Recreation Fees and Charges Review

The fee structure for Courtenay Recreation facilities, programs and services is under review. In 2020 under the guidance of City Council, the City of Courtenay retained the services of RC Strategies to conduct a recreation fees and charges study.

The intent is to develop a policy that aligns fees and subsidy levels with the amount of benefit the community and individuals receive from the services. This is known as a “benefits-based approach”.

Recreation programs and services help meet the social, physical, and mental health needs of the community. The goal is to ensure fees for using these important community services are fair, practical, and consistent, while ensuring that the process for establishing these fees is transparent.

Public engagement started with an online survey in the fall of 2020.

RC Strategies introduced the draft Recreation Fees and Charges Framework to Council at the May 9, 2022 Council meeting, and the finalized report was presented and approved at the June 27, 2022 Council meeting.

The final draft report can be accessed here: [PDF - 3 MB]

For any questions regarding the project, please feel free to contact the City of Courtenay Recreation and Cultural Services Department at rcs@courtenay.ca.

Next Steps:

City staff will assemble an internal working group of interdepartmental interest holders to establish what costs are to be included in the calculation of the unit costs for a given recreation service.

Once agreed upon, these costs will be consistently used to determine the unit cost. E.G. For calculating the unit costs for a facility space the following costs will be considered for inclusion:

Annual provision for lifecycle costs (approximately 2% of the replacement lifecycle cost)
Facility Repairs and Maintenance Cost
Facility Operations Cost
A portion of the recreation administration costs

Once unit costs are determined, subsidy levels will be assigned based on the subsidy levels identified on the recreation fees and charges framework benefits continuum as illustrated below.

Courtenay Recreation Fees and Charges Framework - DRAFT, p. 13

Once subsidy levels are applied and preliminary fees are determined, adjust using the implementation strategy identified in the framework to allow users to adjust to any increases and transition any changes to their members I.E. if there’s a moderately high increase to commercial user fees, this will give time for the commercial user to increase fees to its members over time.

Adjust for practicality and ensure financial access to those with financial barriers. For example, if there are spaces that have low utilization, consider adjusting the fees at a discount for non-prime time rates to encourage utilization. If a fee is very low, consider waiving the fee if the cost of collecting the fee exceeds the collection of the fee for the service.