Darryl Jones sits on the school board, but he also works for the Office of Economic Vitality (OEV). The concern is not that Jones holds both roles. The concern is whether OEV compensated him for time spent attending meetings that were required because of his elected positions. We obtained a public records request for one year and from July 2024 until July 2025 Jones was paid 23.5 hours from OEV while simultaneously attending agenda reviews as a school board member.
Jones’s compensation from OEV for the school board agenda review meetings also extend to the Children Services Council (CSC) meetings. Jones serves on the CSC board because of his position as a school board member. For the same year we reviewed, Jones received a total of 11.5 hours paid by OEV while attending these meetings.
We checked the dates on the timesheets with the videos posted for those meetings. We also confirmed Jones’ attendance in the videos. There are some meetings that we call “anomalies” and will explain that further down.
Receiving Compensation From OEV During An Agenda Review Matters
This matters is for multiple reasons. OEV is paying him to provide services to minority and small businesses as well as perform duties required for OEV to run functionally. Some small business neighbors report they have reached out and have not received a response for months. This is concerning as may small businesses asking for assistance do not always have months to wait for a response.
Let us be clear that OEV is not the same governmental body as the school district, which is why he is able to work there while serving as a board member. However, OEV should allow him to attend meetings that are required of his elected position, but they should not pay him for attending those meetings.
Florida Statute (F.S.) 112.313(6) states that “no public officer…shall use his or her official position…to secure a special privilege, benefit, or exemption for himself, herself, or others.” Our team does not believe Jones documented his timesheet with the intent to misrepresent his work with OEV. However this can be interpreted as receiving a special benefit due to his position.
The perception of misuse puts our programs and resources at risk. As an involved community we should be curious about this possible mistake in order to correct it. We need to ensure community benefit by maximizing every tax dollar. If we can help even one local business remain open, then it is worth the investment.
Anomalies On The Timesheets
We did find that he took off work for 15.5 hours (11.5 for school board and 4 for CSC). Albeit his timesheet shows him working until 3pm- agenda review meetings start at 3pm. He has a total of 11.5 hours which he recorded leave time for the meetings. Two of those days have 30 minutes of work from 5-5:30 documented.
Our team noted other anomalies. We observed a morning taken off from OEV but then reported hours worked are 1:30-5:30. If we include these hours, that brings the total number to 25 hours.
The publicly noticed and publicly published meetings are accessible for comparison. However, there are many boards that Jones is a member. We are unable to confirm those meetings and compare them with his timesheets for OEV.
Based on the records we reviewed, we confirmed 35 total hours where Jones was compensated by OEV while attending publicly noticed meetings connected to his elected roles: 23.5 hours for school board agenda reviews and 11.5 hours for CSC meetings. At approximately $51.50 per hour, that equals about $1,802.50
The Bigger Picture
The concern here is about all our local governments. The culture in our local government has normalized elected officials doing what the common working neighbor can clearly see as unethical. Many of our elected officials have good intentions for our community and the positions they are serving. However, good intentions without thoughtful action do not absolve us of a negative impact. Many of our neighbors are concerned about increasing taxes, removal of property taxes, and erosion of our local autonomy. The way we combat all these concerns is to be diligent in how we conduct ourselves. This one elected official’s actions will impact multiple agencies and place our taxes and public trust at risk. In a world of distrust, we need to be the community that is working every day to build back trust, accountability, and transparency.
Beloved leaders, if you feel as though there is more scrutiny around you, it is because we have entrusted much to you. We can and should strive for a community that cares for even the smallest neighbor (or business) and we should be a community that values transparency in our local government.
We are better together, keep the conversation going.
