A mailer landing in Clay County mailboxes tells voters to “Cap Politicians Pay.” It urges a yes vote on the county charter amendment on commissioner salaries. It says a yes vote “ensures any changes to our county politicians’ salaries must be approved by a majority of voters.”
The amendment does the opposite.
The ballot language asks voters whether to “remove the requirement that any salary changes must be approved by a majority of electors in a general election.” Since 2008, Clay voters have had to approve any change to commissioner pay. A yes vote ends that.
The amendment also removes the charter’s fixed $37,000 salary. Commissioner pay would instead follow a state formula for non-charter counties. The Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research estimated that formula at $96,993 for Clay commissioners in its September 2026 report, according to First Coast News.
Accountability In Government Inc. of Tallahassee paid for the mailer. State campaign finance records show the committee is part of a network run by Republican operative William “Stafford” Jones. Jones’s committees also sent mailers supporting the school district’s one-mill renewal.
Who Sent The Mailer
Accountability In Government is a Florida nonprofit corporation registered as a political committee. It lists its address as 115 East Park Avenue, Suite 1, in Tallahassee. Most of Jones’s committees use the same address. Its registered agent is the Coates Law Firm, at the same address.
Jones is a former chairman of the Alachua County Republican Party. He has been listed on the paperwork of more than 85 Florida political committees. In 2021, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported that two of his organizations told the IRS they did no political work while failing to disclose more than $1 million in political contributions.
How The Money Moves
Accountability In Government raised $582,655 in 2026. Of that, $565,000 came from a single source: the Greater Florida Foundation, another Jones committee at the same Tallahassee address.
The Greater Florida Foundation has no donors of its own. Every dollar it received in 2026 came from other political committees, $4.45 million in all. It reported no spending on advertising or staff.
It moves money from committee to committee. In some cases, it sent money to a committee and received money back from that same committee within a day.
Its largest source was the Freedom First Committee, which gave $1.81 million. Freedom First is the first layer in the chain where identifiable outside money appears. Its largest 2026 sources include:
Building a Brighter Future for Florida, a committee tied to Tampa and Jensen Beach consultants: $1,020,000
The Republican State Leadership Committee, based in Washington, D.C.: $1,000,000
Florida Crystals Corp., the Fanjul family’s sugar company in West Palm Beach: $250,000
Florida Chamber of Commerce groups: $100,000
Freedom First also reported $365,000 from a committee called United for Florida. That committee’s own reports show no 2026 activity and never more than about $42,000 in the bank. CN&V has asked Freedom First’s treasurer to explain the discrepancy and is awaiting a reply.
Money is pooled at each step. That means no donor’s money can be traced to a specific mailer. Records show the committee behind the charter mailer is funded through this chain. No contributor at any level is a Clay County resident or business.
The School Millage Connection
The same pool of money funds the campaign for the school district’s one-mill renewal.
Leading For Our Future, another Jones committee, received $370,000 from the Greater Florida Foundation this summer. That was 97 percent of the money it raised in 2026 before Sept. 2. On Sept. 2, it gave $40,000 to Believing in Clay’s Kids PC, the committee mailing voters in support of the millage.
As CN&V previously reported, Jones also runs Believing in Clay’s Kids.
Local Connections
The mailers come from Tallahassee. Some of the money feeding Jones’s committees comes from committees tied to Clay County political figures.
A committee supporting Sheriff Michelle Cook. The Committee for Professional Law Enforcement amended its state registration in April 2023 to list Sheriff Michelle Cook as the candidate it supports.
Its chairman is Charles “Scotty” Taylor Jr. of Middleburg. The Republican Party of Florida lists Taylor as the Clay County Republican Party’s committeeman. Jones has been the committee’s treasurer since April 2023.
That committee gave $5,100 to Accountability In Government in June 2024. It gave $2,500 to Believing in Clay’s Kids on Sept. 21, 2026. Cook has personally given the committee $16,000 since 2020.
Accountability In Government gave $1,000 to Cook’s re-election campaign in March 2024. Leading For Our Future gave her campaign $1,000 that May.
Former state Rep. Travis Cummings’s committee. First Coast Conservatives is the political committee of Cummings, a former Clay County Commission chairman and state House Appropriations chairman from Fleming Island. Accountability In Government’s own filing lists First Coast Conservatives at the same Tallahassee address as Jones’s committees. It uses the same legal and compliance firms.
First Coast Conservatives gave Accountability In Government $9,400 in 2020 and $2,000 in 2022. It has given about $430,000 to other Jones committees since 2018. Nothing in the records ties it to this year’s charter mailer.
A School Board candidate. Leading For Our Future, the committee that funded the millage campaign, gave $1,000 to District 4 School Board candidate Michele Hanson in June.
County commissioners. According to these records, none of the current county commissioners received money from the Jones committees. Commissioners have said they did not ask for the amendment. The Charter Review Commission drafted it and placed it on the ballot.
“Not any of these commissioners asked to have anything put on the ballot, nor did we set the fee or set the amount,” Commissioner Betsy Condon told First Coast News.
Despite Condon’s comments, the Charter Review Commission is not independent of the commissioners. Its members are appointed by the Board of County Commissioners.
Under the county charter, the board appoints all 15 members and five alternates. Commissioners cannot serve on it themselves.
Bu once the review commission approves an amendment, the charter requires commissioners to place it on the ballot. They cannot block it.
What We Don’t Know
The cost of the charter mailer has not yet appeared in Accountability In Government’s reports. The committee’s most recent entry is dated Oct. 23. Its only payment to a mail vendor in October was $13,415 to Data Targeting, a Gainesville Republican consulting firm that has handled mail for Jones’s committees.
The committee made that payment on Oct. 19, the same day it received $30,000 from the Greater Florida Foundation. The records do not say what it paid for.
We also don’t know who asked for the mailer, or why a Tallahassee committee network funded by national and corporate donors took an interest in a Clay County charter amendment.
Questions The Mailer Raises
Why does the mailer say the opposite of the ballot language? The amendment removes voter approval of commissioner raises. The mailer tells voters it guarantees it.
Who wants this amendment to pass? Commissioners say they didn’t ask for it. The committee paying to promote it is funded from Tallahassee. None of its money traces to Clay residents.
Can voters know who is paying? Money passes through at least three committees before reaching the mailer. At each layer, it is pooled with other money. Voters have no practical way to tell whose money paid for what they received.
Why are local political committees feeding this network? A committee that supports the sitting sheriff, chaired by a local party official, has sent money to the committees mailing Clay voters about both ballot measures this fall.
Did local officials know? Cook, Taylor and Cummings have not said whether they knew their committees’ money was going to groups now campaigning on Clay ballot questions.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
Why can't everything be honest anymore.. NO wonder citizens do not know what they are voting for without lots of homework. Citizens are busy trying to survive right now and doing their best to be informed.