Jacksonville, Florida: Housing Authority Board Fires CEO Cheron Corbett Waller After Rejecting Her Fee Plan

The Jacksonville Housing Authority board voted unanimously on Tuesday, October 27 to terminate chief executive Cheron Corbett Waller at a special meeting called to review her evaluation and continued employment. News4JAX reported that the board acted after Waller declined to resign. First Coast News reported that Rosalyn Phillips will serve as acting CEO until a permanent chief executive is found.

The firing closes a public fight over pay that had run for more than a week and leaves the agency that runs public housing and the housing choice voucher program in Jacksonville under interim leadership.

The fee request the board rejected

At a board meeting on October 18, Waller asked to receive 12 percent of the developer fees generated by housing authority projects, plus a $30,000 performance bonus, on top of her $300,000 annual salary. In one scenario she presented, a $2 million development fee for the authority would have paid her $240,000 personally. She told the board the arrangement matched industry standards and a provision she said her contract held at a housing authority in the Chicago area, where she worked before coming to Jacksonville.

The numbers grew with the projects. The Jacksonville Focal calculated that the Franklin Arms redevelopment in the Eastside, a project of about $50 million that would replace a former apartment complex with 130 affordable homes, carries an estimated developer fee of about $8.1 million. Twelve percent of that fee would have been about $972,626. Board Chair Daniel Blanchard rejected a payout of that size outright. He said he could not in good faith sit on a board in a year when the CEO could make $1 million, and he called the proposed amounts excessive.

The board voted down the whole request, including the bonus, and put off any decision on other compensation increases. Waller had also sought a developer fee arrangement in early 2025, when she negotiated her original contract before starting as CEO in April 2025.

City leaders backed the board

The pay fight drew in City Hall. Council member Rory Diamond called on Waller to resign, saying the money she sought is meant to help poor residents in need of housing, not to pay the CEO. Council President Nick Howland called her request very objectionable and praised the board response as a model of how a board should govern an independent agency. Mayor Donna Deegan agreed with the board. Her spokesman, Phil Perry, said the mayor's office supported the board for stopping what he called an inappropriate compensation arrangement, while adding that the authority should stay part of the city strategy to expand affordable housing.

An agency carrying costly properties

The compensation dispute sat on top of a harder argument about the authority's own deals. Blanchard said three acquisitions made before Waller arrived have drained the agency: the Westwood apartment complex on the Westside, bought with a $41 million bond offering in 2024 and holding 256 units; land off Normandy Boulevard bought for $2.4 million in March 2023 that still sits vacant; and the former Franklin Arms building in the Eastside, bought for $8 million in November 2023. He said the authority should stick to its core mission of running its housing complexes and voucher program well. Waller said the authority would work to restructure the Westwood debt and would not let the Franklin Arms site stay a blight on the Eastside.

With Waller out, Phillips runs the agency on an acting basis. The board has not announced a timeline for naming a permanent CEO, or the financial terms of Waller's departure, in the reports reviewed.