New, lighter coins could mean big cost to cities
Posted on 11. Jan, 2012 by Chris Shepherd in Nelson |
The Canadian Mint is following the advice that says “mind the pennies and the dollars will follow,” but their decision to make lighter coins in a bid to save money means there’ll be a big expense for the City of Nelson, reports Megan Cole for the Nelson Star.
Photo source: bgilliard, Flickr, Creative Commons.
The lighter coins were announced in March 2011 and you can read about the rational behind them in this report in Toronto Life, but the City of Nelson is just now realizing there could be expensive consequences. The problem? The city’s parking meters determine which coins are deposited based on weight. A lighter loonie means the parking meters won’t be calibrated correctly.
“About 433 parking meters should be rehauled with the help of a kit and the kits are 10 bucks, so that’s about 4,300 bucks,” said [chief financial officer Colin] McClure. “And then there are about 312 parking meters that cannot be brought up to speed with the calibration kit because they are outdated.”
The City may have to look at purchasing new meters to replace the ones that will become useless, which could cost the city anywhere between $100,000 and $500,000.
Source: Nelson Star
Read more about the costs and dilemma facing the city at the Nelson Star.
One Response to “New, lighter coins could mean big cost to cities”
Leave a Reply
Haha citizens of Nelson rejoice! OKay this sounds great on paper but obviously the city coffers will suffer and by extension (one would assume) city civil services themselves.
That said if we’re going to get new meters can we get the cool new biometric kind with retina scans and auto face detection, maybe a built in AI that greets you ands asks how your day is going in a pleasant John Cleese voice.