City council told staff working at bringing budget back to surplus, especially after COVID
The City of Niagara Falls is trying to bring its parking budget back to surplus.
During the city council meeting Tuesday night, it heard that people working from home during COVID helped to eat into the budget.
Parking Manager Paul Brown pointed to a pilot program in which law enforcement students issued parking tickets in the Clifton Hill area. Businesses along the stretch received the program very well.
"The students found it to be a very challenging role, it is a conflict oriented role, but the students were hired through colleges that are dealing with law and security, and felt the conflict resolutions they learned doing this was a great learning tool," he says.
Council also heard about possibly increasing the number of parking permits, as well as potential for a uniform parking rate city wide, and for parking tickets.
The Parking Manager also mentioned they could stop waiving parking fees. "When organizations approach us, and they want to use some of our parking facilities, there's often a waive of those fees... this is a user based and self supporting budget, so we're saying they work with us and we incorporate a cost for that."
City staff add there are a number of parking lots with new businesses, which is bringing in more money.
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