We're certainly heading into this depression "full speed ahead".

Lets add in a clean air ambassador, an air care ambassador, and a highly overpaid communications manager, where is PG at now?

Thank god we elected a city council and mayor with some buisness background so they could right the ship, .................... oh wait .......................

is there something wrong with this article - had to scroll way down to get to the article (at first I thought it wasn't there) then had to keeps scrolling to see the comments.
This didn't seem to happen with other articles this morning????

What an article! I think everyone in PG had a "feeling" that we were overspending by a huge margin. No fiscal accountability at City hall. It is not all City Council's fault, because they are being led down the garden path by brainless bureaucrats, without any thoughts or concerns about managing prudent budgets.

The brueaucrats have to run City hall like a household. Every City Department has to live within their means, and stop piling up debt which raises taxes and increases our City's long term debt.

What an article! I think everyone in PG had a "feeling" that we were overspending by a huge margin. No fiscal accountability at City hall. It is not all City Council's fault, because they are being led down the garden path by brainless bureaucrats, without any thoughts or concerns about managing prudent budgets.

The brueaucrats have to run City hall like a household. Every City Department has to live within their means, and stop piling up debt which raises taxes and increases our City's long term debt.

Council should strike a committee to look at this. If they need an outside chairperson for $80K / yr plus benefits, I'm their man.

Figure I can have a comprehensive report ready in 5 - 6 years, maybe only 4 - 5 years if I spend one year traveling to other cities and seeing how they get things done.

"It is not all City Council's fault, because they are being led down the garden path by brainless bureaucrats, without any thoughts or concerns about managing prudent budgets."

you hit it right on the head MrPG. And its all about building an empire. Council is used for just that purpose. These people at City Hall are the eternal optimits who know there is no end to the amount of tax dollars for them to build that empire.

Brian Skakun spoke up and immdialtly they are on his case and have the nerve to take him to court. Its a sad day for democracy. I again have to use the time worn statement, "unless you take an interest in those who govern you shall be governed by those worse then yourselves".
Cheers

All I know is that if I ran my business the same way as the government does, I'd have been bankrupt or in jail a long time ago.

When looking at reports, especially ones which include limited statistics which have a very tenuous relation to the factors that cause the trend that is supposedly being reported on, one has to look not only behind the details but also the source of the report.

In scientific papers, for instance, there is a heading of “Conflict of interest” under which any conflict must be declared.
So, this is the CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Business) which at the top left hand corner of their web page http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/english/about_us.html states under the title “Lobbying” - “Advocating better taxes, laws and regulations for your business”

So, they have declared their purpose. I believe it is a conflict of interest as a “special interest group”. What is it? Lower taxes for their members, including lower municipal taxes. Of course, we should all know by now that PG is at the low end of the proportion of property taxes that business property owners pay versus residential. The margin, compared to other cities, is significantly greater, in fact.

As any good spin doctor who wishes to spend the least amount of effort and resources to drive their point home, they do not delve into details, prop up their key message behind “voodoo” economics and statistics which they know the average person has not got a hope in hell to try to expose.

Voila, they have won the day!

What is the most important thing we REALLY want to know? I would think it is why is this happening?

What is this? Well, some things for those who wish to be a bit more objective may wish to consider.

Here is the source information from the report
http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/english/advocacy/british_columbia/58-budgets___public_finance/1388-pursuing_accountability_on_municipal_spending_in_bc.html

It states that a gap of 1 indicates that spending growth was held in line with population and inflation growth and a gap of 2 indicates spending growth increased twice as fast as population and inflation
Of 65 municipalities shown in the report, only 8 were able to hold the line. 31, almost half of them hit the over doubling category with 10 of those more than the tripling category between 2000 and 2007.

Let me remind everyone that over that same period, until this past year, both federal and provincial governments were collecting so much taxes from us that they were not only able to run at the index of “1”, but were running less than one and were thus able to pay down national and provincial debts, even as they both began to reduce both corporate and personal taxes.

But municipalities had to increase theirs. Curious, isn’t it?

