Raising Jacksonville garbage fee could benefit beach residents

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A new push to raise Jacksonville’s garbage fee could come with a benefit for taxpayers in our local beach communities.

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Beach residents are currently helping to foot the bill for garbage services in the City of Jacksonville, despite having their own separate garbage service and fee.

“It’s the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about,” said Councilmember Matt Carlucci (R-Group 4 At-Large).

A $90 million elephant in the room, in fact.

That’s how much Carlucci estimates the city will have borrowed out of its general revenue to fund garbage pickup services in Jacksonville by the end of the year.

He explained that’s because the garbage fee hasn’t kept up with increased costs for service.

At about $12.50 a month, the rate has remained flat for the past 14 years.

Carlucci is working on a bill to raise the fee enough to make the fund self-sustaining and pay back the borrowed general revenue funds.

“We’ve rolled out kind of what my goal is, which is to pay for the fee, to find a way to pay back the loan, and to put into place some program that would provide help to those of lower incomes,” said Carlucci.

Those borrowed funds come not only from taxpayers in Jacksonville but also from taxpayers who live at the beaches.

That’s despite the fact beach residents have their separate trash pickup services and fees.

“Everyone at the beaches is double taxed,” said Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13).

Diamond, who represents the beaches, argued a fee increase for Jacksonville residents isn’t the solution.

He favors renegotiating the county’s trash service contracts and making it a city service paid out of general revenue by default.

“Negotiate five, ten-year contracts so we can get the best bang for the buck right now,” said Diamond.

Carlucci said he’s committed to finding common ground with his fellow council members to produce some kind of solution before city budgets become unmanageable.

“I don’t want to saddle the next council with this cause by then it won’t be $90 million, it’ll be who knows how many millions more,” said Carlucci.

Carlucci said he plans to file a bill in January and is interested in setting up a series of public meetings to get input back from the community on the best way forward.

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