The days of missed garbage pickups that enraged Jacksonville residents have ended, but the cost of fixing that mess is putting the city’s solid waste fund on track to be about $500 million in debt by 2031 and is drawing comparisons by one City Council member to the city’s pension fund debacle.
The city assesses a garbage fee for residential curbside collection that once raised enough money to cover the cost of pickup and disposal. But the city’s cost of carrying out that service has spiked in recent years while the garbage fee hasn’t changed since 2010.
The gap widened after City Council voted Tuesday in favor of a 29% increase in what the city pays Meridian Waste, one of two commercial haulers contracted by the city. Council members said they don’t want to see a repeat of what happened three years ago when yard debris went uncollected for weeks at at a time and the city had to suspend curbside recycling to catch up…