By Bill Phillips

It’s unlikely there will be any fireworks when city council examines its 2014 statements of financial disclosure tonight.

For some reason the report is now called the ‘public bodies’ report, but it outlines quite succinctly where your tax dollars went last year, including the list of every city staff member who pocketed more than $75,000 in wages (there were 244 of them).

Usually council receives the report and that’s the end of it, except for us pesky media types who actually read the report.

However, a couple of years ago, when Coun. Brian Skakun was crusading rather than getting along, he questioned a few of the expenditures, in particular large payments to numbered companies without an explanation of what those companies do or what services they provided to the city and more than a million dollars in legal fees.

He was pretty much told to pound sand, encouraged to file a freedom of information request and given the age-old admonishment about how council shouldn’t make staff look bad.

But that was then, this is now. It’s a new crew and there seems to be an effort to make things a little more transparent, for example the quarterly disclosure of money spent on consultants. Plus, the current report is for 2014, the last year of Mayor Shari Green and the previous council’s reign … an era most want to forget about.

Even so, don’t expect too much questioning when the report comes up tonight.

For one thing, the city didn’t do a lot of business with numbered companies in 2014. There are only two that are unidentified, one for a $37,000 expense the other for $191,000. Even so, it would be nice if the city disclosed, up front, who these businesses are and what they did for the city.

There doesn’t seem to be a huge legal bill in these statements either, probably thanks to Skakun not fighting the city, Haldi Road, etc., so that will likely temper the remarks.

What is interesting to note is that in 2014 the city had 916 employees, 244 making more than $75,000 and 672 making less than $75,000. That is an increase over 2013 when the city listed 865 employees, with 234 of them making more than $75,000 and 631 making less than $75,000.

OK, last crack at the old regime, but weren’t they supposed to be the slash-and-burn administration?

As in most organizations, wages continue to be a huge cost. The city’s wage bill came in a $48.3 million in 2014. That’s either viewed as a huge waste of taxpayers’ dollars or a huge number of good-paying jobs for people who pay taxes. Take your pick.

The payments to suppliers (everything from engineers to advertising) came in at $156 million. For the record, the Prince George Free Press collected $49,817, the Prince George Citizen collected $83,755, Vista Radio collected $28,807, and the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group $25,883.  The city did not advertise with 250News in 2014.

There likely won’t be too much debate about the figures at tonight’s council meeting. We’ll have to wait until next June to get a clear picture of how the new council is performing.

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One thing that will definitely change for next year will be the dismantling of Initiatives Prince George. That will have an impact on the financial statements.

It doesn’t seem to be clear yet whether IPG CEO Heather Oland will move over to city hall. The city has asked her to lead the transition of IPG to city hall and head up the economic development department. What’s not clear is if she moves to the city, will she keep the $150,858 per year salary she has now?

Bill Phillips is a freelance columnist living in Prince George. He was the winner of the 2009 Best Editorial award at the British Columbia/Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s Ma Murray awards, in 2007 he won the association’s Best Columnist award. In 2004, he placed third in the Canadian Community Newspaper best columnist category and, in 2003, placed second. He can be reached at billphillips1@mac.com