You get what you pay for??

Ironic how its always the so called conservative politicians that top the expense list. Big spenders spend big I guess….

a) There were three (3) non-union severance agreements made during the 2012 year.
b) The above non-union severance agreements were represented by:
1) One (1) equivalent month of compensation
2) Twenty Two (22.48) equivalent months of compensation
3) Fourteen (13.71) equivalent months of compensation

How can a 22 month payout be justified??? – nice to see our taxes hard at work..

Maybe Shari has her eye on a Senate seat.

The news people want to here.

Are you kidding me “middle finger” she is already way out of the league!! Sorry, you’re right, she does qualify for a senate position!!

How many Tim’s or Starbucks did this buy?

The numbers are great for the usual knee-jerk reactions and faux outrage, but without any details behind them there’s not enough information.

It’s only taxpayers’ money, relax! Ooops, we are the taxpayers! Ouch!

In Brazil thousands of people are rioting about the largesse of spending billions of dollars on the next world cup while this money is needed much more for new schools and hospitals! Closer to home the mayor and five councillors of Quesnel are being sued (according to CBC) for the return of a severance package payout to the taxpayers of the city…

The above roughly 50 grand could have paid for any of a number of much needed things! Amazing how fast this constant drainage of simple dollars adds up to significant amounts of cash!

$20K is chump change compared to the travel expenses that could have been racked up next year. But now that Mayor and Council knows we are watching their travel expenses, there should be a reduction in those expenses next year.

Thanks to Opinion 250 for reporting on this, news stories like this can reduce pork barrel spending at city hall. :-)

I totally agree with JB’s comment: “…without any details behind them there’s not enough information.”

It is an indicator. But, no matter how much one may not like the current Council, and I am certainly one of them, they still have to do a job and they have an expense account they have access to in order to help them do that.

It is how they spend the money that is the key thing we should know. Who spends it wisely and who spends it frivolously. And that, of course, is going to be a matter of opinion, so we won’t all agree.

BTW, there is a bit of an anomaly in the way the expenses are reported for Shari Green.

While it is noted that 3 councillors were not sworn in until 2012, it is not shown that Shari Green was not the mayor in 2011.

As a result, I find the figure under the change column to be totally meaningless since I would expect a Mayor to have different duties than a Councillor. That would certainly increase the expenses which would have to be spent due to the nature of the office.

“How did Ms. Green’s expenses go up so much from the previous year?”

There you go ….. put a target in front of people and too many of them won’t look at the obvious!!

And the saddest thing of all is if she would read every single post on this site, she simply would not care. She is our highness. Queen of Prince George and if we are staving she would tell us to eat cake.

“… save 10 bucks a day by living out of town.”

Hopefully it won’t be for naught, because an ambulance may not arrive in time to save a person’s life to enjoy the dollars when an urgent non-predictable medical emergency strikes. Happened to a friend of mine…

300% increase is a bit strange and they should rein it.

They can introduce a bylaw to cap the available expenses to an annual maximum and to discourage overspending by reimbursing only part of any additional expenses. For all levels of government.

Once you have a grant that covers your trip expenses, it is very tempting to waste it unless it is capped or limited. I have seen how some university professors have wasted their research grant money by staying in 5 star hotels, but are not allowed to fly first class and cannot claim more than a maximum for meals/hotels unless they have all receipts.

It’s been so nice here for quite some time with Mattyc. Sadly, “it’s” back!

Hate to be the one to tell you Mattyc, but directly or indirectly you are paying taxes in this city. Any time that you spend a nickle in a local business, you are contributing to the success and profit of that business. Hate to tell you, but some of that profit goes to the city in the form of taxes. So, keep shopping locally, even if it’s just a nickel. I’ll smile thinking of you paying taxes to the city, haha!

hart guy. The subject of Mattyc, ignore it and it will go away.

To get a true picture if the taxpayer is getting value for $$$ need a detailed breakdown such as this example from Penticton.

http://www.penticton.ca/assets/City~Hall/Documents/Mayor%27s%20Expenses%20-%202011.pdf

Not supporting Green but as Gus and JB posted this story is meaningless without a breakdown.

