{"id":140685,"date":"2025-08-12T21:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/140685\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T21:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T21:32:09","slug":"775m-stadium-deal-likely-free-from-state-doge-scrutiny-but-180k-city-employee-may-not-be-so-lucky-104-5-wokv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/140685\/","title":{"rendered":"$775M stadium deal likely free from State DOGE scrutiny, but $180K city employee may not be so lucky \u2013 104.5 WOKV"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 At $775 million<\/b><\/a>, the Stadium of the Future is the largest single expenditure in the history of Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

But Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia told Action News Jax that the deal isn\u2019t likely something to be targeted by the State DOGE team, which is currently auditing the city\u2019s finances<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf people already know about the spending, the subsidies, I mean that\u2019s something that\u2019s already been in news. I\u2019m sure you guys reported<\/b><\/a>, so the taxpayers are already privy to that,\u201d Ingoglia said. \u201dWhere we\u2019re looking for is maybe something the taxpayers are not privy to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ingoglia said that includes spending related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something the Jacksonville City Council attempted to block in the past when it defunded the mayor\u2019s Director of Diversity and Inclusion<\/b><\/a> <\/b>last year.<\/p>\n

That job was held by Parvez Ahmed.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s office responded by creating a new position called the Chief of Analytics, which was filled by Ahmed.<\/p>\n

READ: <\/b>Florida DOGE comes to Jax, prompting property tax cut proposal<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

But Ingoglia said the $180,000-a-year position isn\u2019t necessarily safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, just because you change the name doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not egregiously spending,\u201d Ingoglia said.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office argued that the Chief of Analytics is not a DEI position.<\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n

According to the mayor\u2019s office, the Chief of Analytics instead aims to collect and analyze data to \u201cadvance key strategic community priorities\u201d like the new <\/b>State of Jax dashboard<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the position continues to cause controversy.<\/p>\n

The council finance committee recently <\/b>cut in half a $600,000 budget increase requested by the mayor\u2019s office<\/b><\/a> to pay the Chief of Analytics and other new executive salaries.<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that we do not meddle in the City Council\u2019s staff and that we provided all the resources they asked for in the budget, this feels political and personal,\u201d a spokesperson for the mayor\u2019s office told Action News Jax in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

While the State DOGE team doesn\u2019t have the authority to force spending decisions, based on the recent cuts in the council finance committee, its mere presence seems to already be influencing this budget cycle.<\/p>\n

The state DOGE team is expected to issue a report on the findings of its audit within the next 60 days.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 At $775 million, the Stadium of the Future is the largest single expenditure in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":109535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,9961,3188,723,69763,69083,7324,7310,7327,69762,7325,7326,83999,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-140685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-city-of-jacksonville","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-florida-cfo-blaise-ingoglia","15":"tag-florida-doge","16":"tag-fox30","17":"tag-jacksonville","18":"tag-jacksonville-fl","19":"tag-jacksonville-mayor-donna-deegan","20":"tag-northeast-florida","21":"tag-southeast-georgia","22":"tag-stadium-of-the-future-jacksonville-fl","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-wfox","30":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115017937625007927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}