Of course, put that together with the complaints that cities in Canada have had over that same time period of senior governments offloading their some of their responsibilities to lower government and we might be onto explaining what is really going on here which the CFIB would, of course, not wish to tackle since it could mean that their other taxes might go up. Thus, you might understand why I believe they are in a conflict of interest and playing the old divide and conquer card.

Let me now go to question whether the rate of inflation is a reasonable measure to use. It is if the rate is measured from the municipal basket of goods and services, not from the general basket. The municipal basket has gone up considerably more than the general basket.

I will take what might be the worst one, the cost of policing.

Here is a recent article from Nanaimo.
http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=4d6f0737-3c57-4d4d-9e92-3531067bea90
“Nanaimo's cost to use the provincial Police Records Information Management Environment is doubling to $123,000 in 2010.
It's one more in a mounting pile for policing costs the province is foisting upon the city, said Nanaimo mayor John Ruttan.
"Certainly, we can't lose sight of the fact they've already come with a demand earlier to upgrade the jail and that in itself represents 1% of taxes," Ruttan said.
And … A recent policing study by E Division, the provincial RCMP headquarters, produced a report indicating Nanaimo needs 24 new general duty officers.
On Monday, Ruttan will sign a letter expressing the city's concerns to the solicitor general.”

Does anyone know what the increase in the cost of policing has been in Prince George, and any other city for that matter over the 2000 to 2007 period? In know we have increased staff while the population has dropped.

Finally, if we are really interested in comparing apples with apples, because the CFIB report absolutely does not get anywhere near to doing that we might want to look at this report from Britain.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/730431.pdf

Basically it promotes the creation of common approaches to promote a structured and consistent approach to allocating costs of municipalities in order to compare service costs not only of one approach to another approach internally, but also one municipalities approach to that of another. That way we would not have to deal with organizations like CFIB wasting their time to toot their own special interests.

Here is the list of the top 25% of the communities in BC with respect to cost/person for running civic operations.

To be up front about this, PG is not part of that list but is at top of the next quartile.

Whistler 5,442
Nelson 2,307
Dawson Creek 2,019
West Vancouver 1,972
Prince Rupert 1,846
Kitimat 1,831
Penticton 1,791
Quesnel 1,681
Trail 1,609
Victoria 1,558
New Westminster 1,552
Revelstoke 1,507
Summerland 1,482
Williams Lake 1,462
Squamish 1,387
Vancouver 1,386
Prince George 1,360

Sorry, the top 25% is actually only 16 communities, so PG is in the next grouping.

Now, let us see how many of you can have some reasonable discussion of why Whistler is so high, Nelson is second highest, and Vancouver is higher than Prince George.

This is the next quartile.

Prince George 1,360
Powell River 1,327
Port Alberni 1,310
Cranbrook 1,299
Kelowna 1,293
Delta 1,271
North Vancouver C 1,259
Fort St. John 1,256
Oak Bay 1,224
Esquimalt 1,200
Kamloops 1,170
North Vancouver D 1,164
Richmond 1,153
Port Moody 1,138
Sidney 1,123
Terrace 1,104

The third

Castlegar 1,100
Parksville 1,089
View Royal 1,082
Nanaimo 1,071
Campbell River 1,058
Port Coquitlam 1,042
Courtenay 1,033
Burnaby 1,028
Langley C 1,018
Coquitlam 1,013
White Rock 1,006
Mission 1,000
Central Saanich 975
Lake Country 966
North Saanich 924
Ladysmith 904
Saanich 900

And the last ....

Vernon 898
Salmon Arm 895
Maple Ridge 883
Pitt Meadows 874
Langley D 863
Sechelt 852
Abbotsford 850
Qualicum beach 826
Langford 807
Chilliwack 770
North Cowichan 760
Colwood 754
Surrey 745
Comox 731
Sooke 569
Coldstream 501

Does anyone care to jump in as to why Surrey, the fastest growing community in BC, and possibly Canada, is so low?

It will give you a hint as to why this kind of information is useless without addtional infromation.

