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Orangeville taxpayer is fed up with subsidizing non-resident service users

October 31, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

There are many tributaries that go into the smooth flow of a municipality’s sound financial strategy.

Just one of those that helps steady the ebb and flow of finance is a town’s user fees and charges.

Cheryl Braan, Orangeville’s treasurer, guided town council when it met on Oct. 28 through one of the elements of the municipality’s long-term financial strategy that’s found in the structure of user fees and charges.

She said the elements of the long-term integrated financial strategy were outlined to council in June. Several aspects of that strategy have been in effect since then, she said.

The heart of a municipal finance structure has traditionally been centred upon annual operating and capital budgets and financial statements for each year.

“A long-term financial strategy applies a disciplined and integrated approach to financial planning through evidence-based decision-making and risk management to promote financial sustainability and flexibility into the long term for the organization,” she said.

Some of the strategy’s guiding principles include regulatory compliance, astute risk management, diversified revenue and funding sources, stakeholder engagement and sustainability, and transparency and accountability.

The town provides a number of services to residents and non-residents for which a fee is charged to recover some of that service’s cost.

“This approach does reduce the reliance on the property tax levy to fund municipal services,” she said. “It also optimizes the town’s own source revenues.”

Those fees are established by way of legislation.

The Planning Act governs fees related to processing planning applications. Fees levelled under the authority of the Building Code Act governs coin from the administration and enforcement of that legislation. Fees for parks, recreation, other administration, and infrastructure services are applied under the authority of the Municipal Act.

Braan said user fees provide fairness by making the people who avail of a service pay for it.

An aside: That may skew the idea of fairness in how taxpaying residents who can’t afford to pay for a service are denied that municipal service. But let’s crack on anyway, shall we?

Braan said an average three per cent increase in building permit fees reflects industry standards. A six per cent to 25 per cent rise in recreation programs makes up for no increases since 2020, just as a six per cent to 20 per cent jump in facilities and parks prices.

An increase in administrative fees of up to 80 per cent is the result of a jump in banking costs, she said.

Cemetery plots and internment fees are up 20 per cent and fire inspections, burn permits, and fines for open-air burning increased in 2025 by 50 per cent.

Library services, fines, fees to Dufferin County residents outside Orangeville, and for copying and printing are up two per cent this year.

No changes are recommended for advertising in the municipality’s arenas.

Fead Street resident Noel Ramsey spoke about the user fees for the swimming facilities at the Alder Street arena. With all the facility monetary figures and recreation expense tallies, it’s difficult to discern the cost for aquatics at the Alder Street arena.

“Although we don’t recover all the costs through user fees, I believe it’s important to know what it costs to maintain and operate the pool, the facility, and programs associated with the pool,” Ramsey said.

He asked that the town start reporting the costs of the facility on Alder Street on annual consolidated financial statements. A breakdown of staff salaries and benefits, cost of supplies, interest on debt, and contracted services.

“We know that the fees collected does not cover the pool’s expense and the difference is picked up by the town’s taxpayers,” Ramsey said. “I have no complaints with this as it’s a valuable service provided to the town’s residents.”

He said the up to 25 per cent increase in recreation fees to non-residents won’t cover the expenses.

“We as taxpayers should be paying the bill to cover the cost to provide the service to non-residents,” he said. “Either the non-resident or their municipality should be covering the full cost of their participation.”

Orangeville has some of the highest taxes in all of Ontario. As such, Ransey said, Orangeville taxpayers should not have to pay for non-resident recreation participation.

“I think you’re preaching to the choir because we all believe the same thing,” Mayor Lisa Post said. “I think I can speak for council when I say that we’re all in the position where we know that we need to change the way we recover money from our neighbours.

“We’ve talked about this when it comes to recreation. We’ve talked about it when we talk about fire (services). We talk about it when we talk about a lot of services in the Town of Orangeville.”

Being the larger urban hub in a rural setting, Orangeville is the provider of many services. Means to make capital costs more reasonably shared is being investigated.

“It’s gone on for a really long time where the Orangeville taxpayer has been subsidizing those services for the neighbours,” Post said.

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