What I really want to know is what Stolz wants to do with is extra money he hopes to get from the Province? Is he actually wanting to spend it on the roads, or is he just wanting to give it away to Commonwealth?

The city has been collecting more than enough taxes to pay for everything for a long time! We are paying enough, including at the gas stations! Mr. Stolz and Mr. Skakun, stop trying to dream up new ways to dip even deeper into our pockets! Get busy with finding solutions and proper directions to spend the many tens of millions of OUR tax money wisely and with respect for those who paid them – us!

It’s not YOUR money! If it were YOUR money you would pay more attention to how you spend it! After all, who likes to waste their OWN money?

That’s my opinion.

I would like to know more about the deal to pave more roads for the additional $1.9 million.

That is a significant increase in the scope of the work. Normally with that amount of change, the project would be re-bid.

Since civil work like that is typically bid on unit prices, the unit price rate should typically go down as a result.

Exactly how much money does our city collect from the province for our share of the casino cash cow?

Actually Ben you’re argument is factually incorrect. There is another taxpayer, who is not yet a tax payer, he’s the kid that’s just getting born, or is in elementary school. Now, the real way to do this is not to go to the current taxpayer for more money, go to the bond markets instead and borrow it and spend it now. Then, get that kid to pay the loan back in the future when he’s the taxpayer. Now, if you are unfortunate enough to still live here when that happens, you can still avoid those taxes by deferring your taxes as is the priviledge of anyone 65 or over with equity in their home. So you can stick the little bugger with taxes even after you’ve retired.

They call it a Ponzi scheme in most circles. It’s wonderful for those who get in at the beginning. Canada is built on the concept of pushing the problems off to the next guy in line, and then claiming to have universality of social programs, when in fact it’s really just borrowing money to give to those who vote today, to stick it to those who vote tomorrow – just one problem, what if those who vote tomorrow, just decide not to pay it back – like Greece for example. Then were are we?

Then where are we?

The corporation of the City of Prince George defaults on their loans, shuts the doors, the province takes over till a new City in incorporated (we finally get a new name) and we continue to go on with our daily business while the province figures out how to prevent such situations in the future.

Of course, maybe the province will not allow us to incorporate another city and we simply continue on under the guidance of the RDFFG.

Of course if one is looking at taxpayers who are not yet paying taxes, one also has to look at taxpayers who have come and gone.

They, as we, have been paying taxes in good faith.

The good faith expectation has been that we will get good management and governance to provide us with the services which have been promised to us one election after another.

And yet that didn’t happen. When I was in my early forties, the CPP rate was doubled. The government said in essence the money you paid in was lost, but to give you what we should have given you, we’ve decided to charge you double from now on.

The current retired generation – of which I am not that far off, rode the top of a pyramid of many people underneath paying in, allowing governments to keep the masses happy by providing more than they could realistically afford. It was bad management to be sure. But that same management principle keeps on going because no government has the guts to do what is right, and no electorate would keep them in power if they did.

If you go back and add up all the CPP premiums you paid in, including the employer’s portion, and add say 5% average rate of return, there isn’t enough money there to support the pension you are currently getting. It is being subsidized by current workers paying into the CPP. And it’ll work, as long as there are enough workers to do it.

The reality for the group in their 50’s, is be prepared to work in your senior years – part time at least – because the system isn’t sustainable in it’s current form. We should just be honest about it instead of pretending this can go on and on. Me, I don’t mind working after 65, because my work is easy on the body.

For people who work hard, like my brother, I’d like the see more resources directed toward them, and less towards the likes of me. But I’d especially like us to quit borrowing to spend on stuff that should be paid with tax dollars of today. I get the concept of borrowing to build a new road, or a new dam, because future generations benefit, but borrowing to maintain current infrastructure is just robbing the young.

From PG’s two year old Sustainable Finance Policy
http://princegeorge.ca/cityhall/legislativeservices/CityPolicies/Documents/Sustainable_Finance%5B1%5D.pdf

Policy 18.0
The City will only incur external debt for one-time capital projects; it will not incur external debt for ongoing programs (e.g. road rehabilitation).