To add to Gus' thought provoking points, let's now rank the "major" cities in our "Northern" region of the Province, "the 250" if you will:

Dawson Creek 2,019
Prince Rupert 1,846
Kitimat 1,831
Quesnel 1,681
Williams Lake 1,462
PG 1,360
Fort St. John 1,256
Terrace 1,104

Out of that list, I don't think there is much doubt that PG has the highest level of public amenities amongst the cities being compared and yet, having all of that stuff still costs us less than the average per person cost from that group of 1,569. Maybe that suggests we are actually BETTER than the norm . . .

Only Fort St. John (you think our roads are bad) and Terrace (love the Skeena, but what else is there to do?) come in lower. Personally, I'd gladly pay the extra $100-$200 per year to live in PG and have the PG amenities thank you very much . . .

Very tough to compare PG to the LML communities because they have such a large population base to spread the costs over (reduces the average per person) and they tend to all form one cluster of activity that can feed off of each other. Someone in Port Moody, for example, can drive into downtown Vancouver and take advantages of the services that are paid for by Vancouver. Once you get out of the LML, the cities are probably much more "stand alone" and any centre of size, will likely see their average costs rise as they invest in infrastructure to make their cities livable and desirable for their residents.

Kuddos Gus and NMG, very well thought out postings. Nice to see someone putting some thought into it instead of just posting their knee jerk reactions!

You guys would beat any subject to death with all these numbers. Problem is, is thats all it is numbers. The fact is places like Dawson Creek, Prince Rupert, Kitimat, have all had significant expenditures, and with their small populations they would get a higher cost/person.

Ft St John almost had a tax payers revolt recently, and Prince Rupert was very close to going Bankrupt last year.

There are also other reasons for these numbers to numerous to mention.

Bottom line is that Prince George collects lots of money in taxes and blows it like drunken sailors. You dont need a bunch of stats to figure this out. Just look around. River Road upgrade (useless) Brand new Cameron St., Bridge. (unnecessary) Replay board for CN Centre (stupid) Proposed new Police Station (Not needed) Proposed Pac Centre (Not needed)
Millions of dollars in real estate purchases (???) the list goes on.

At a convention on the causes of alcoholism years ago, all the high grade educated, doctors, analysts, health workers, etc; were waxing philosophically about the many causes of alcholism , when a little old lady in running shoes stood up and stated.

**I'll tells you what causes alcoholism, drinking alcohol causes it** and she sat down.

The same thing applies here. We have high taxes because City Hall spends to much money. It matters little what other Cities do, its what we do that matters.

Dragging statistics from all over the Country merely muddies the water. Fact is City Hall is out of control, costs are out of control, staffing is out of control, and no one is in control.

Have a nice day.

Capital expenditures are not included in the figures......

Have a nice evening ..... :-)

Interesting info Gus and NMG. I hope I live long enough to read a post where Palopu isnt telling us the Cameron street bridge is unnecessary...

I hope I live long enough to read all of gus's posts!

you do?????? ... why on earth would you want to live that long just to read my posts ..... :-)

BTW, I have a condensed version coming out next month .... on sale for $9.98 at Bokks & CO.

Great stocking stuffer .... guaranteed never to need sleeping pills again ....

I know I harp on the Cameron St., Bridge, buts its mainly because it is such an obvious way that this town spends money.

Very little thought goes into these projects, and what it really is about, is letting contracts, and spending money. Prince George is alway on the look out for matching funds for projects which in itself in ok, but the problems is, everytime we get money for a project, then we have to come up with the matching money. This means more tax dollars spent.

You would think that we could take a tax dollar spending holiday, and only look after the essentials for the next 5 years and then see where we are at.

Why do we have to have this huge spending going on every bloody day, month, year.

You would think that Governments have only one purpose and that is to tax and spend until we are broke.

Is anyone responsible for anything, anymore.???

Where is Harold Moffat when we need him?

PG is used as a good example of how to monitor measurable outcomes and report them to the community so that the City government is seen to be and is "transparent".

