervin’s own choosing.
The standoff began when Williams said he was summoned to Ervin’s office and told the newly appointed Budget chair was “going in a different direction, and I’m putting you on administrative leave” with pay.
“He took all my credentials and access away. I would love to come to work. I wasn’t allowed to come to work,” Williams said then.
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Williams collected a paycheck for doing nothing while serving out the final days remainder of a four-year term.
Ervin’s resolution stated the director “may be removed at any time with or without cause by a two-thirds” vote or 34 alderpersons. He chose Janice Oda-Gray, who remains chief administrator.
Little League® International has announced that Reilly Barnes accepted a new role as Purchasing/Finance Assistant, effective April 6, 2026. Barnes transitions from a temporary Purchasing Assistant to this full-time position to assist in the year-round demands of purchasing for the organization, as well as the region and Little League Baseball and Softball World Series tournaments.
“We are thrilled to welcome back Reilly to our team as a full-time Purchasing/Finance Assistant. Reilly’s prior experience, time management, and attention to detail make him an invaluable asset to the purchasing team,” said Nancy Grove, Little League Materials Management Director. “We look forward to the positive contributions he will have on our organization.”
In this role, Barnes will be responsible for processing purchase requisitions, coordinating souvenir products, and tracking order fulfillment. He will also assist with evaluating suppliers, reviewing product quality, and negotiating contracts for effective operations.
After most recently working as a Logistician Analyst at Precision Air in Charleston, South Carolina, Barnes, a Williamsport native, returns after honing his skills in the fast-paced environment. Prior to his time at Precision Air, Barnes served as a Procurement Specialist at The Medical University of South Carolina, where his expertise and knowledge were instrumental in supporting both education and healthcare needs.
“I am thrilled to return to Little League in this full-time role,” said Barnes. “Coming back to my hometown and having the opportunity to work for an organization that has played such a special part of my upbringing means a lot. I can’t wait begin this new opportunity.”
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Barnes graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2022 with a B.A. in Supply Chain Management, Finance, and Business Analytics.
As conflict continues to destabilise the Middle East, the Gulf States elite are seeking solace in European alternatives that offer comparable financial benefits with a far lower risk of war on the doorstep. One such destination is the small Swiss town of Zug, which is becoming a “bolt-hole” for Gulf-based wealth, said the Financial Times.
‘Swiss Monaco’
Switzerland’s reputation as a magnet for the world’s financial elite is nothing new. In 2025, the country recorded the “densest concentration of millionaires” with an estimated 146 per 1,000 adults last year, said The Times. Now home to around 135,000 people, Zug’s canton – also named Zug – used to be the “poorest corner of Switzerland” until it lowered its tax rates in the 1950s. “Now it has corporate tax rates of 16.2% compared with 40% in the US and 33.3% in France.”
“In almost all ways Zug is unremarkable”, with its traditional Swiss architecture and cobbled waterfront lanes. But if its “Alpine lake water is clear”, the financial scene is more “murky”. Many credit Marc Rich and Pincus “Pinky” Green, founders of metals and minerals trading firm Glencore, with the transformation of Zug from a “Swiss backwater” to its status as the “Swiss Monaco”. The multinational is headquartered just outside Zug, and has made the town a “global powerhouse for trading crude and refined oil products”. It should be “no surprise” that the “1% of the world’s 1%” are taking shelter there, and at the same time, hoping to still “keep a hand in the oil business”.
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“Industry estimates suggest that tens of billions of dollars could flow into Switzerland depending on how the current conflict evolves,” said the Outbound Investment Group. The “immediate trigger” for the “surge in interest” from Gulf-based investors is the war in the Middle East. However, Switzerland’s underlying appeal is its unwavering “Swissness”: “political neutrality”, “strong legal frameworks”, and reputation for wealth preservation. It’s a safe bet with no sign of slowing.
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‘Availability tightening’
There are some drawbacks, said the FT. For “would-be arrivals”, the appeal of the region for Middle Eastern residents comes with “practical constraints”. Those outside the EU “face a higher bar”. Usually, the condition of residency is “tied” to employment or company formation. For the “very wealthy”, there is the added option of “negotiated lump-sum taxation agreements with cantonal authorities” that allow individuals to “pay a flat annual tax based on living expenses rather than global income”.
Even if they are holders of EU passports, the “main bottleneck” is the availability of property. Competition is “intense” and “rental supply is extremely limited, with properties often snapped up within days”. With Zug’s “availability tightening”, other cantons in the region with similar tax arrangements could benefit, such as Lugano, an Italian-speaking city in the Ticino region.
The uncertainty of the duration of the conflict is one of the most pressing concerns, said Bloomberg. The recent breakdown of ceasefire talks risks “forcing a reckoning for the professional and expat classes considering options after putting down roots in the Middle East”.
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The short-term benefits of physical safety from leaving the Gulf are clear, but changing tax residency “takes time” and practicalities such as finding schools and “conforming to national requirements such as opening local bank accounts” is often “complicated and time-consuming”. The region’s ultra-wealthy are facing “uncomfortable decisions on whether to make the move permanent, especially with the end of the school year in sight”.
