The amount in unpaid parking tickets owed the City of Saskatoon reaches well into the millions.

What could the city do if all those tickets were paid? CTV Saskatoon broke down the numbers.

Parking

  • The City of Saskatoon provides 2,800 parking spaces drivers must pay for.
  • An average of 123,000 parking tickets are issued each year.
  • Thirty-five per cent of the tickets are issued by parking enforcers in vehicles with cameras and 65 per cent are issued by enforcers on foot.
  • The city is still calculating the official number but estimates it made about $4 million on parking tickets last year.
  • A total of 46,600 parking tickets are still unpaid in Saskatoon.
  • The city is owed $4.23 million in unpaid tickets.

What could the city do with $4.23 million?

  • Remove snow on 500 kilometres of city streets, or plow Circle Drive 18 times
  • Resurface 12 kilometres of road
  • Reduce the property tax increase by 1.92 per cent
  • Operate all indoor city rinks for two years
  • Pay for 77 per cent of the city’s annual operating cost for the Remai Modern
  • Operate all city golf courses for one year, with close to $200,000 left over

These options are just hypotheticals, to be clear. The city says, if each ticket was suddenly paid, the $4.23 million wouldn’t work as a lump sum, put toward one specific project.

“It would simply go to our operating revenue or operating surplus or deficit,” the city’s director of finance Clae Hack said. “Just a general pot of funding and that’s why the city goes to the measures it does to collect that revenue cause were relying on it to help alleviate the pressure on the property tax.”

The city’s efforts to collect money owed — which Hack says the city takes seriously — include sending out letters as well as impounding and booting vehicles. On some occasions, the city’s efforts can be as extreme as taking legal action against a person who owes money in unpaid tickets, according to Hack.

“Our goal is to recoup all of the money, so our goal is that these funds are in place in our budget and it’s our responsibly to go to all means necessary to try and collect these funds,” Hack said.

The city made less money in 2017 than in previous years in parking tickets, but more money on people paying for hourly parking. The city attributes this to more drivers following the rules and paying for parking. An increased penalty of $30 for a parking ticket and the city’s new parking app make paying for parking easier, according to the city.