Mayor Green Among Group of B.C. Mayors Calling for More Dollars from Senior Government
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 @ 9:26 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Mayor Shari Green is one of nine B.C. Mayors who have joined forces to call for a bigger share of the provincial and federal tax pie.
The B.C. Mayors Caucus, has issued a joint communiqué printed today in the Vancouver Sun.
The Mayors say as other levels of government reduce services “more and more of the core social services are now falling to local governments to provide.”
In addition to the downloading of core social services, the Mayors say they do not receive a fair share of the money needed to fulfil their mandate.
Receiving just 8 cents of ever tax dollar collected from taxpayers ( provincial and Federal taxes) while the Province receives 42 cents an the Federal government 50 cents. “The proportion of public revenues available to local governments has not changed significantly over the years, despite their increasing mandate and the related costs.”
The mayors say they don’t believe taxpayers can pay more, “But we also don’t believe that we can responsibly do the job tasked to us by other levels of government and meet the expectations of our constituents under the existing funding formula.”
The B.C. Mayors Caucus will convene its inaugural meeting next week, ( May 16-18th) in Pentiction. The agenda for that session will highlight “the need for a new deal for B.C. Municipalities”. The communiqué says the results of changes in public policy by provincial and federal governments have cost implications which are felt by these communities the most. “We must be partners in those decisions” reads the communiqué.
Comments
Get businesses to cough it up.
In addition to the downloading of core social services, the Mayors say they do not receive a fair share of the money needed to fulfil their mandate.
Well you make sure you got your fair share, Where’s our fair share THE TAX PAYER!
More money to pee away on airy fairy skeems that our great Mayors can come up with. Like 14% of the budget for debt services.
Cheers
Province gave municipalities a gift with gaming revenue and with 100% of traffic ticket fines.
They’ve squandered it.
So city wants province to increase provincial taxes so they can manage city taxes. Brilliant.
Speeding ticket revenue reduced because of fewer speeders on our pothole filled roads?
Well if I was the Provincial and Federal governments I might agree to giving more but first I would like to look at the books. How are they spending the current taxes collected? I’m sure they would be impressed on how our tax dollars are wasted on useless things and would fail the first application. Now if they got their spending in order and applied again they might get some more of the pie. If they can’t handle what they bring in now then why would anyone give them more to waste?
Their might be hope! Prince George could could register as a Charity and apply for a lottery license. They could run a weekly 50/50 or a house raffle with all money going to roads.
Province gives cities gaming revenue and reduces gaming revenue to charities and cities increase grants to charities that are affected by cut backs.
I believe that is what I have been hearing, especially from arts groups.
Case in point is TNW.
In 2008 they received $91,500 from the feds, $118,000 from the province and $72,000 from the city.
In 2011 the respective figures were 65,000; $65,000; and $118,000 from the City.
The message from the two senior levels of government seemed loud and clear from the funding levels – during the economic downturn they re-adjusted their priorities to fund projects they felt were better able to keep the economic engines going. Funding the arts were not part of that plan.
The City, however, has decided to fund at the $118,000/year level for the past 3 years and once more this year at that same level.
An increase in ticket prices from say $25 to $32 would, however, remove all needs for government subsidies not only in the case of TNW, but also other similar theatres across the country.
To the best of my knowledge, we do not subsidize the “popular” entertainers whose road shows use city arenas. In fact, in PG they may actually reduce the loss of operating an arena whose primary tenant is unable to provide the amount of revenue to the CN Centre that they were orginally able to provide.
If I am correct with my perception, then why the double standard and why is the City not sending the same message of “austerity” as the senior governments are sending? Consider that as a rhetorical question.
It is quite simple folks. Neo-liberal leaders like Harper and Clark want to reduce the size of government and reduce taxes to corporations. The net result is a downloading of costs from Federal to Provincial and from Provincial to Municipal. In the end it must be the individuals who pay more for services to pay for the corporate sales cuts. We are being fleeced.
It even has a name. it is called “the race to the bottom”. If you are not aware of this you better learn soon because we are rapidly losing the middle class into the poor class as the wealthy get wealtier.
“The economy is here to support society. Society is not here to support the economy”. as long as our politicans are allowed to use society to support the economy, there can only be one result. We see it every day.
