The province and the Union of B.C. Municipalities are set to discuss how they will share the increased fine revenue set to come in from upgrades to red-light cameras and electronic ticketing.
Surrey Coun. Bruce Hayne, who sits on the UBCM executive, said the province told the organization it was looking to amend how the revenues are shared, aiming to have a new agreement signed by the end of spring.
In its letter dated Wednesday, Municipal Affairs Selina Robinson cited the 鈥渙ngoing expansion of automated traffic enforcement,鈥� including the new red-light cameras used to catch speeders.
Announced in March, the 鈥渋ntersection camera system鈥� will be able to issue speeding tickets automatically, as well as tickets for running a red light.
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Additional, and in the past couple of months that allow them to simply swipe a driver鈥檚 licence to log all of the information.
Currently, the province collects the fines and redistributes between $50-60 million to municipalities of more than 5,000 people. That amounts to the net revenue, minus any administrative costs. Smaller cities get a refund through a reduction in the police tax.
鈥淢unicipalities don鈥檛 have much in the way of tools to negotiate,鈥� Hayne said. 鈥淚 guess what I鈥檓 saying is that at the end of the day the province will tell us what the deal will be.鈥�
He did say the NDP government has been 鈥渧ery collaborative鈥� so far, and hoped the outcome won鈥檛 cut into one of the few revenue sources cities have. Currently, most of the money cities are able to raise come from property taxes.
Raising those is never popular, he said, but municipalities could be forced to do so if traffic fine revenue drops.
鈥淲e know that policing costs are going up on a yearly basis,鈥� Hayne said.
鈥淎ll of the protective services 鈥� he added. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 going to fall on local government.鈥�
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