CPP is another topic which really is different than managing a City for today and into the future and paying for it today.

A city’s borrowing powers are limited and it cannot run a deficit budget. There is a cap, and by the standards of senior governments and their programs, the cap is very low.

So, we are not into a CPP argument.

As I see it, and most people who deal with managing City’s as far as I can tell, City’s are between a rock and a hard place, especially smaller cities.

The senior governments are stopping or reducing programs they used to provide which allows them to play nice guy and reduce taxes, primarily to corporations in the belief they will invest in Canada as a result and keep on providing jobs.

In my opinion, that is a fallacy. It might have worked in the old days within the confines of a country with controls of what comes into the country and what leaves the country. Free(r) trade has stopped much of that control.

The result has been that the junior governments have had to pick up the slack or simply face the consequence of social service cuts … homelessness, substance abuse, petty crime, etc.

Yes, we are one taxpayer. BUT, we are paying less tax to senior governments (so we are told) losing programs, and have to make up the difference somewhere.

The only way we have to hold people in ALL governments accountable is thorugh our vote.

I am sorry, but that system is archaic as a control mechanism and is starting to be accompanied now with more and more evaluation systems which measure the state of the union using third party preofessionals along with the opinions of the people who are being served.

Those who will buy into that system will be seen by people like me as being ready to move into the next pahse of the quality improvement loop.

Those who are of the old generation and keep digging in their heels will be seen as arrogant and undeserving of the trust we have placed in them.

Good point. In fact, top marginal rate in BC use to be 54%, now it’s about 43%, and it kicks in about $30,000 higher than the 54% use to. So if I follow you correctly, senior govs download to local govs, but if we’re paying less tax to senior govs, we are able to pay more tax to local govs.

That is the way I see it.

However, I have not been able to find any watchdog organization that has taken a look at the impact of ALL taxes, including the increased use of user pay notions. That does not mean they do not exist. In fact, I have not really gone specifically looking for that information.

I would think because property owners are the primary sources of City taxes, there are at least two classes of people to be looked at – the impact on property owners and the impact on renters. There might not be a significant difference since the rental owner must pay taxes and the owner would eventually pass any increase on to the renter.

So, a look at 20 yearrs ago versus today in constant dollars and/or a percentage of income. Also, a relationship to property value. In other words, a property that is now valued at double the value of 20 years ago may only pay 80% addtional tax or may pay 130% additional tax. I have never seen those kind of figures. I can certainly go back in my records to find out.

“if we’re paying less tax to senior govs, we are able to pay more tax to local govs”

Exactly.

Premise one … nothing is free … in other words, you want a service, you need to pay for it, either through a public entity or a private entity or your cousin’s friend.

Premise two …. senior governments have generally been cutting taxes because they are tending to be right of centre governments and even those that are not, have moved closer to the centre.

Premise three ….. people still want those service. In fact, they want more and better quality of those services.

Premise five ….. the impact of a service delivery shift to junior governments is more and more being blamed on local government because local government is more visible and accessible.

Premise six ….. local government’s hands are tied to how they can access more funds without hitting industry, business and residents more. In fact, all three have been given tax breaks by senior governments and so they are looking at local government for the same.

The old sandwich situation.

SO, I feel for local government.

BUT, I blame all governments for not setting the facts straight.

It is like the roads situation. The City is now attempting to raise the awareness of the general public on the facts of life about road rehabilitation.

Well, they need to make that effort in a number of other areas, including taxation and the cost of services and what is being downloaded.

There is so called “revenue sharing” from senior governments going on, but significant dollars are provided with the condition that they be spent for specific purposes which come from federal and provincial initiatives, not municipal initiatives.

While it is true that there is but one taxpayer, tax moneies are collected by three different levels of government. As most are aware, we are currently under the governance of leaders who are following an extremely damaging and faulty ideology called neo-liberalism. In a quick but no means complete explaination of what this ideology comprises the basic goalis to increase the wealth of the one percent at the cost to the 99 percent.This is so effective that the top one percent earners have collectively doubled their wealth at the cost of the other 99 percent.

