Cold Lake city council has decided to raise the fees for multiple recreation areas. The public can expect to pay about five percent more for facility and athletic field use, drop-in and memberships, special events, meeting rooms, and marina slip rental fees. Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland says the fees going up our a way to help balance a budget stretched across multiple ways.
“These fees going up five percent are not even coming close to full cost recovery. That’s councils choice. Recreation in the city of Cold Lake is heavily subsidized by the operating budget, but we are trying to collect a little bit more money to help deal with our shortfall.”
Copeland says a big part of the reason these decisions are being made is because of the provinces changes on the ID-349 agreement and its revenue to the city.
“This is where with capital money, If you suddenly loose $10 million a year, this is where you’ll see the most impact going forward.”
Council is hoping that the raise in fees will bring in an additional $70,000 in revenue.