Anyone care to ask the City where they hide that information.

http://www.fcpp.org/files/5/75.%20Pulling%20Back%20the%20Curtain%20-%20Transparent%20Regina-Sakatoon.pdf

On page 15, of instance, it deals with snow clearing and states:
"Prince George does not publish the results
of its indicators, (WHY NOT? NOTHING TRANSPARENT ABOUT THAT) but it does have a comprehensive list of the maximum depth snow can reach before requiring Ploughing.

The
City has separate performance indicators
for the following:
• Accumulated snow
• Compact snow
• Arterial roads
• Downtown roads
• Other roads
• Residential lanes and sidewalks
There are separate criteria for snow levels
in civic facility parking lots as well as in entrances and on pathways. As is usual
with Prince George reporting, if residents
are unhappy about the performance of snow removal, the timeliness of responding
to complaints is also measured.

I would have a good laugh if it were not so sad.

Capital Expenditures may not be included in the figures, but the cost of staffing, heating, and maintenance on these capital expenditures surely are.

Take the proposed Performing Arts Centre, and assume that we build it for $50 Million. Plus the cost for property, curbing, maintenance, and staffing, plus interest on the borrowed money.

This facility would rent for approx $1200.00 per day, and assume you rented it out for half the year (which is a stretch) you would generate approx $219,000.00 per year, it would take you 228 years to get back your $50 Million. Not to mention all the other costs.

So although Capital Expenditures are not in the initial mix, the consequences of the Capital Costs certainly show up later.

That is one reason why Prince George has the dubious honour of being the biggest spendthrifts in BC and quite possibly in all of Canada.

Additional costs that would never be reported as associated with this Performing Arts Centre, would be the destruction of the Playhouse Theatre, which contrary what some beleive has a value, and the loss of use and revenue generated by Vanier Hall. Not to mention some drainage from the CN Centre, and perhaps the Civic Centre.

These are just some of the reasons why we spend so much money. The Playhouse just recently had a major reno, and now they want to tear it down.

Anyone who thinks the the City of Prince George has one iota of fiscal responsibiity is just kidding themselves.

None of us can get away from the fact that we vote in the dudes who hire the rubes who run the City. So at the end of the day, if we just sit back and sip our beer, then we are the problem

Have a nice day.

Thank you Palopu - I could not agree more with that post, top to bottom. The old "you have to spend money to make money" may certainly have some truth to it but 50 million initial outlay doesnt fit into any financial plan that one could possibly dream...

One may not wish to have a Performing Arts Centre for Prince George. That is a personal preference and I understand that.

However, what I do not understand is why people make up stories or, at the least, don’t find out how projects like that work and keep on pushing wrong or incomplete information onto others.

Whatever the price tag on such a projecting, $35, $45 $50 million, such a project has a capital side and an operations side to it. The capital side is typically paid for by the feds, the province and the local municipality, as well as some private money if it can be attained. The formula typically is 1/3 each + in a city like Prince George where we do not have benefactors that typically give large sums of money, say a couple million dollars. Based on that, lets say roughly $15million from the feds, $15million from the province and $15million from the City plus some private fundraising.

The thinking that the City will be paying whatever the total cost of the facility is is totally erroneous.

There are two cases I know of where the feds have given money in the past year.

May 2009 media release - Kingston Ontario – Performing Arts Centre + Art Gallery = $63 million City in conjunction with Queens University, cost sharing - $15 million from each of the feds and province +plus $6million from the City + $18 million from Drs. Alfred and Isabel Bader [url]http://www.buildingcanada-chantierscanada.gc.ca/media/news-nouvelles/2009/20090513kingston-eng.html[/url

$6million from the City + $18 million from Drs. Alfred and Isabel Bader http://www.buildingcanada-chantierscanada.gc.ca/media/news-nouvelles/2009/20090513kingston-eng.html

Here is what the Feds said about it: ”Investing in cultural infrastructure is a great way to create jobs, build stronger communities and forge the creative workforce of tomorrow,” said John Gerretsen, Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and MPP for Kingston and the Islands. “Queen’s University is one of the economic anchors of Kingston and the government of Ontario, under the leadership of Premier Dalton McGuinty, is pleased to be investing with our university and my city in this exciting project.”

