Crossfield Town council gave three readings to the amended 2016-02 Fees and Rates Bylaw during the Jan. 19 council meeting, which will see most utility costs rising two per cent.
Those costs will rise as per the rate of inflation for the province of Alberta in accordance with Statistics Canada.
Crossfield Chief Administrative Officer Ken Bosman said although rates are increasing, it is a more moderate increase than other surrounding communities. According to Bosman, Calgary has seen a double digit increase for more than a decade now.
“This reflects our actual cost increase,” he said. “We’re passing on the absolute minimum we can.”
When it comes to the costs of water, the municipality is receiving an additional increase from the water commission. This pushes the increase slightly higher than two per cent, Bosman said.
According to Bosman, this means if a user were at the flat rate minimum for water, their total bill will go up by $24 – which represents an increase of little more than 2.5 per cent.
“These are hard costs that we can’t control,” Bosman said.
The bylaw previously stated a $2 fee for a paper bill was supposed to start in January, but administration reworked the bylaw so the fee does not come into effect until the March billing cycle.
Only about 100 ratepayers are signed up to receive a bill online. Bosman said he believes the notice of the paper bill fee will encourage more residents to stop by the Town Office and switch to online.
By switching the majority of bills online, Bosman’s best guess is that the municipality would save about $14,000 a year.
“I sound like a broken record saving $2 here and $12 there, but this is 7,200 paper bills we’re not going to be mailing out and paying postage on,” Bosman said.
Residents who are unable to receive a bill online can go to the Town Office and apply to be exempt from the fee. Bosman said there would probably be about 150 to 200 people that might apply.
This change also allows the Town the opportunity to expand its newsletter in full colour and with more pages, as a PDF doesn’t incur costs to send.
“It’s instant, cheap and immediate delivery – welcome to the 21st century,” he said.
Currently, the municipality is only able to bill utilities online, but Bosman hopes to soon get taxes and assessment notices online as well.
