Jacksonville DOGE Committee Meeting - May 5, 2026
Jacksonville DOGE Committee Meeting - May 5, 2026
The DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) Committee of the Jacksonville City Council met on May 5, 2026, to discuss the findings of the Telehealth audit report, the potential creation of a permanent oversight committee, and the results of a P-card audit. The meeting featured detailed presentations from Councilmember Roy Diamond (District 13), Council Auditor Kim Taylor, and legal counsel Mary Stefopoulos. Key decisions included adopting the draft Telehealth report with amendments, directing staff to finalize a red-line document, and scheduling a public meeting on oversight committee models.
Discussion Items
- Telehealth Report (Telescope Health Contract): Councilmember Diamond presented the committee's findings, stating that the city could have saved $2 million over four years by using a free telehealth service (e.g., RightSite or similar) instead of the paid Telescope Health contract. He argued that Telescope Health inflated savings claims, that the city saved zero dollars, and that the contract was effectively a sole-source arrangement despite being bid through an RFP. The report found no evidence of Medicare/Medicaid fraud or illegal conflicts of interest, but recommended using a free service. Councilmember Carlucci objected to adopting the report without having time to review it, noting that the contract was not no-bid (three providers bid) and that RightSite did not bid because it focuses on insured patients. Councilmember Diamond and Chair Salem emphasized that the city should not pay for a service that could be obtained for free, and that the model should cover all patients (insured and uninsured).
- Oversight Committee: Councilmember Diamond proposed creating a permanent three-member standing oversight committee that would meet quarterly to investigate any issues within the city. Councilmember Howland suggested a select committee (convened by the council president for a single issue with a 60-day window) to avoid scope creep. Chair Salem favored an as-needed approach. The committee agreed to hold a public meeting to discuss different models before filing legislation.
- P-Card Audit: Council Auditor Kim Taylor presented the audit of the city's purchasing card program for calendar year 2024. Key statistics: 111 active P-cards across 33 departments; 6,507 transactions totaling $2.1 million. Findings included: lack of written policies, missing expense reports for $94,000 (with $10,000 still unresolved at report conclusion), untimely submissions (36% not submitted within 7 working days), one fraudulent case (59 transactions, $18,000 over 81 days before detection by JSO), and split transactions to avoid limits. Recommendations included improving timeliness, blocking additional merchant codes (e.g., gambling, timeshares), and better training. Councilmembers expressed concern about the number of cards and the potential for abuse.
Key Outcomes
- Telehealth Report: The committee voted to adopt the draft report with amendments, directing Councilmember Diamond and Mary Stefopoulos to produce a final red-line document for approval at the next committee meeting. The final report will be submitted to the Council President with recommendations to use free telehealth services (RightSite or similar), request OGC and Ethics Office review of dual employment issues, and require JFRD to implement and document mechanisms to utilize the free service.
- Oversight Committee: No formal action taken; the committee agreed to schedule a public meeting to gather input on creating a permanent oversight committee or select committee model.
- P-Card Audit: The committee accepted the audit findings and discussed potential reforms, including adopting a policy requiring employees to use their own credit cards (similar to the Army model). No formal motion was made, but the committee encouraged the administration to act on the recommendations.
- Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned after the P-card discussion.
Meeting Transcript
Let's begin with introductions to my far left. Stephen Libby, Council Research. Mary Stefopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Kim Taylor, Council Auditor. Good morning, Roy Diamond, District 13, the beaches. Ron Salem group two at large. Good morning. Raw areas, District 11. Okay, why don't we we have copies of the telehealth report on its way down? But I'll turn over to Councilmember Diamond, and I'm gonna make some comments as well. And maybe uh Councilmember Arius as well, and uh we'll go forward from there. Sounds good. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, so we get to kind of land the plane today, which is exciting. Took a little longer than I would have liked. I prefer you know, maybe a couple of months, but this was uh a lot more fact intensive than we realized. And so um the headline is that we have shown in documents and in just like plain common sense that we could have saved two million dollars had we not done the telescope health contract. There's simply no other way of looking at it. The telescope health uh was providing telehealth to those who might be interested in going to the ER when someone dials 911. There is a free option, it's not just right site. There are multiple free options that the city could have contracted with. Uh, but the city does have a contract, a long-standing one now with right site. The difference between telescope health and right side is that telescope health just build the city for more than two million dollars for this, whereas uh right site and other entities don't bill the municipality at all, they bill private insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid, and for an indigent person, they charge nothing, but it all kind of averages out. So it begs the question why on earth would the city pay two million dollars if they could be getting it for free? And it's my strong opinion that the headline of this is that we shouldn't, that we can get this service for free. So in order to get there, you have to have JFRD actually utilizing the service, whether it's right side or another entity, we ought to be doing the free option. There are half a dozen of these entities that I found across the country, so it doesn't have to be any particular one. But whatever we're doing, it's important that uh we're trying to get the best bang for the taxpayer dollar. One of the policy issues here is that the um push on this has been that we're going to save the city money. And the truth of the matter is that we save the city zero dollars. Taxpayers save zero dollars using telescope health. The people who save money are the hospitals, which is fine for the hospitals, but it's not our job, I believe, as the city, to try and save hospitals money. It's just it's like saying we ought to go out and start fixing people's Fords and Chevy so that we can save Ford and GM from having to live up on their warranty claims. That doesn't make any sense. The people who are doing the service are to be the who are in the business of doing it ought to be the one who are paying. Um other findings from the report are that, and then this is just a fact from the math that um I'm gonna use the nicest language I can. Telescope Health exaggerated their numbers. First, they said the city was saving money, city is saving no dollars, not a dollar. They also inflated how much we're saving as far as emergency room visits and all the rest. And in the report, the math is all listed out there, and it's it's really undeniable. We provided them a copy of the report so that they could respond. Um, I don't think anyone is here from there today, uh, but they are we're more than welcome to do it. We also I had multiple meetings with the folks at telescope on the phone and in person, and uh was able to get a lot of their feedback. I think it's important to also note that there are uh other stuff that we looked at where we find when we have foundings that were positive for telescope health. So if you're gonna say things publicly, I think it's important to get everything right and to be very public about it. So one of the issues that was brought to me when we brought this up was that there was Medicare and Medicaid fraud going on. And as we just started picking at this, it was clear that uh telescope health wasn't billing Medicare or Medicaid patients. And so we just stopped that investigation and made no conclusion, either positive or negative negative about Medicare or Medicaid fraud. I ensure that that language is in the report because I think you need to be fair and honest about it.
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