Paying off a parking ticket within one business day to avoid a higher $25 or $50 fine could get a lot easier in the coming year.

City staff are working on changes to the city's website which would enable people to make payments – whether for parking fines, utility bills or other charges – online.

Information systems manager Mike Stevely briefed council and other city management officials at a noon meeting held Thursday.

"It offers a real convenience to the citizens, obviously,” he said.

Currently, parking meter fines paid within one business day are $10. They then go up to $25, and if that's not paid before the ticket shows up in court, they rise to $50.

As Matthew Grant, executive assistant to city manager Dennis Shewfelt, pointed out, much of the public now expects such services – paying a parking fine, for example – to be available through websites like the city's.

Though the exact numbers weren't available, city financial manager Val Anderson has noticed in her three years with the city that fewer and fewer people seem to be physically visiting city hall to pay bills.

Instead, it seems, many choose other options that are available – such as pre-authorized payment plans that come out of their bank accounts.

While parking tickets, utility bills and animal licensing are all possibilities for the improved website, property taxes could be another matter.

As staff like Rob Fendrick, director of administrative services, were quick to point out, the city foots the merchant charges that come with offering payments by credit card.

With $25 million paid in property taxes to the city each year, it becomes too expensive to offer credit card payment due to the merchant charges, council was told.

That means property owners will likely have to continue to pay their property taxes by Internet/phone banking, cash, debit, or cheque to the city unless they have arranged for their mortgage company to pay the taxes.

While the city isn't expected to change how property taxes can be paid anytime soon, the current website now allows visitors to do a property search that shows the legal and street address of a property, though it does not list the owners of the site.

Staff continue to work on their update of the website and the payment services that will be offered through it. They are also talking to stakeholders and looking at what needs to be included and what needs to be taken out, Stevely and Grant said.

Included in the recent citizens' survey, for example, were questions about what residents like and dislike about the current website and what they would want changed.

Grant went on to point out that with the updated website, officials would like to avoid "stuff stacking up,” as is currently the case with a number of older postings remaining on the site for lengthy periods.

The city's current website gets about 80,000 hits a month, with fluctuations depending on what's happening in the city.

Many more hits have been coming in, for example, since the city began its review of the Official Community Plan, Stevely pointed out.

As officials reviewed the plans for the city's website, council members let them know what options they'd like to see for online payments, with Mayor Bev Buckway suggesting transit passes as one choice.

As she pointed out, she took the territory up on a similar payment option to renew her vehicle registration online recently.

She was able to enter her information online and a couple of days later, her registration papers arrived in the mail, allowing her to avoid any lineups at the territorial motor vehicles branch offices.

Coun. Florence Roberts, meanwhile, suggested payments for things like compost could also be added to the choices. Then people could simply head up to the compost site with their receipt and pick up their order.

Coun. Doug Graham said that even if facility rentals may not be able to be done online, it would be beneficial for those wanting to rent space to be able to look up the availability online before calling the city to book the space.

It's expected the changes to the city's website will be made over the course of the year.