The City does not have to register as a charity.
Based on Canada Revenue Agency information: “Where a Canadian municipality agrees to receive your monetary contribution, control the expenditures, and issue official receipts to the donors in the municipalityâs name, you do not need to register a new charity.
“Donations to a Canadian municipality are tax-supported to the same extent as donations to registered charities.”
Not sure whether other municipalities have operated lotteries or not, but may be worthwhile exploring to see whether the option is available.
Not sure if I would support another gambling option to provide additional funding to run a municipality.
In addition to the downloading of core social services, the Mayors say they do not receive a fair share of the money needed to fulfil their mandate.
While I do appreciate the fact that senior governments have been increasing the amount of downloading for many years to local gov’ts without also transferring the necessary additional resources to cover costs associated with the downloaded core social services, I also feel that many local governments have strayed away from their own mandate and have taken on more than they can afford or have borrowed beyond their means to subsidize or pay for non-essential, non-mandated services, consequently many local governments may find it difficult to near impossible to fullfil their own mandate of first taking care of essential services and
infrastructure needs such as roads, water, sewer, waste water management, bylaw services, etc.
I hope the City of Prince George’s core review will be conducted with a thorough understanding of the mandate of local government and also take a seroius look at the City’s per capita debt. For a City with a population of under 80,000 residents it is unacceptable to have an annual debt servicing amount of approx $12 mil.
Shari Green is rapidly going down as one of the WORST Mayors P.G has had….the amazing thing about her is She doesn’t even TRY and make it look like she gives a dam what any citizen has to say! After she got elected it was business time for her downtown contributers and she routinely ignores suggestions from City management and citizens alike and does her own thing! this City will be a disaster in 3 years time!
Well….hang on to your socks. Shari has two and a half more years to get 4th Ave. dolled up and then who know’s…..will it be Shari or or Stolz running for old Dick Harris’s job. Just a Tuesday prediction.
The reason why I am so dead set against any tax in crease is that I am retired and on a fixed income. The HST doesn’t make any sense to tax the average waged earner and give the wealthy a tax break. As already stated in the above comments. If the wealthy people want a play house thedn they will have to pay for it.
Don’t worry. Dick Harris’ successor is already picked and it is neither Green or Stolz. Everyone could see how it worked with selecting the successor to Jay Hill.
resources wrote: “I also feel that many local governments have strayed away from their own mandate and have taken on more than they can afford or have borrowed beyond their means to subsidize or pay for non-essential, non-mandated services,”
Things change over time. What was non-essential at one time becomes essential at another. That happens with personal life styles as well as community lifestyles.
The mayor of Ft.St.John…LOL…??
If one were to stand outside the governance system encompassing the federal system, the provincial systems, the regional systems and the local municipal systems, one may be able to look at who is responsible for what and thus who is responsible to pay.
When one sees that, I can certainly see that the “downloading” can be most closely aligned to the trend to “user pay”.
In other words, if one commumnity is more sports oriented, the community can decide to use more taxes than a community that is greenbelt and parks oriented on providing facilities to support those special interests which, due to the nature of that community would be more average interests than special interests.
That all sounds fine as long as the needs of the “underpriviledged” are taken care of. But that seems to be the problem. When the senior government support for those individuals is removed and the local community has to take care of those needs, the wants are undersupported. In fact, I think what will happen as a result is the more rapid move of people from small/remote cities to larger cities.
I suspect we are already observing that in small/remote town Canada. If we are, then the four laning of HWY97 is a futile project unless it is done in concert with other efforts to open up the centre plateau of the province.
Nope, not the right riding area. This one goes from PG to the south, not the north. The person does not have to be well known, just well connected and electable without baggage.
No, I realize that….but I am at a loss for a Cariboo name…..
In my opinion, unless the Conservatives screw up royally on the national scene between now and the next election, they do not have to have a known name in the community to get elected in a general election. The conservative candidate has a very high probability of getting elected unless the individual has a well known questionable past public record. It works quite differently from municipal politics.
The key fight will be who gets the riding nomination. There is a “machine” there which takes care of that. If you have not been the poster child of that machine for a long enough period, chances of winning the nomination are slim to none. Newcomers are generally not welcomed in that environment.
Comments for this article are closed.