The three per cent solution

City solicitor Michael Burke answers council's questions at the first of two budget wrap-up meetings Thursday night at city hall.

CAO Dave Linkie (c) and treasurer Brian Rogers await their turn to talk.
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North Bay’s residential tax rate increase has been whittled down to three per cent, achieved mainly through increased fees, the implementation of paid street parking Saturdays and specific public transportation cuts.

Treasurer Brian Rogers delivered the tax rate decrease Thursday night at the first of two wrap-up budget meetings.

In all, he said, city business units have had $2.1 million cut from their budgets, bringing the tax levy increase down to 7.8 per cent.

Prevent large increases
The city will now start charging for birth certificates and up the cost of other vital documents such as marriage certificates, birth travel letters and business licenses.

“Birth certificates, which we’ve never charged for before, will be a new revenue source for us,” said deputy mayor and budget chief Peter Chirico.

Future increases for city-issued documents will also include inflation adjustments, Chirico said.

“What that does is prevent large increases year over year.”

Curious direction
Paid street parking Saturdays will be instituted as a result of consultations with the city’s parking authority, a parking task force and the Downtown Improvement Area.

“It will prevent employees from parking on the street,” Chirico said.

As well the move is expected to bring in $14,000 annually.
Parking violations will be more stringently enforced, Chirico said, which should mean an extra $8,000 a year in fines.

“This enforcement will also be outside of just the downtown core to make sure no-parking zones are respected,” Chirico said.

Coun. George Maroosis said council was going in “a curious direction” in imposing paid street parking on Saturdays.

“We backed off of $2 a day parking at Memorial Garden and the aquatic centre but now we’re willing to chase customers away from the downtown through this measure,” Maroosis said.

"And people really peeved after they get a parking ticket.

A $10,000 used car
Changes have been made in other areas of city operations too.

A bus route that picked up only eight people on Hwy 11 near the psychiatric hospital has had its schedule reduced from 16 trips a day to four, resulting in savings of $60,000.

Sixteen trips a day for only eight people was costing the city $80,000.

“For that amount of money we could have bought each of those people a $10,000 used car every year,” said Mayor Vic Fedeli.

The eight people who use the service are all on Ontario Works, council learned at a public budget session Tuesday night, and have no other means of transportation.

Break-even point
Council is also looking at increasing the cost of its dial-a-cab service, which provides taxi transportation from areas with no bus routes—Silver Lady Lane, Peninsula Road and Anita Avenue, as well as the Carmichael Drive-Springdale Road area—to the closest bus stops.

The fee had been $2 a ride, but council now wants to increase it to a break-even point, which could be as high as $9 a trip.

Heard the call
While the tax rate increase has been chopped, Chirico said it would come down a little more, since the city’s agencies, boards and commissions have now reduced their budgets too.

“We’ve heard back from the DSSAB and they’ve been able to a number of dollars from the budget plus look at some of their reserve funds, which we will be reporting on next week,” Chirico said.

“We’ve also heard back from the police services board and the health unit, and there are some adjustments coming forth to their budgets. So they’ve been listening to our call and I think we’ll have some very good news by next Thursday.”

The education portion of the tax bill hasn't been decided on yet by the province, Rogers said.