City Staff Told To Prep Budget Not to Exceed 2.5% Increase

Monday, October 25, 2010 10:16 PM

Prince George, B.C. – It isn't set in stone, but the City’s Finance and Audit Committee has been instructed to work with City Staff to develop an operating budget that does not exceed a 2.5% increase in the tax levy.

Even with that guideline, City council still has the final say on what will or will not be approved in the budget when the budgets come up for discussion in February.

Finance Services presented three scenarios to the Committee of the Whole for discussion along with some suggestions on how to achieve the goals.

Scenario #1 based the budget on status quo. This would have resulted in an increase of 6.12% primarily to cover the new collective agreements which added $5.4 million dollars.

Scenario #2 would result in a budget increase of 2.84% but in order to reach that number there would have to be increases in revenues from other areas such as:

$208,600 -for criminal record checks (charging $35 per check)
$ 90,000 -increase in business license fees
$ 57,500 -increase in alcohol sales at CN Centre
$ 50,000 -increase in planning and development fees
$ 15,000 -increase in snow dumping fees
$ 12,843- increase in Civic Centre fees

There would also need to be some spending reductions:

$997,931 – Continue to base Police staff budget on 121 members
$296,326 – Staff vacancies, reorganizations and reductions
$194,000 – Energy savings
$125,000 – Recruitment, training and other discretionary expenses
$ 77,000 – Fleet fuel and repair savings
$ 60,000 – WorkSafe BC Rebate

Then there was Scenario #3: Which proposed a 2.06% general tax increase:

Everything proposed in scenario #2 plus an additional $549,900 in expense decreases or revenue increases would need to be considered.

Some of the items which MAY help achieve the goals are as follows:

$225,982 – Do not repay or delay repaying Endowment Reserve (20 years) for Land Sale Revenue shortfall in funding capital projects
$179,905 – Do not repay or delay repaying Endowment Reserve (20 years) for PG Hotel land acquisition
$103,855 – Do not repay or delay repaying Endowment Reserve (20 years) for funding capital projects

Committee members did not feel comfortable looking at collecting funds for criminal record checks because of the negative impact that might have on volunteers. Some also did not feel comfortable entertaining any increase in alcohol sales at CN Centre.

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Posted on Monday, October 25, 2010 10:16 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: onemansthoughts on October 26 2010 7:40 AM

Hey, I have an idea, why dont city council and city employees take a 10 % cut in pay. That would pay for most of this cost overrun. A lot of the sawmills had their employees take a cut in pay. What makes the city any different? Most of the council members, if not all, said if we voted for them,they would bring in restraint. Right now, its everyman and woman for themselves. I think we should be able to recall them as well.Have a nice day people.

Posted by: porter on October 26 2010 9:00 AM

City council is underpaid. They make $20K a year. All I see on this site is people (myself included) saying we need better leadership. Well you get what you pay for.

The job is at least 20 hours per week, this means that anyone who makes more than $40K per year is already taking a pay cut just to be on council.

Posted by: News2me on October 26 2010 9:23 AM

A cut in the collective agreements may be necessary. My DH is a union worker that had about $1,000.00 every 2 weeks cut from his pay. He got to keep his job! The union employees can live with a bit less, or even the same. I am talking about all those guys who plow streets, fix machines, work in the cemetary, parks, etc. Given a choice between a pay cut, and a job loss, most will choose to keep thier jobs. In this economy, why are we paying 6.12% more??

Posted by: Harbinger on October 26 2010 11:52 AM

2.5%? Ha ha ha . When pigs fly. The one on The Simpsons doesn't count.