The possibility of you paying even more to use one of the City of Kamloops’ facilities is being floated as a way to offset millions of dollars in upgrades planned for the next 10 years.

“My concern is how do we pay for it?” said councillor Kelly Hall at the Tuesday session of Council’s Committee of the Whole.  “One of the recommendations that I would suggest is we start looking at some sort of a user tax opportunity, where maybe it’s an Asset Management Tax.”

The suggestion by Hall comes as the City of Kamloops has identified $35.8 million in planned upgrades to the 190 buildings the City current owns over the next decade.

Hall suggests the broader tax base in Kamloops could see less of a hit if something like an Asset Management Tax were to be brought in.

“Applied to individuals that are either using the facilities, renting the facilities, so that we start drawing revenue from other sources than just general taxation,” said Hall.

“As we continue to grow as a community, and because a lot of the federal and provincial downloading, we seem to be doing a lot more with the existing taxation that we currently have. I think we have to take a look at this from a global perspective,” Hall added.

A City staff report has been requested to determine how other cities in BC operate their asset management portfolios.

It’s estimated that around half of all user fees collected by the City already go into the maintenance and upgrading of civic facilities.