A nice “open and transparent” list of the Mayor of Penticton’s expenses ewitt thanks for the link :)

Would it be too much to ask for the same list from our mayor?

Some very interesting stuff in that report, including the usual statement of employees on public salary making more than $75,00 annually – 26% of all City employees! Firefighter wages are a bit mind boggling. In most rural communities a firefighter is a VOLUNTEER position.
No details given about what is claimed as expenses, but there are more details about renumeration. Council wages, expenses, benefits, and vehicle allowances cost us $405,700 last year, $228,750 (over half) was for the mayor alone.

Are you saying the city fire fighters should be volunteers? Really!

City workers making over 75 grand. How about you break it down.

About the firefighters, a good portion of pay is overtime. So I take it if your house is burning no overtime if at the end of shift, burn baby burn. Sorry my mistake in your world these highly trained individuals are working for free and taking time of their real jobs to save your shack and family.

How about you post your ideas.

Just another O250 negative anti-city story! You have only told half the story…….again ! What were the expenses ? Maybe they can and were justified ! Another slow and easy news day !

Agree completely with JohnnyBelt, gus and seamutt. Details are needed before any type of analysis or conclusion could be made.

Boon:

Check the promises that were made in the last campaign-“open and transparent” -“careful use of tax dollars” “reduction in unnecessary spending” “-10%” “-10%” “-10%” “-10%” “-10%” “-10%” were front and center.

Asking for those who did get elected to walk the talk is not a negative story, they are half way through the term, time to chit or get off the pot.

My suggestion is not that city firefighters shouldn’t be paid, but it’s a big jump from a volunteer to $100,000 salary. There are 45 staff listed at the firehall making over $75,000, and not all of them are frontline workers. I don’t know what a fire prevention officer does, but he makes $112,000 a year, and there more than one! Fire training officer makes in $111,000.

The issue in not black or white, but there has to be a better way to organize this department. If overtime salaries are through the roof, its more effective to hire additional staff than to pay double-time. Not doubt operations could be re-evaluated as well – I see two firetrucks and an ambulance at almost every call out. This doesn’t seem vbery efficient either.

Just because our firefighters have an incredibly nobel, stressful and high demand job, doesn’t make the department immune from scrutiny.

And my ‘shack’ wass actually home to a firefighter. Show some respect.

My family served as volunteer fighters, so don’t pretend that I know nothing about the job.

ewitt, right on! 10% in every department!

I am delighted to see that I am not the only one with a memory of past election promises – broken! I suppose it is too much to expect that politicians actually mean what they are saying to get elected…if criticism of that is negative and anti-city, so be it!

Curmudgeon, Firefighters risk their lives for us every day. Could you live with yourself if one fire fighter was laid off per shift per hall and it resulted in the death of a loved one of yours. One thing we dont need is to cut back on safety.

BTW Green isnt work a cent she spent

“I see two firetrucks and an ambulance at almost every call out. This doesn’t seem vbery efficient either.”
So which one do you want cut from your families accident scene curmudge? The ones that are there first and can get a person out of the car or the ones that can stabilize them while enroute to the hospital?
And you are correct, they are not needed at EVERY accident but who do you expect to make that call? Do you want to trust some random passerby that makes the 911 call to say “Nah he looks ok, dont worry about it”

This isn’t surprising after all one of the first things she and the rest of council did after they got elected was approve an increase in their compensation. That move solidified PG’s mayor as one of the highest paid mayors in BC, at least according to the core review.

Obviously there are going to be expenses for the mayor to do the job but how much is required? Anybody know how much the expenses were for the mayor of Kamloops, Kelowna or Nanaimo?

I could only find this for Kamloops and it is from 2011

City council as a whole spent $30,580 on expenses, $25,003 of which was for travel.

Green expenses went up 76% .. she needs to be sent packing asap

“So which one do you want cut from your families accident scene curmudge”

There is a big difference between a structural fire and a car crash scene with a possible injury or more. Then there is a probable heart attack or similar health issue at a home.

