Fredericton officials are reminding the public that select city fees will increase on Jan. 1, 2019.
As detailed in the 2019 municipal budget, all inspection fees for the Fredericton Fire Department will see a jump in cost.
David McKinley, assistant deputy chief of the Fredericton Fire Department, says this is just a matter of inflation and it’s about time the changes happened.
“It more accurately reflects the cost of doing business,” he said.
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McKinley says the increases to the fee structure at the fire department are aimed at modernizing prices, since they have not changed since 2004.
The largest fee hike for professional inspections performed by the fire department is the Fire Full Incident Report — used in court proceedings and for insurance claims.
The cost of the report will increase from $25 to $250.
These fee spikes also reflect the amount of work that goes into completing the reports by city and fire staff.
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McKinley says a lot of time and detail goes into creating the paperwork, which is why the cost is going up.
“There are several people that are involved in doing that report — our clerk inside, the actual fire investigator that works for the fire prevention division as well — so there’s quite a bit to it, and $25 just was not representative of the cost of preparing that report.”
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A longtime Fredericton resident thinks the increase is drastic but reasonable.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to have any issues with the rate increases, however I do think some people might want a justification for some of the steep increases that we are seeing at one time. Maybe some people would like to see a more gradual increase as opposed to the sudden rate hike,” said Jeremy Goddard.
These fee increases have been in the works by the fire department for a long time. Because fire department officials were unable to submit the necessary paperwork on time in previous years, the prices went unchanged.
McKinley says that this year the fire department made an extra effort to ensure the price jump made it into Fredericton’s 2019 city budget.
“We’ve actually been working on it for quite a few years and we’ve known that the rates were low and too low for many years,” he said.
“Often times, we’ve started working on it and next thing you know the budget is on top of us and we don’t get it submitted in time. This year, we got it done in time.”
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Fire services aren’t the only city fees that will surge on Jan. 1.
The new budget increases parking fines for the first time in eight years, going from $15 to $25.
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