Duane Hicks
While tax levies, along with sewer and water rates, won’t be decided until later in the 2009 budget process, Fort Frances residents will see a three percent jump for most user fees, with a greater hike for waste management services, in the coming year.
Councillors received the 2009 user fee schedule as amended at a special committee of the whole meeting Friday afternoon. A bylaw to put the user fees into effect will be up for approval at the Dec. 22 regular council meeting.
The three percent hike affects 400-plus services provided by the town, ranging from taxi driver licences to public hall rentals to photocopying fees.
But as previously reported, the price of bag tags and tipping fees will go up more than three percent.
The cost of bag tags will rise from $1.50 to $1.75 (16.76 percent) while there will be a 12 percent hike to tipping fees at the landfill.
This will affect the rate per tonne (which will rise from $53.57 to $60), as well as other rates (such as the cost of disposing tires and refrigerators) and the flat rates for various vehicles (such as half-tons, mid-size trucks, and full-size vans, singe-axle trucks, tandem trucks, and garbage trucks) when the weigh scale is not in operation.
The 12 percent increase does not, however, affect the charge for passenger vehicles, mini-vans, and SUVs when the weigh scale is not in operation, nor the minimum charge for when it is in operation—both of which will remain at $15.
With no user fee increases, the 2009 operating budget for waste management would be facing a nearly $76,000 shortfall, which is partially due to a decline in the commodity price of recyclables.
The town is being charged an extra $60/tonne to have its recyclables delivered to the Metro facility in Winnipeg each year, meaning there now is an additional $24,000 expenditure added to the 2009 operating budget for waste management (due to the plummeting recyclable market, this surcharge has doubled since first reported at the Dec. 3 budget meeting).
Councillors voted 5-1 in favour of the 2009 user fee schedule, with Coun. Ken Perry voting against it.
Coun. Perry said the increase should be the other way around, with the town charging more for non-essential services which residents have a choice to pay (like using the arena) and charging less for essential services, like waste disposal.
Non-resident fees
Meanwhile, non-residents also will have to pay a little bit more to use recreational facilities here in the new year after the 2009 user fee schedule was amended to charge a 25 percent premium on the annual membership to use the ice surfaces, pool, and fitness centre at the Memorial Sports Centre.
This is an increase of five percent over the current 20 percent premium, increasing the non-resident membership rate from $519 to $540.
While other non-resident rates were reviewed, as requested by council after the Dec. 3 budget meeting, these likely will stay the same—one major reason being that hiking fees jeopardizes losing non-resident users, meaning less total revenue and more of the financial burden shifted to Fort Frances residents.
One area that still may go up for non-residents is library fees, which will be reviewed by the library board.
Currently, the family rate for non-residents is $55 per year while the contribution of Fort Frances taxpayers is about $72.
