WATSON LAKE Non-Whitehorse residents using municipal services are subsidized by city taxpayers and should pay higher user fees or have some of their territorial taxes transferred to city coffers.

In an interview last Friday, Doug Graham, the Association of Yukon Communities' president and a Whitehorse city councillor, said he'd like to see people living outside municipal areas using city services pay more for those services.

'What's happening is that they're paying taxes at the territorial rate for minimal services. Then they have the advantage of using services in the communities,' he said.

'We're not just talking about recreational facilities. We're talking about cemeteries; we're talking about dumps and a number of different things.

'Those are the issues that we're having difficulty with.'

In many cases, Graham said, user fees only covered 40 or 50 per cent of the cost of running a municipal service, with the remainder of the costs being borne by municipal ratepayers.

'You have to ask yourself: how many people who live in Marsh Lake, Tagish, Deep Creek or any of those areas have been buried outside of Grey Mountain Cemetery in the last 10 years? Probably almost none.

'Yet we maintain the cemetery in perpetuity and that's at the cost of Whitehorse taxpayers. It's a problem, there's absolutely no doubt about it.'

Mayor Ernie Bourassa said last Friday he is also concerned and advocated for the territorial government to levy more taxes on people living in the fringe areas of Whitehorse and then have those taxes transferred to the city.

'That's a big concern. We know there are lots of people who come in and use municipal services.

'We may have to think of a rate for people who don't live within the municipality and don't pay taxes. Or, the alternative is, for the YTG to increase the comprehensive grant, which they haven't done in awful long time,' Bourassa said.

Non-city residents using recreational services, he added, may have the reverse effect and actually add to the bottom line on recreational facilities with fixed operating costs.

'It's a trade-off,' he said.

Community Services Minister Glenn Hart said last Friday he doesn't agree with Graham and Bourassa and will not consider a tax hike on rural residents.

'No, I wouldn't consider it. Right now, in Lake Laberge, for example, we're using a transfer system to the Whitehorse dump; we pay for that,' Hart said.

His government is considering helping municipalities with their infrastructure without rural tax hikes.

'Many people who live there, they live there because the taxes are less than they are in a municipality,' the minister said.