This has to be a joke. We haven't even had much snow. What are they sanding with? Gold dust?

It is only been a month of winter what the Heck!! Where did the budget$$ go? the months of January / February can be our worst! What are they smokin??

Keep in mind 2009 has only 5 weeks left. The snow removal budget is reset at $5 million come January 1. So it's not as bad as it sounds. It's not like we're going to be completely out of money and still trying to get through the bulk of the winter until April or May 2010.

Must be waiting for globull warming, He He.

Kinda funny, every year we hear the same story. Who is doing the budgeting? Maybe they should be a little more realistic.

Thank you tombstone81

That Makes sense... now that I thought about it. :)

Why are they even talking about this. Do they plan to stop plowing the streets if they run out of money until January 1, 2010? This has been a repeat for the last two or so years since we have been getting some "normal" snow conditions to this area.

Without additional information this is a useless piece of press they are putting out. Where is the new $100,000 a year guy? I thought he was there by now.

It almost looks like what the message they want to spin here is that they need more money from us.

Get rid of 10, $100,000+ jobs at City Hall and you have a million bucks to get reid of the white stuff. We would still be spending more money on staff at City Hall than other cities of our size do.

I can't believe this article! What is going on at City Hall. Winter hasn't even started yet and they are crying about the cost of snow removal.

It is time to get rid of the needless expeditures at City Hall. Get rid of the patronage jobs that have been awarded lately. It is time to cut back, not increase taxes to cover the incompetence of City Council and City bureaucracy.

Taxpayers of Prince George.....wake up and join the fight to reduce the size of inefficient government in our City.

'Get rid of 10, $100,000+ jobs at City Hall and you have a million bucks to get reid of the white stuff.'

Yeah, but then the people left would have to work harder at being incompetent.

"I can't believe this article! What is going on at City Hall. Winter hasn't even started yet and they are crying about the cost of snow removal"

Tombstone81 hit it bang on. You have to keep in mind that the snow removal costs for Jan, Feb and Mar of 09 fall into this years budget . . .

Given that we run into this situation almost every year, one would think that the City would either allocate more money to snow removal (which would mean cutting expenditures in some other area or increasing taxes) or find ways to reduce the cost of snow removal (either through a more efficient system or a reduction in snow removal activities).

How's this for an idea:

We put LESS dirt and gravel on the roads and use the savings from that towards better snow removal. People will have fewer windshields being busted out and come Spring, we'll spend less on cleaning it up and it will also help reduce the amount of dust we have in the airshed. I'm not advocating stopping sanding altogether, but I think we do go overboard on the stuff, especially when you consider that most of it ends up in big piles completely away from where it is needed once a handful of vehicles drive on it. Why not just be more "strategic" when it comes to when and where we use it, instead of dumping after seemingly every snowfall.

"Without additional information this is a useless piece of press they are putting out."

I wouldn't say that exactly gus. We are told that 4.35 million has already been spent. A week's worth is due to be added to that. So Jan, Feb, Mar totals 90 days add 14 days to cover Nov and we have a grand total of 104 days. Do the math and it works out to $41,346.16 per day. That means $289,423.12 is outstanding for the week yet to be claimed. With 40 days left there needs to be $1,653,844.80 in the budget using the daily average. Since the weekly average is probably closer to the actual costs the required budget to cover the remaining 6 weeks is more than likely $1,7

$1,7 million.

So with $160, 577 remaining in the budget that leaves a shortfall of a million.

With those figures, the city should be budgeting $300,000 x 20 weeks or $6 Million.

(Sorry about the chopped post. Hit the post button while trying to minimize my calculator.)

The City snow budget should run from November 1st, through to March 31. That is the space of our winter here. Why and the hell these clowns can't figure this out is beyond me. If the laws say that our City Government can't do this, then we need to change the laws. Our fiscal year should run from November 1st until October 31st.

They have a snow budget that is at both ends, with summer in between. How stupid is that?? About as stupid as the clowns that are steering this sinking ship!

I wake up, I shake my head! I go to sleep, I shake my head. I read articles like this, I shake my head. I am getting a head ache!

We apparently have hired well educated people to take care of our business in this City. They have failed us miserably!!

Holy crap, it doesn't take a University education to figure this stuff out!! It is called common sense!! HELLO

Commoner, I agree that is certainly the way to look at it and I figurterd they would look at it that way.

Here is the reason I wrote what I did.

The snow budget is just a budget to start with. They cannot predict the weather. Some years they spend say $4million, other years they spend $6million. It depends on the weather more than anything else.

Since the winter expenses are split due to the fiscal year being the calendar year, and since last winter was a snowy winter they spent more than normal from January onwards. They knew that when the spring came. They had many months to figure out the likely scenario at the end of the year. I am sure that they have figured out how they will juggle things to take care of the snow that is likely yet to come.

If not, they should tell us. Tell us they are going to give us substandard service if it keeps up. That is what I want to know.

Instead they give us nothing that is new to those who understand how the budget works and scare the hell out of people who think they are already working on the new winter budget rather than the tail end.

In other words, the title "snow clearing budget fund running low" could have been the title for a story in April of 2009.

This is from Feb 11, 2009 Snow Clearing Budget on Hold http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/12054

"Prince George, B.C.- The snow clearing budget for the City of Prince George has been referred to the Finance and Audit Committee for further examination...Although staff are requesting an increase of 3.4% to $4.253 million, Council wants to get a handle on what the budget should be, because clearly it is either being underfunded, or there needs to be a change in the level of service.
· 2004 over budget by $500,000
· 2005 under budget by $805 thousand
· 2006 Over budget by $1.1 million
· 2007 over budget by $400 thousand
· 2008 over budget by $1.4 million
...Mayor Dan Rogers says the crux of this is , we have a problem “We have either a financial problem or a service problem but based on those trends, if you go over those past few years, it’s about half a million dollars . The costs we are budgeting are not meeting the service standards we have outlined in our policy. We have two choices, we change the service levels or we fix the financial matter."

I agree gus that you can't predict an entire winter, but you can take a look at past costs and determine a realistic budget based on that and add a couple of percent for inflation indexing.

You are right, the article is merely reporting costs. What became of the budget examination by the Finance and Audit Committee?

Hey, commoner. Someone else is doing some investigative posts around here!.. Welcome on board!!! Badly needed!! :-)

You are right, what has become of that examination?