Budget Talks Underway
How the City spends its dollars- image courtesy City of Prince George.
Prince George, B.C. – The proposed budget is now under consideration by Mayor and Council for Prince George.
While the overall budget calls for an increase of 2.73% in the amount needed to maintain services at current levels, there are requests for budget enhancements. Those enhancements will be discussed at Wednesday’s budget consultation. Wednesday’s session will focus on the capital plans.
In the opening presentation to Council, Director of Finance Kris Dalio pointed out snow removal during 2016 only used $4.3 million of the available $7 million. That means, there is now $2.7 million in the snow reserve to handle any future major snow event. The budget calls for no change in the snow levy, so a further $7 million will be available for the full year for snow removal. There is also no proposed change to the General infrastructure reinvestment levy, or the road rehabilitation levy.
There was plenty of public consultation on the development of this budget, including the TalkTober neighbourhood discussions, and an online survey plus the opportunity offered at the beginning of each budget meeting.
The online survey indicated roadways and lighting were the number one priority for those who filled out the survey, while those who attended TalkTober placed Parks and Trails as their number one concern. But City Manager Kathleen Soltis says neither of the public consultations produced results that were statistically valid, the information is for Council’s consideration only.
Comments
Ah gee! A pie chart, now we are in for it! Get the shivers everyone I see these things! Too many fingers in the pie if ya get my drift.
They forgot the segments stating corruption and wasteful spending.
Costs for snow removal are taken out of normal taxes. This year on my tax notice there was a line item called “Snow Control Cost Reserve.” It is my understanding that this was put in place to cover shortfalls in years that they run out of funds in the pot and are forced to scramble and shuffle money around.
On the face of it might seem like a good idea but I can forsee that at some point the separate line item will become “Snow Control Levy” as a way to shift snow control expenses out of general expenditures. I my case it would represent a 5 or 6% tax increase.
So the question is how much money does the city want in the “Snow Control Cost Reserve.” going forward and will this line item disappear once the pot is full?
2.7 in the reserve from 2016 budget surplus plus whatever was raised in this years property taxes would account for a fair chunk of change. Can I expect this separate charge to vanish from our 2017 tax bill?
Both the Snow Control reserve, and the Road Rehabilitation Reserve are single line items on your tax bill for these services. If you read the story above you would see that they spent $4.3 Million of the available $ 7 Million for snow removal in 2016. Probably something similar for 2017.
Also the Road Rehab levy is for $5 Million per year, with $2 Million added from the Federal Government Infrastructure (Gas Tax) fund, for a total of $7M.
I agree, if we dont keep our eye on these single line items, the money when not used will be siphoned off to some other project,.
it is amazing that they tell you about the surveys after they are over, not when they are being done..
You should visit the cities website on a regular basis information about surveys are posted there I’ve taken part of several of them.
Comments for this article are closed.