“I believe this performing arts centre will be an important and iconic addition to the already vibrant cultural centre that is Kingston,” said Principal Tom Williams. “We are proud to be able to provide an environment where artists of the Kingston and Queen’s communities and beyond can develop and showcase their creative talents. Without these significant investments from the Governments of Canada and Ontario, the City of Kingston, and from Queen’s benefactors Drs. Alfred and Isabel Bader, the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts would not be possible.”

Demonstrating their commitment to stimulating the economy and creating jobs, both the governments of Canada and Ontario are moving forward with a number of large scale infrastructure programs to assist Ontarians when they need it most.

May 2009 – St. Catharines Performing Arts Centre $18 million from each of the feds and the province + $18 million from the City = $54 million. http://www.buildingcanada-chantierscanada.gc.ca/media/news-nouvelles/2009/20090522stcatharines-eng.html

Here is what the news release said about it:
This project will have a significant economic impact for the Niagara region and surrounding area. It will help create jobs, attract skilled workers and generate more visitors to the town.

“Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, our Government is investing in a complex that will create jobs, revitalize downtown St. Catharines and promote Niagara’s diverse arts community,” said Mr. Dykstra. “A new Centre for the Arts and Recital Hall in our region is a welcomed venue that will place St. Catharines squarely on the cultural landscape. This is a concrete example of how we are supporting the arts and creating opportunity for students and adults alike.”

“Under the leadership of Premier Dalton McGuinty, our government believes that investing in cultural infrastructure is a great way to create jobs, build stronger communities and forge the creative workforce of tomorrow,” said Mr. Bradley. “The Niagara Centre for the Arts and the Recital Hall will be a significant cultural attraction in the Niagara region and the government of Ontario is pleased to be investing with the city and the government of Canada in this exciting project.”

“The new Centre for the Arts project will provide the necessary catalyst for a full-scale transformation of Downtown St. Catharines, which has been identified as an Urban Growth Centre,” said St. Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan. “Building on the support of the Federal and Provincial governments, Downtown St. Catharines will be able to position itself as a diverse location for cultural pursuits and new business investment.”

The Niagara Centre for the Arts will be a venue capable of hosting big-ticket theatre and concerts with a capacity of 800 to 900 patrons. The Recital Hall will be a 300-seat venue that will primarily be used for community and public musical performances.

Hinton, yes, HINTON, is doing a survey to see if residents there would like to have a performing arts centre:

http://www.hintonparklander.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2114724

"That is one reason why Prince George has the dubious honour of being the biggest spendthrifts in BC and quite possibly in all of Canada."

Palopu, I assume that is the thinking in your circle of friends who prop each other up with one sided conversations.

The problem with that, of course, is that simple support without opposing opinions typically does not lead to progress, other than in a dictatorship.

Have you ever noticed how virtually everything we create intellectually, build, manufacture, etc. costs money? Have you also ever noticed that we pay for it all? The only thing we typically do not pay for is the love, the respect, and the friendship we have for and with people; the emotional sides of our beings.

We do not get any of those other things for nothing. Whether we pay for it collectively through various levels of governments we have elected and their wisdom of how to manage their responsibilities to the collective whole, or through some sort of private enterprise by buying their goods and services. They make it, we pay for it.

Swimming pools, footballs fields, ice arenas, art galleries, performing arts centres, roads, parks, fire halls, police stations, libraries, etc. None of these are operations such as grocery stores, service stations, shoe repair stores, lumber outlets, restaurants, sawmills, wineries, tomato hot houses, etc. that work relatively well on a competitive basis. Even many of those, especially producers of goods who typically generate many jobs, end up receiving subsidies from the public purse on occasion.

In times of plenty, those occasions are typically not required and the public’s money can go to paying down public debt or creating “rainy day” accounts. In leaner times, when people are put out of work, the debt may have to be built up again and money from the “rainy day” accounts withdrawn.

Canada is neither the USA nor Britain. Both of those countries have some major fiscal problems to fix. On top of that, thanks to the oil sands, Canada is still operating on a petro dollar. That is not to say that Canada cannot improve its financial situation.

