The city’s new landfill and small-vehicle transfer site user fee of $5 per visit is still slated to take effect on July 1.
This new user fee is in addition to any existing tipping and processing fees, and applies to all visitors to the landfill site regardless of where they live in Greater Sudbury.
The fee’s imposition was reaffirmed during Tuesday night’s city council meeting, at which Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent attempted to table a motion to rescind it.
Since the fee was approved by city council during 2024/25 budget deliberations, Parent’s motion was considered a reconsideration and required a two-third majority vote to be tabled.
With a split vote of 6-6 (Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre was not present), Parent’s motion was rejected.
Parent flagged the user fee earlier this month when it was brought to his attention.
In social media posts, Parent said city staff “slipped” the increase into the city’s 2024/25 budget, while Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée similarly declined to accept responsibility for it.
“We aren't auditors,” she wrote. “Our job is to be the board of directors in a governance role, not picking apart line by line. The onus is on staff to bring changes forward to us. If we don't know, we can't make proper decisions.”
In addition to being included on Page 633 of the 2024/25 budget document, city CAO Ed Archer drew attention to new user fees during a Nov. 15, 2023, pre-budget finance and administration committee meeting of city council. On a slide in Archer’s presentation to the committee, titled “How We Balanced the Budget,” the addition of $1,126,000 in net user fee revenue changes was cited as one of several measures staff undertook.
A question-and-answer document regarding the 2024/25 budget, published on Nov. 23, 2023, also makes note of user-fee increases and references an appendix which includes “Implement flat rate gate fee per landfill and transfer station visit (Environmental Services),” which was estimated to carry a 2024 revenue impact of $317,500, and $649,000 in revenue by 2025.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Parent said that although the information about the new user fee was available to city council, he didn’t notice it in time for last year’s budget deliberations.
He also clarified that he wasn’t the only member of city council who didn’t notice it, and that other members also learned about it when they received city correspondence regarding a planned public service announcement stating the fee was coming into effect on July 1.
The user fee previously came up during 2023 budget deliberations as a business case, he said, adding that city council “unanimously did not support it.”
In a short counterpoint during Tuesday’s meeting, Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh clarified that a number of city council members “were very much aware” of the new user fee and that although a business case was presented by staff as part of the 2023 budget process, it was not tabled for debate by city council.
The 6-6 vote of city council on whether to table Parent’s motion to cancel the new $5 landfill site and transfer site user fee was as follows:
- Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti: Yes
- Ward 2 Coun. Eric Benoit: Yes
- Ward 3 Coun. Michel Brabant: Yes
- Ward 4 Coun. Pauline Fortin: Yes
- Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent: Yes
- Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre: N/A
- Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée: Yes
- Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer: No
- Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh: No
- Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier: No
- Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc: No
- Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann: No
- Mayor Paul Lefebvre: No
Benoir and Brabant were sworn in to city council in March, which was well after the 2024/25 budget deliberations of late 2023. As such, this was their first vote on the user fee.
The 2023 business case (Page 365 of the draft 2023 budget) included a list of advantages and disadvantages to implementing the $5 user fee.
The advantages were:
- May drive more diversion through increased use of residential roadside diversion programs (blue box, green cart, leaf and yard trimmings).
- May discourage visits with small loads, thereby reducing inbound wait times at the landfill sites and small vehicle transfer sites.
The disadvantages were:
- May receive fewer visits at the landfill site, which could result in decreased tipping fee revenue and reduce the estimated gate fee revenue.
- Will increase transaction time, which could cause delays in outbound traffic leaving the sites.
- May drive up use of the roadside collection program, especially for large items and use of bag tags, putting additional unforeseen pressure on collection resources.
- Some residential properties do not receive roadside residential waste collection and instead deliver their waste directly, and this would drive up the cost of waste disposal and processing for these residential properties.
- If a resident misses their regularly scheduled every-other-week waste collection (or their waste is not collected for any other reason), the proposed option will eliminate the resident's ability to deliver the garbage directly at no cost.
- May increase resident and business complaints.
- May contribute to illegal dumping.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
