Drew Dixon
Utility rates will be going up in Jacksonville.
The Board of Directors for JEA, the city’s publicly owned utility, gave the go-ahead to the rate hikes. The Board approved incremental rate increases to electric, water and sewer services for city customers.
The rate hikes will come to about a 3.7% increase for average residential customer bills. The rate increase will begin April 1. Customers can use the JEA bill estimator to figure out a more precise projection of what they’ll be paying this year, assuming their utility usage remains the same as it was in 2024.
JEA officials said in a news release that much of the rate increase is due to “investments” the utility is making. JEA is spending funds on sustainability programs, technological improvements and infrastructure improvements.
But of the largest expenditures is the JEA plan to upgrade plants and facilities that have to meet state and federal regulations for customer service. Many of those upgrades will amount to about $25 million to be spent on several projects. There are about a dozen major projects that range from water reclamation facility improvements to biosolid facility conversions to water purification centers to piping system improvements among other projects.
In an attempt to offset the negative perception of the rate hikes, JEA officials pointed out that Jacksonville customers still have among the least expensive utility charges in Florida.
“Even with increases, JEA expects to continue to offer the lowest overall utility costs among major cities across Florida,” the news release said.
Jacksonville will see average monthly bills for customers coming in at about $205.66 currently and that average will go up to $210.27 this year after the rate increase goes into effect. That’s lower than every other large city’s average monthly utility bill in the state.
Orlando isn’t that much more than Jacksonville though at $213.36 per month on average for utilities and Miami has an average monthly utility bill of $214.26.
St. Petersburg has the most expensive average monthly utility cost in the state at $305.71, according to figures provided by JEA.
