The Financial Audit and Oversight Select Committee, chaired by Council Member Ron Salem, met on September 24, 2026 at 9:30 am in City Council Chambers to receive an update from JEA on unbuilt water capacity fees. The committee reviewed JEA's proposed process for collecting fees from approximately 1,700 customers and establishing external oversight. Key attendees included Council Members Chris Miller and Mike Gage, Council Auditor Philip Peterson, Inspector General Matt LaSelle, and JEA Chief Operating Officer Rob Zamataro.
Good morning. Why don't we go ahead and start with introductions and get started? Good morning. This is the financial audit and oversight select committee on uh JEA matters. And uh why don't we start with introductions to my far left? Brandon Russell, Council Research. Mary Stefopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Philip Peterson, Council Auditor. Brian Parks, Council Auditors Office. Ron Salem, group two at large. Chris Miller, Group Five at large. Mike Gage is visiting. I should also mention uh council member uh Carlucci is out of town, but normally would be here. I also want to recognize uh Inspector General Matt Lasle, who's in the audience that uh was the thrust behind this uh JEA issue in terms of capacity fees. So let me ask Rob or Rob, you want to come forward and sort of outline where you are yes, good morning. I'm Rob Zamataro, uh Chief Operating Officer for the Water System at JEA. And uh first like to thank the committee and the auditor for all their time and assistance on this issue. Um where we are today is um we did provide a memo to the committee, but I will outline some of the next steps coming up in the next couple months. We will be um putting a formal policy and updating the tariff language, and that will go in front of our board. So there will be a whole you know typical policy as far as public notice and go through that procedures. Once the board approves the policies and the procedures, um, we'll then go through the evaluation period. Um that should happen probably in the beginning of the year. Um we do have some internal updates to our systems to accomplish based on the policy that's approved. Um and then as that once that's all done and we go through the initial analysis in the beginning of next year, um we will identify any of the ones that had historical issues and also a lot of the monitoring that's going forward. And really that's the main focus is you know how we manage this going forward in a clear and transparent way. So there is a lot of um communication that has to happen with our customers. There's around 1700 customers that fall in the the category that we've been discussing. Um so we'll be doing that and all of that work um that will be ongoing in the next six to twelve months. Um will be reported out quarterly. Um so we're not operating in a vacuum. We do do it typically a quarterly report finance update to the council and to the council auditor. Um so we'll include all the updates of the progress that we're making as we go in that quarterly report as we go along. Okay. And I think that will satisfy Mr. LaSell in terms of there being I shared your your email with him, and he was just looking for some monitoring mechanism external to JEA, and I think the auditors are are perfect for that. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments? Um there questions from the committee members and such. I think we've got a process, and I think it's President Howland's goal to close this out with that process. Um I do, thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry for um my tardiness. The the goal of the Financial Audit and Oversight Select Committee looking at unbuilt water capacity fees was to ensure that JEA was building a process moving forward and to work with them as necessary on that. I think you just reported the process. I read the report um that you distributed ahead of time. Uh and Mr. Chair and Mr. Vice Chair, uh, I think your vice sheriff, I forget if it's you or Joe, Chris, regardless, the three of you. I'm not sure off the top of my head.