So now Donna Deegan wants the people she parks on city boards to sit through a finance class.
Not because the public suddenly demanded literacy in bond covenants. Because JTA is cutting service over a deficit, JEA keeps hiking rates, and someone in the mayor’s office decided the fix is a free slideshow on how to read a balance sheet.
New appointees are “encouraged” to finish it within 90 days. Current ones get 180. Ethics, Sunshine Law, public records, pensions, credit ratings — the whole civics packet.
It isn’t mandatory yet. The order just nudges them, then she goes to City Council and asks to make the standards stick.
Encouraged today, required as soon as the votes line up.
That’s the tell. These are her appointees, confirmed to oversee real money at independent agencies, and the operating assumption is that they might not know a pension liability from a parking meter.
If the mayor can’t find people who already understand budgets and audits, the problem isn’t the training calendar. It’s the appointment process.
A 90-day class after confirmation is a press release dressed up as governance.
Taxpayers don’t get competence because a volunteer watched a webinar. They get it when the people handed the keys already had it.