The Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance (IMFG) has released a paper reviewing user fees in Ontario.

The authors, Almos Tassonyi and Harry Kitchen, discuss the potential creative uses of user fees as municipalities try to manage the financial impacts of COVID -19 and tactically support poverty reduction efforts.

As we know, user fees are one financial tool used by municipalities to support the delivery of services and must be used on a cost recovery basis. The paper utilizes data from the Financial Information Return (FIR) to determine where user fees are typically applied in Ontario, in what circumstances such fees may be useful to apply and to what services. The paper also discusses issues around efficiency, equity and fairness and analyzes how user fees could be designed for considerations of these goals.

Addressing the Fairness of Municipal User Fee Policy paper