For those who are interested in seeing a clearer picture of the above table it means that relative to each areas own budget as proposed by the City, those who responded felt that the following adjustments should be made to the city’s proposed budget.

These are the areas the respondents felt should be increased with the relative percent change shown.

1. Planning and Development78.3%
2. Civic Facilities27.0%
3. Bylaw25.9%
4. Public Transit8.7%
5. Roads7.2%
6. Parks6.5%
7. Economic Development4.7%
8. Recreation and Culture4.3%
9. Repayment of Debt3.7%

These are the areas which are proposed to be reduced.

1. General Government-10.6%
2. Police-4.8%
3. Fire-4.1%
4. Library-0.8%

I can support that. I think that those figures seem to be relatively consistent with past surveys done by UNBC.

I kept a copy of the City’s 2013 Where your Local Tax Dollars Go (City’s general operating fund expense percentage pie chart, the one that came with my property tax bill, and I am surprised to see the huge discrepancy between what the City told us it spends on various service areas and what the City states is the current % spending in its’ 2013 budget survey:

2013 City’s pie chart 2013 Budget Survey
Debt 11.76% Debt 10.21%
Gen Gov’t 13.92% Gen Gov’t 16.79%
Rec & Cul 16.76% Rec & Cul 6.77%
Roads 15.20% Roads 13.27%

Protective Services(fire & police)
33.00% 37.68%

Why is there such a huge discrepancy? Are there two different accounting systems; one for misinforming the general public during property tax collection time and another for trying to appease the general public in an attempt to strike a budget that best aligns with the City’s current and every evolving spur of the moment agenda.

Thanks for the break down Gus.

I suggest that the areas that were proposed to be reduced will be ignored, as usual. Although we may get some reduction in General Government, but that’s a long shot.

“Why is there such a huge discrepancy?”

One really needs to look at the actual budget figures for each category.

When one looks at percentages a change in any one category will mean that ALL the percentages get adjusted even though several will have no change at all.

Percentages are only an indicator when comparing one community to another. Percentages provide a “community profile” which is a rough indication of what a community values.

Here is a profile of another community. The expenditures as a percentage of the entire business of running a town are very much different from PG. Part of the “problem” with comparing one to another is that the categories are not consistent.

The figures are for actual budgeted expenses plus percentage of the total expense budget.

Municipal Operations
General government services$2,216,97222.03%
Transportation services$1,156,37911.49%
Recreation and cultural services$652,4956.48%
Waterworks services$551,0025.47%
Sewerage services$526,7405.23%
Economic development services$464,2734.61%
Environ m ental health services$371,3583.69%
Planning & Development services$334,4673.32%
Protective services$321,5773.2%
Shared Emergency services$94,4500.94%
Airport services$83,3730.83%
Cemetery services$78,7080.78%
Broadband services$43,0000.43%
Total operations$6,894,794

Capital expenditures$1,758,53717.47%
Debt & interest$443,4644.41%
Arena expenditures$414,2094.12%
Fiscal Services$7,0000.07%

Transfers to Own Funds
Reserve funds$266,4062.65%
To other accounts or funds$280,0702.78%
Accumulated surplusnil

TOTAL EXPENDITURES$10,064,480
=========================================

notice the amount of general government services, the transportation, the protective services as well as the planning services. Magnitudes of difference.

This is the profile of a small community in BC where police services are likely provided by the regional district, perhaps a largely volunteer fire department, and an interest in providing good transportation beyond taxis.

The town is Golden – their 2013 budget.

Here is a link to the bylaw for Golden
https://golden.civicweb.net/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=68885