Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown’s pick for the city’s next budget officer stayed in contention for the $125,000-a-year job Tuesday because of a last-minute deferral by a City Council panel.

Before then, the Rules Committee seemed ready to reject former Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago executive Glenn Hansen unless he committed to move from St. Marys, Ga.

City law requires new employees to live in Duval County.

“It is sad and unfortunate, but I will not be able to support this,” Rules Chairman Bill Bishop said about a waiver that would exempt Hansen from the residency standard.

However, Bishop agreed to postpone the vote for two weeks at the request of Jessica Deal, Brown’s council liaison.

After committee members said they felt torn by the choice and had heard from constituents concerned about making an exception, Deal asked for the deferral “to see if we can come up with some sort of compromise.”

Hansen said he wanted the job but would lose heavily if he put his house in Georgia up for sale.

“The real estate market is what it is. I can’t predict when the housing market is going to come back,” he said.

After asking Hansen’s address, Councilman Matt Schellenberg did a web search for home values and said he found an estimate of $452,700.

“I’ve got significantly, significantly more invested,” Hansen said.