Three months after the Jacksonville City Council raised rates of residential trash hauling to address a growing city subsidization for the service, a Council committee launched an examination of nonresidential trash fees May 6.
Will Lahnen, chair of the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee, said his goal in starting the conversation was to ensure that the fees being charged to local businesses were covering the city’s costs of providing service.
He said balancing the fees and costs could help trim the city’s property tax rate by reducing the amount of tax revenue the city is spending to make up the difference.
“If a fee isn’t covering the cost, we’re still paying for it,” he said. “It’s essentially just becoming a subsidy out of the general fund, like we talked about at length on the residential trash fee…