Sudbury user fee freeze will cost the city — but how much?

For the past two weeks, riding the bus and using other city services in Greater Sudbury has cost the same as it did last year.

That's because city council voted not to go ahead with the annual hikes in user fees on Jan. 1.

Despite repeated requests from CBC News, city hall has not revealed any figures related to how much revenue has been lost so far.

But Ward 5 city councillor Robert Kirwan, who led the charge to freeze the fees at council's first meeting in December, doesn't believe it's very much.

Kirwan said when citizens elected Mayor Brian Bigger and his promise to freeze property taxes this year, that set a principle which should apply every time Greater Sudbury asks people to pay for something.

"I think just to go carte blanche and say we're just going to do things the way they've been done in the past is going against that principle," said Kirwan.

That principle was applied last week to the water rate  and Kirwan argued that the freeze on user fees should be considered for the rest of the year as well.

"Are we charging more to the people riding the bus who really can't afford it and then freezing municipal taxes for everybody else?" Kirwan said.

'We need some of that cash'

A staff report taking a closer look at user fees in Greater Sudbury is expected to come before city council by the end of the month.

But Kirwan said he personally would like to see the fees set when the rest of the city budget is struck later in the spring.

There were three city councillors who voted against the user fee freeze in December.

Ward 6 councillor Rene Lapierre was one of them. He also voted against the water rate freeze last week

"These user fees help us maintain salaries and functioning and fixing the buses and everything else," said Lapierre. "And we need some of that cash to continue that or we're running at a loss."

He's worried about the impact the cheaper bus fare is having on city finances. Lapierre is also concerned about city council putting off decisions like setting the user fee hikes for the year, especially when they have a very busy meeting schedule over the next few months with budget deliberations.