Here are some figures for similar sized cities in BC. The figures are for 2007 and are the total expenditures, operations and capital per household.

Kelowna $5,519
Nanaimo $4,648
New Westminster $4,139
Prince George $4,067
Kamloops $3,849
Vancouver $3,558

Four of those communities have reported on OPERATING expenditures as percentages by functional category.

The first number is protective services and the second is recreation and culture

Prince George 26.2% 17.7%
Vancouver 25.2% 27.8%
Nanaimo 17.6% 18.6%
Kelowna 13.4% 18.1%

We are spending TWICE the slice of our pie of operating dollars for protective services. THIS is what PG is spending their money and are HUGE spendthrifts. We are spening the least of the four communities that are reporting on recreation and culture.

Anyone who has any sense of awareness of this community should be able to observe what the figures tell us.

Here are 5 cities who reported on the capital/operating split for 2007.

Spendthrift Prince George is tied with Kamloops.

Nanaimo 41.5% 58.5%
Vancouver 31.0% 69.0%
Kamloops 23.5% 76.5%
Prince George 23.5% 76.5%
New Westminster 18.6% 81.4%

So how do the taxes look in those 6 communities?

What you see is the tax breakdown for 2007 per household. The first figure is the total of the next two figures. The second figure are the direct property taxes and the third figure is the amount per household that is attributable to user fees.

Kelowna $4,002 $1,812 $2,190
Vancouver $3,784 $1,948 $1,836
Kamloops $3,548 $2,223 $1,325
Prince George $3,248 $2,155 $1,093
New Westminster $3,059 $1,592 $1,467
Nanaimo $2,692 $1,976 $716

Palopu, the next time you try to spin a story, please do a better job of background research so that you have some objective data to share with us on which you base your assumptions.

If you are not familiar with this site, you might start there.

http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2483

BTW, to come full circle, it has the start of the type of information that is required to provide indicators of where CFIB wanted to go but failed miserably at doing for anyone who understands such relationships.

But the media soaks that type of stuff up since it makes for great headlines. Great headlines sell, facts don't. CFIB knows that and has taken full advantage of that. It is a good example of SPIN.

Palopu wrote:

"Bottom line is that Prince George collects lots of money in taxes and blows it like drunken sailors. You dont need a bunch of stats to figure this out."

Of course not. Why base one's thinking on factual information? Opinions not based on facts is the best way to make a point to people who do not trust government and think they can do a better job.

"Just look around. River Road upgrade (useless)"

Please give us the information of who paid for it and what, if anything, you would do to solve the flooding risk in that area. (I know all about dredging the channel and agree with it, but there is still a risk. So spare me that argument.)
-----------------------
"Brand new Cameron St., Bridge. (unnecessary)"

-----------------
"Replay board for CN Centre (stupid)"

It is stupid to me as well, but likely not to the 900 fans of the Cougars. Besides, it was paid for by the Olympic "legacy". Should we have rejected that money? Should we have used it for something else? What?

Proposed new Police Station (Not needed)

I agree. We need to take a look at the entire policing operation in this community. The money we are spending on that compared to some of the other communities is out of control. We should be taling to the feds and the province about increasing standards without providing the funds to do so. We are no longer in control. We need a police commission that can look at this seriously, not only municipally but also provincially.

Until that is done, no new building or or renovations or addition to the existing building.
--------------------------

"On top of that, we are getting Proposed Pac Centre (Not needed)"

I do not think we are getting that yet. So take anything that is not in progress with money committed out of your list.
-------------------------------

"Millions of dollars in real estate purchases (???) the list goes on."

These are poor purchases? These have been going on for some time. I look at them as an investment. Of course, if we are pessimists, then the value of the land will not go up, but could go down.

Look at it this way. If you want your dollars that are being invested in land in the city to go donw, then continue to sing your songs of pessimism. If you don't, keep giving you criticism with some good research behind it and look how else the City should spend our money in order to promote development that will change some of the negative aspects of the city thst prevent companies from opening up their operations in this community.

In the end, that is what it is all about. Things have not changed much since the days of Hammond and his promotion of his properties in the Prince George area and the coming railway city.