Neo-liberalism goals are todecrease government overview of society to allow the wealthy to increase their greed.This results in less money collected federally which results in a decrease in funds available to be shared with provincial governments. Thus costs are downloaded from federal to provincial governments.

Provincial government (caught upin their own misguided downsizing, ie B.C. Liberals, must download costs to municipal governments who now find an acute shortage of finances previously received from the provincial government.

Municipal governments have no one to download the cost to but the individual citizens. Should anyone in the provincialor municipal government actually point this out to the voter and the governmnet layer abover will punish them by cutting off the pursestrings even further. Therefor, no politician can point out to the citizens that “the emperor has no clothes”

continued next…

It is all about transparency and respect of the local population.

This city and some of the organizations in this city are notorious about transparency issues. They are having a tough go getting out of the rut of “you gave us the mandate, we provide info on a need to know basis, in our opinion you do not need to know, if you think otherwise, put in an FOI request”

Some cities ahve come a long way from that thinking and most have had to be proded by senior governments to get into a different mindset.

Which, of course, is easy to do by senior governments because they do not require the same of themselves. ;-)

Further to this the neo-liberal has misguidedly cut taxation to corporations resulting in a shortage of available funds at the federal level, provincial level and municipal level.

There may be but one taxpayer, but corporations are a part of this group and they are being given huge tax breaks while the citizen must have their taxation rate increaded to fill in the void created by corporate welfare.

The result is we are seeing the loss of the ability of municipal governments to maintain their infra-structure.

To point out that their is but one taxpayer is great but let us not forget that today these taxpayers have entire groups that have been given a pass on their responsibilities and we the people are left to try and fix the huge damage that is being created.

Look to europe where these same policies have resulted in their financial crisis and as per neo-liberal ideologies, once again the individualis being forced to pay for the folly of unfair and misguided governments who support the rich and punish the poor. We will be the next to be told by neo-liberal institutions, like the world bank, to tax the citizen to make up for the greed of the wealthy.

This is what the 1% protests were about and continue to be about. Only when the people unite and reaize that we are the ones with powewr, will this stop. In order to work the citizens must snapout of their appathy and start to stand up for themselves. Good luck to all.

“The economy is here to support the people, the people are not here to support the economy!!!”

Wow- Well stated Ben!! I agree that City Hall has to stop dreaming up these expensive projects and focus on the BASIC infrastructure. They really spent 1 million on the air above a parking lot??? Get real Mayor and council- please.

To add insult to injury, the air is now enclosed and under the control of a very small number of people.

Imagine if all of us did that….. being used by a select few lucky one.

On top of that, the province still holds mineral rights for as far under the building as you may care to dig or drill …. they did not have to pay a cent… :-)

The City has gone too far down the path of borrowing and per capita over spending to know how to get ‘back on track’ and focus on basic infrastructure needs, which now sits at a 12 mil dollar annual deficit……instead of reaching deeper into our pockets elected officials need to develop a plan to recover from the City’s deficit position and begin exercising responsible fiscal mamagement in a manner that takes care of basics first???? maybe the core review will provide the answers….

Changing the Chair of the Finance and Audit committee from Krause to Stolz is not the answer, and I too feel Councillor Krause should never have held that position in the first place….he did a terrible job as chair of the F & A committee….. and it doesn’t help when you have Mayor Green making unprofessional snarly remarks at council or through the media about demanding uncaring Citizens who just want the roads fixed.

When you tax corporations you are taxing the shareholders which may or may not even live in BC. I wouldn’t feel to bad if they added taxes to people that can afford to buy shares in a corporation instead of taxing senior citizens and those living in working poverty.

“we just don’t know how to spend it,” .. apparently they can spend it just fine.

“When you tax corporations you are taxing the shareholders which may or may not even live in BC.”

When you tax me you reduce the number of things I can buy which reduces the number of things corporations can provide for sale.

It is a cycle. Since the government provides some services to the population for other than “user pay” the government accesses that cycle to give them the money to do the things they need to do.

Sort of like a protection racket …. they have only our best interests in mind …. LOL