JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There are talks of raising garbage fees in Jacksonville.
On Thursday, a special committee on solid waste met at City Hall to discuss how to pay for curbside waste collection in the future. The committee says the current fee — about $150 annually (12.65 a month) per household — isn’t enough to cover the costs of waste collection.
Councilmember Ron Salem, who is the chair on the city’s Special Committee on Solid Waste, says it actually costs about $18 to $20 a month per home for garbage collection. If the solid waste fee was raised to cover that, it could be as high as $240 a year.
“My purpose with the meeting today was to sort of educate the council as well as the public that was watching on various options to take a look at that fee,” Salem said.
The city says it’s still working to get up to speed on collection in some areas, including the Westside. The city has been taking out loans against its general fund to keep garbage trucks rolling and local leaders are exploring other ways to pay for the service, including potentially raising the annual fee that residents pay.
The city has taken about $31 million in loans to make up for the lack of funding for solid waste, according to an analysis by city staff. If the garbage collection fee stays where it is, the loans could potentially grow to $193 million by 2029.
“There’s a concern of it continuing to increase,” Salem said.
The analysis found the loan balance would be eliminated over the next seven years if the fee was raised to a flat rate of about $21 dollars per month or raised to about $22 per month over a period of a several years.
Another proposition was no longer having everyone pay the same rate for waste pickup. Resident Ayesha Covington voiced her support of that idea at today’s meeting.
Ayesha Covington/ Lives in Jacksonville
“I would like to see a balance,” Covington said. “The people who own extremely large homes and who don’t really care about their carbon footprint and they want to live the lavish lifestyle should pay for it.”
The loans covering the gap in funding come from the city’s general fund. Because of agreements with the beaches and Baldwin, the city can’t just move money from its general fund to cover the deficit.
Councilmember Matt Carlucci said those agreements — as well as the state government — could make raising the millage rate to pay for trash and recycling complicated.
“That fee is incredibly important because the government cannot mess with our fees, but they can mess with out property taxes. So that’s a revenue stream I’m not sure we’d want to give up,” Carlucci said.
The chair of the committee exploring this issue says he thinks City Council should wait for pickup to get more consistent before considering an increase to the collection fee.
We also heard from Mayor Lenny Curry, who said he doesn’t think Council should raise garbage fees.
Salem said the next move is discussions among all the council members. He said he expects there to be a lot of different ideas about how to approach this issue, but he hopes there will be a plan that can be incorporated into the city’s budget process this summer.