Prince George, BC – Prince George City Councillors have given tentative approval to increasing the tax levy collected for road rehabilitation to bring in an additional $800-thousand dollars this year.

The City plans to spend $4.3-million dollars to maintain and repair city streets in 2013, up from $3.5-million last year.  The decision translates into 1-percent of the proposed 3.5-percent hike in property taxes that will be necessary to fund the proposed 2013 budget.

Only Councillor Albert Koehler voted against approving the necessary provisional budget, "I’m certainly in favour of improving and increasing the funds that are available for fixing the roads, but it will lead – with this amount that has been allocated – it will lead, in my opinion, to taxes that are too high."  Koehler says he’d like to keep the total tax increase to two-percent this year.

Councillors will consider adding an additional $800-thousand dollars to the tax levy at next week’s budget meetings to create a new fund that would address municipal capital infrastructure needs.  

The following chart presented by the City’s Manager of Financial Services, Kris Dalio, shows the breakdown of the proposed tax increases…

Mayor Shari Green says, "Those (road rehab and addressing infrastructure needs) are key priorities in the community and for things that we need to be paying more attention to – and are – than were done in the past."

Green says that’s left just a 1.5-percent increase to maintain core service levels.  She’s commending city staff for finding ways to do that, given that protective services make up the bulk of the budget and those cost increases are out of the city’s control. 

The Financial Services Manager says, "Protective Services is always one of our biggest cost drivers."  Kris Dalio says RCMP costs typically rise by five-percent or more, while Fire Services are in the three-percent range.

Chart below shows the expenditures from last year’s operating budget…

Protective Services will be part of next Wednesday’s budget deliberations.  A decision on a one-time grant of $80-thousand dollars to offset the impact of changes to the Permissive Tax Exemption on local non-profit groups will be made next week as well.  If approved, it would amount to a 0.1-percent increase in the overall tax levy.