Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee votes to not fund director of diversity position

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Members of the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee voted Thursday to not fund the Director of Diversity position that pays $185,000 a year.

Mayor Donna Deegan appointed Dr. Parvez Ahmed to serve as the Director of Diversity for her administration. Since then, it’s been a battle between the City Council Finance Committee and the mayor’s office.

Ahmed was previously nominated to serve on Jacksonville’s Human Rights Commission and his religion became an issue before the council 13 years ago, but Ahmed ended up serving two terms on the Human Rights Commission.

At Thursday’s meeting, memories of that event came back as he addressed the committee about his salary for his new position on Deegan’s staff.

Ahmed spoke at the city council budget meeting.

“Given that diversity in the city is increasing, there is an increasing need for the city to engage communities, particularly newly arrived communities,” Ahmed said.

Since the city council voted against Ahmed’s salary, the board decided to take that money and create two new positions on the Human Rights Commission and add another position in the city’s public works department.

“We did not eliminate his position. We eliminated funding because of the redundancy,” Nick Howland, city council finance chairman said. “If the mayor still wants to employ him, that’s fine or employing him at the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. With the new cap that we just created there, that’s fine.”

Deegan, however, did not see it that way.

“I was told early on that there were going to be political issues with having a diversity director because of the position of the governor,” Deegan said. “Basically, they took the money that was in there and they moved it to other departments that weren’t even asking for money. They have the ability to do that.”

Deegan said her administration will be looking for other options on how to get the position funded.

Howland said he has not had any contact with the governor and does not know where Deegan is getting that information from.

The vote today is not final. The budget plan still must be approved by the entire city council.

As for Ahmed, he said he is still trying to recover from today’s meeting.