It’s a vote that has Jacksonville’s City Council figuring out how to balance the budget with minimal savings.

During the full council meeting Tuesday, a 14-4 vote gave Sheriff John Rutherford back $10.5 million his department had saved to use for the upcoming budget year.  This amount was higher than the $6.2 million initially requested by Rutherford, which he changed after the council decided not to hike the property tax rate late last month.

Although the vote was no slim margin, there was hesitation by a number of council members to show so much support for the Sheriff’s Office, while other departments do not get their savings back, and are in fact dealing with big cuts.

Finance Chair John Crescimbeni listed this as one of his top complaints, saying the Fire Department saved $6 million, the libraries $1.6 million and Public Works $4.5 million- among others- but they are not getting money back.

His other concern- filling the budget gap.  He was willing to support the original bill at $6.2 million, but would not commit the city to more than that.

And that was echoed by Councilman Richard Clark.

“How you’re gunna come up with that without cutting everybody else and allowing one person to reap the benefits is just inherently unfair,” he says.

Before Tuesday, the City had about $26 million in savings that have not yet been spent.  From that, Crescimbeni sees $12.5 million in revenue that needs to be covered because it has not been collected nor does he expect it will be.  Out of the remaining $13.5 million, the Sheriff has now been granted $10.5 million, and there is a $5 million budget gap in the Mayor’s proposal that still remains to fill.

“It’s just not a prudent thing to do given the state of affairs that we are in,” Clark says.

Councilman Ray Holt and Councilwoman Lori Boyer rounded out the “nay” votes.

“We don’t want to paint ourselves in a corner, I think is the term I used [when making the property tax rate vote].  Well, we’re in the corner now and paint is all around us,” says Holt.

Even some of the supporters were hesitant to give so much funding to one department while others are cut.  Councilman Reggie Brown says public safety goes beyond just law enforcement to areas like Public Works which must maintain sidewalks or mow lawns in order to allow city residents to live like normal.

But that concern for public safety- and what the budget cut could mean to it- ultimately swayed the 14 council members.  Councilman Stephen Joost says he doesn’t want the public to get caught in the crosshairs while the city sorts out its budget.

Councilwoman E. Denise Lee was much more straightforward, saying the budget hole was not her main concern.

“If we don’t fill these streets with cops, there will be holes, and it’ll be bullet holes,” she says.

Sheriff John Rutherford will use the funding to keep more police officers on the street and keep the CTC and Matrix House open.  There were plenty of red shirts in the audience to support the Matrix House again at tonight’s meeting.  Even those who voted against the budget boost were quick to acknowledge the benefits of the program.

Rutherford says he will continue to work with the council as the budget nears closer to completion and offered to had forward any more savings they are able to find.  But he, as well as many of the city officials on hand tonight, know that avoiding this debate next year will only come by fixing the city’s growing pension cost.

“That can has been kicked down the road as far as it can go.  We are now at the end of the road,” Rutherford says.

In order to fix the budget now, Crescimbeni called out some of the other Finance Committee members who voted for the Sheriff’s proposal, saying they need to offer up ways to get another six or seven million dollars at the next few meetings since they were willing to hand out this money.

Joost, who is on the committee, told WOKV that while the council did approve this funding, absolutely nothing is final as far as the Sheriff’s overall budget is concerned, until they put forward and vote on that final proposal.

Councilman Johnny Gaffney was not at the meeting.