Just the fact that a real first responder emergency vehicle in my mind should not be a lumbering heavy firetruck, but a smaller more maneuverable and agile vehicle that can actually go over curbs and some of the other types of obstructions that may be faced during real emergencies.

If it means the possibility of having fewer people on staff by organizing the types of vehicles there are, the equipment each vehicle carries and the qualifications of the people sent to a number of differentiated scenes, then it should be looked at, not only for cost efficiency, but first and foremost for increased effectiveness.

As far as overtime goes, why so much? If it is as a result of vacation coverage, medical leave, parental leave, training time off, etc. those are structural which occur on reasonably close percentages each year and, I would think, ought to be covered by having a staff complement large enough to provide that flexibility, even by using part time employees. You know, one may have to trust them and assume that they have worked out the least expensive solution. The way to find out is to compare to other cities with such numbers as cost 1,000 population; per 100 dwelling units; per km of road; per km2 of city size; per annual fire damage, etc. etc. On single one will not provide a good view of what is happening in Nanaimo versus PG, but many together will allow one to develop a pretty good idea of what is happening in each community.

Because of the location of fire halls those lumbering fire trucks are usually first on scene. So do we have first responder equipment and fire trucks. Seems like an expensive duplication of equipment to me. I think a fire truck arrives on scene about as fast as any other piece of equipment. They have rules to follow also.

That being said with the population increase out hwy. 16 west I think it is about time for an ambulance station in that area.

Lets see a breakdown of Greens costs.

If anyone wants to see and example of the expense claims forms for travel there are some on the Council page here:
http://princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2013/2013_06_24/documents/Corr_Council_Travel_report_MERGED2.pdf

I looked at the common travel they did to the FCM AGM. Four of the claims are shown. It was a 4 day event with the Mayor staying an extra day to attend another conference, thus saving commuting costs.

Given that consideration, it seems like Stolz was the highest, primarily due to the cost of the flight (booked late?) but also it seems the cost of the meals when comapred to Hall and Krause. Hall was by far the lowest. May be explained by something as simple as flying in on the start day and flying out on the end day.

The real opinion I emerged with from seeing those is that the forms used are rather archaic/cumbersome.

Virtually every place I worked I have used a simple per day record for the rows and common items for the columns which provides me with a much clearer record of what was spent and what it was spent on.

Well gus its a good thing you arent running the ambulance or fire. If you did people would be dying. Do you know the level of care the first responders have?

Look it up.. I am sure you can cut and paste something. I know if my family or friends are in trouble I want the fastest response I can get. Its a lot easier to get there and all the responders are not not be needed and sent back to the station then it is to have one responder show up and you need more..by that time it would be to late. ALWAYS ERR ON THE SIDE OF SAFETY.

One has to wonder why so many firefighters go on a call out. My husband phoned 911 for his elderly aunt and specifically told them sirens and a bunch of responders was not required. By the time all of them arrived, there was 7 ambulance and firefighters standing in her tiny bedroom. Isn’t that way over the top, especially when you tell them all of that was not required, but transportation to the hospital in an ambulance was all that was needed.

I know the level of care first responders have … yes …. and I am also familiar with other jurisdicttions where they have a much smaller vehicle. Basically they are typically extractive units who specialize in getting people out of vehicles, collapsed structures, confined spaces of any sort.

One does not need a fires truck the size which are sent out here.

In fact, there are first responders who do not have that training because they go out to medical emergencoies in hotels, homes, places of work, etc.

I realize we live in a world of specialization. One needs 10 people who do the work that a couple did in the past and, more complicated yet, they are protected by unions and quasi professional organizations which limit their practice …..

We suffer from having a far too parochial mindset always blieving that we know it all. Just as bad in believing that the grass is always greener on the other side.

I am looking at cumulative learning. What can we teach others and what can they teach us. It works both ways.

I think we need a definition for first responders …… they are not all the same.

Exactly what I believe some of us are talking about, 4seasons.

I’ll be one of the “first responders” when I pay my taxes July 5. If I don’t sleep in.