Everyone should contribute to keep costs down for user fees

YorkRegion.com
Aug. 31, 2016
Tim Kelly

How much of the increase in user fees should those who use recreation facilities have to pay?

And how much should taxpayers as a whole have to cover?

That’s the balance King Township councillors grapple with, it seems, every year.

The problem is the costs of running local facilities — think heat, hydro, labour — keep rising annually and somebody, users, taxpayers or a combination of the two, has to pay for them.

But should the costs be shared among all of King’s taxpayers equally or should the vast majority of those rising costs be shouldered by the people who play most often?

As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

This all came to the fore Monday night at Township council when a report from the Township’s parks and recreation department recommended hikes of 7 to 7.5 per cent in prime and non prime-time ice rentals as well as hydro rates for baseball diamonds.

The report was sent back for further work, as Mayor Steve Pellegrini said the increase was too rich for his blood and would be too much for users of the facilities to bear.

He got support from the rest of council, although Councillor Avia Eek pointed out many people in her ward don’t use township recreation facilities because they don’t live close enough to them. She said they travel instead to Bradford, East Gwillimbury or Newmarket to use recreation facilities, making the argument against hitting all taxpayers for user-fee increases.

While property taxes should largely be confined to essential and emergency services such as fire, police, sewer, roads, garbage and the like, some taxes, it can be argued, should also go to non-essentials such as culture and recreation.

While we must pay for the things we need, it’s also not difficult to make a solid case we should pay a portion of our taxes for the things that most of us want.

Quality of life is an important part of living in a community and no one can disagree having access to high-quality recreational facilities and decent programs makes for higher satisfaction.

We don’t have to have recreational facilities and the programs offered, but life would be poorer without them, so being asked to pay for a portion of the increase it costs to provide them is not unreasonable.