The Duval DOGE committee of Jacksonville City Council will use an all-Republican panel to examine city services and recommend spending cuts, making it a rare case of a council committee having no Democrats on it.

The lack of a Democrat was quickly denounced by City Council member Jimmy Peluso, who is one of five Democrats on the 19-member City Council. Peluso got cheers from people who packed a City Hall conference room when he said he hopes Duval DOGE will "crash and burn." He said the committee is already "turning this into a partisan issue."

"Why wouldn't you invite one individual from the Democratic Party?" Peluso said during the meeting of the committee. "We are elected officials as well."

In addition to City Council member Ron Salem , who hatched the idea of the Duval DOGE committee and will be its chairman, City Council member Joe Carlucci will be vice chairman. They will be joined by council members Raul Arias, Mike Gay and Chris Miller.

City Council President Randy White on Monday formed the Special Committee on Duval DOGE and gave it a June 23 deadline for filing a final report.

His charge to the committee calls for it to analyze the recent growth in city departments and find potential savings, evaluate city services to see if the city can save money on them, and consider a reduction in how much city departments can spend this budget year "while being mindful of potential service impacts."

The committee won't be examining whether the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department can operate more efficiently. Increased spending on public safety has far outpaced the growth of other departments in driving up the bottom line of the city's budget.

"I think the will of the committee is to exclude public safety and that's what we're going to do," Salem told reporters after the meeting Tuesday.

Speaker says 'Salem witch hunt' aimed at attacking Mayor Deegan

During the public comment portion of the meeting, several speakers said the committee is just a vehicle for Salem to attack Mayor Donna Deegan, the city's Democratic mayor, because he wants to run against her in 2027.

"Now that we've seen the details of this committee, it's time to rename it what it really is — the Salem witch hunt," said Mike Ludwig of the Northside Coalition.

"To not have a single member of the Democratic Party — whoa," Nancy Staats said. "That really feels very political, to state the obvious."

Salem said after the meeting he doesn't expect any Democrats will be added to the committee. He said in a reference to Peluso that the "Democrat who was here today is disruptive."

"He doesn't want to participate," Salem said. "Why would we put him on a committee where he doesn't want to participate?"

Salem acknowledged that four other Democrats serve on City Council — Reggie Gaffney Jr., Rahman Johnson, Tyrona Clark-Murry and Ju'Coby Pittman. He said he worked with City Council President Randy White and Kevin Carrico, who is on track to become City Council president on July 1, to put together the Duval DOGE committee.

Salem has left the door open to running for mayor. He has said for months he enjoys being in elected office and would like to continue his public service after he is term-limited in 2027 from running again for City Council.

"I like what I'm doing, and if the public comes to me over the next six months to a year and asks me to run, I'd sure consider it," he said after the meeting.

Deegan says she'll do her own focus on government efficiency

Deegan, who would be running for a second term in 2027, said Tuesday the makeup of the DOGE Committee "is entirely up to the creators of the committee and what they want to do."

She said she has already been working to make government more efficient. She points to a program she calls Lean 904 that uses Six Sigma training to help city employees identify inefficiencies in the workplace. The city launched its Lean initiative in June 2024 .

Deegan said the city shouldn't "take a chainsaw" to the budget and if it does need to make cuts anywhere, that should be done "very intentionally in terms of what we need as a city."

"We've done that through the Lean process and we're going to keep doing that," she said after participating in an event announcing a bid to get federal historic recognition for the LaVilla neighborhood. "What they're doing in that (DOGE) committee is entirely up to them. I'm not going to get involved in the back and forth."

Duval DOGE takes name from Elon Musk's DOGE at federal level

Duval DOGE takes its name from the federal DOGE, which is short for the Department of Government Efficiency run by billionaire Elon Musk for President Donald Trump. The DOGE effort to slash the size of the federal government has sought to cancel contracts and carry out mass layoffs that have triggered lawsuits in response .

Salem said Duval DOGE won't be the same as what's happening at the federal level. Protesters say it shouldn't be named DOGE if it's not trying to replicate in Jacksonville what Trump and Musk are doing nationally.

Salem said during the kick-off meeting that among the first areas up for review by the committee will be city facilities including community centers, libraries and parks to determine "what's being used and not being used" in order to potentially consolidate facilities.

He said the committee will examine children's services paid for in various parts of the budget to "make sure we're using those dollars efficiently."

Another area of scrutiny will be the city's capital improvements program that pays for construction of streets, drainage, sidewalks, parks and city buildings. Salem said the review will focus on projects "where there's been no financial activity" for a year to find out if those have been completed or still can be continued.

The committee will study what the city charges for services provided to the independent authorities — JEA, JaxPort, Jacksonville Transportation Authority and Jacksonville Housing Authority — that they get through the city's consolidated form of government.

On a broader level, the committee will examine the growth of various city departments compared to the pace of the city's population growth, Salem said.

Salem opened up most of the meeting Tuesday for public comment. A parade of speakers repeatedly objected to DOGE being used in the city of Jacksonville.

Russell Harper, president of the North Florida Central Labor Council, said DOGE isn't actually trying to make government more efficient. He said it's a "catchy misnomer for 'Let's see what we can take away from the working class, the needy, the elderly."

While almost all of the speakers called on City Council to disband the committee, one Jacksonville resident spoke in favor of it, saying it will give "transparency into our city's finances" and looking at how to allocate city money for "core government principles should be a no-brainer."