The Town of Smithers is considering increasing arena user fees by as much as 30 per cent to cover the operating costs of the second sheet of ice.
At the Feb. 4 Finance Committee meeting, councillors approved motions to increase user fees for youth and adults by 20 and 30 per cent, respectively, to start in 2014-2015.
Another motion was passed to continue looking into the viability of a three-tiered recreation card for arena users.
The changes are just recommendations at this point and are not yet set in stone, cautioned Andrew Hillaby, Town of Smithers director of recreation, parks and culture.
There will be a period of public consultation before any fees are increased, added councillor and Finance Committee chair Mark Bandstra.
“I think we’re working toward a pretty good solution, which will result in only a very small tax increase [to cover the arena operating costs],” Bandstra said. “That’s where we’re aimed.
“It’s a fine line between cost recovery, which is what we’re aiming for, and not overpricing it to the point where we start losing those that want to get extra ice time or start new programs.”
Currently, the cost for youth to rent the arena in the winter is about $70/hr. Adults pay almost $155/hr. Included in the rental fee is a $5 reserve charge for youth and $10 for adults that was designed to help pay for the second rink’s operating cost.
“We’ve always had a policy at council where we subsidize the costs for youth and we aim at full cost recovery for adults,” Bandstra said.
“The idea being, of course, is to have a variety of affordable things for youth to do.”
The Town of Smithers has estimated the new arena’s annual operating costs to be between $167,000 and $192,000.
The next step for the Town of Smithers is to meet with representatives from the arena user groups to get their feedback on the proposed fee increase and the recreation card.
That meeting has been set for Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.
President of Smithers Minor Hockey Dave Turko said the organization knew a fee hike was coming and he just wants to ensure it isn’t an amount that pushes people away from playing the sport.
“If you charge more and less people play hockey, then you have to charge more to pay for two rinks,” he said. “When do we hit that mark?”
That being said, Turko didn’t think the proposed 20 per cent boost was unreasonable.
“We expected an increase but we had no idea how much it was going to be,” he said, “We’ve never met with the town about this.
“If you look around at other rinks, I don’t think [the increase] is too bad. It will affect some people for sure but I don’t think it’s unfair have a rate increase.”
While some kind of fee increase is a certainty, one way to recover costs — the three-tiered recreation card — still needs some fleshing out. Some communities the town has talked to, like Quesnel and Williams Lake, said the card system is onerous to administer and the fees generated do not cover the cost of administration.
If the card was adopted, three different arena rates would be set — for those living in town, for those living in the benefitting area and for people living outside of the 10-km benefitting area.
“We were kind of leaning away from it at our last meeting,” Bandstra said. “It’s something that we really have to discover for ourselves.”