and dont forget more tax increases!

So pgguru where exactly would you get a better deal?

Most of the province with a similar population & city services charges roughly the same for property taxes.

Get used to it. If you want water, sewer, fire protection, etc etc then you need to pay for these services.

I looked at an average house in Kamloops on property guys and they say their property taxes are $2,230.

Looked at another average house in Kelowna and they said their property taxes were about $2,000.

And one more in Nanaimo and they said their taxes are $2,099.

I for one think it's pretty good value. Sure there are always going to be a couple of things that the city does that won't make everyone happy. But at least I can look at what the Mayor says is happening in this city in the past year and there are some big positives. Great Job.

Let's keep the ball rolling.......we CAN be the envy of the Province.

u have no clue? my house in surrey valued at 650 000,u know waht the taxes are? 2700,thats right and here in p.g a 275000 has the same taxes!

mwk.p.g is spending to much money,i see the same roads get done over and over again.the roads get done the year later the same roads get huge pot holes and cracks everywhere.never used to be the problem like that years back.p.g needs to shape up,its time to cost cut and now!

mwk, You sound like a politician.You gave us the amount of taxes paid but didnt bother to tell the assesed value of the home. Did you have a tent in mind.

The Independent Business council gives us another story. They tell us that PG has the highest municipal tax in the province.
Cheers

Our Mayor certainly left out some memorable occains that happened in our City in the past year and he needs a reminder of these events and if I may use the words of Allen Wishart used in his columon, “shall we ramble”.

February; as the city is preparing its budget for 2010 we are given the story of the low taxes enjoyed in our City. But it turns out that a survey done by the Independent Business Council have another story that we have the highest tax rate in BC compared with other Cities.

March; Prince George is fourth on the list for crime across Canada in a survey conducted by Macleans magazine. Makes one wonder if spending 38 million on a new building for our police force will actually reduce the crime rate. If the digs get to comfortable will our policemen be inclined to spend more time there instead of fighting crime on our streets.

April: We learn that the City is the biggest landowner in the down town area. We find that the City has purchased the Prince Georg Hotel that was flipped for a profit of over four hundred thousand dollars by the previous owner. And now we will spend another million and a half to demolish the building.

May; City of Prince George is 164 on the list of places to live out 0f 179. The City was ranked by Money Magazine. We dropped from 137 to 164.. The rating was based on climate, prosperity, access to health care, home, afford ability and crime rate. Do the honest hardworking people of this city deserve this life style?

September; A report by Communities That Care the youth of Prince George are also at risk in our community. We are told that our youth are more likely to try alcohol, cigarette and there is community acceptance of anti social behavior.


October: the City takes a Councilor to court because he was giving us some facts on how our City operates at the management level., They employed a specialist to look at the Bonny and Clyde affair down at the police station. But it all went out the window.

In the past you have told us Mr Mayor that you have a dream for our City . It appears its more of a night mare.
Cheers

Mr Rogers got one thing right; he's definitely challenged, but of course he'll likely stay the usual course..and raise taxes. Again.

fair comment u hit the nail on the head,now with hydros 3o percent increase that only means city hydro bill goes up 30 percent in three years and only gets handed down to city taxpayers.

might as well hire more employees and buy more expensive buildings downtown and tear them down.

need to take a axe to the bottom line a.s.a.p.this will secure p.g future.

Who cares what the Independant Business Council says? If they are only looking at property taxes, they too are guilty of playing the numbers game.

Many of you people are also conveniently forgetting that you would be living in crack shacks in many other places in the Province for the same price you pay for your house here. Truth be told, many folks in PG wouldn't even qualify for a mortgage on that said crack shack, yet they can have a very nice home here.

Who cares about total property taxes, taxes per capital, rate increases, etc. Let's just use one simple number and that would be the TOTAL annual cost to run your household (property taxes, mortgage, utilities, etc.). Anyone who thinks that PG is a rip off in those regards when it comes to the BC housing market is living in a dream world. If you don't think so, then the conclusion is simple. Move elsewhere, find a comparable home in a city with comparable services and save your few hundred dollars per year.

actually alot of us care about total property taxes, taxes per capita and rate increases , its the tax payers money and to see it piddled away on projects that aren`t wanted by politicians that aren`t listening tends to raise the ire of those expected to pay. Moving somewhere else you suggest hmmm. perhaps Mr. Rogers should take his pet projects to some other place that wants and can afford them. In conclusion, to hang on to your few hundred dollars a year voice your opinions and work towards making changes in the leadership of your community. Let the others move somewhere else

Has anyone here ever considered that perhaps the Mayor HAS support from people in PG for the projects that are being undertaken?

Why do the regular posters on Opinion 250 assume that they are the "authority" when it comes to what the people of PG want? Based on many of the comments, if I had to guess, I'd suggest that the primary demographic on here is likely middle aged or older conservative men who are likely also white. I know that this group historically "ran things" and were the "decision makers", but their oftentimes self anointed expertise on everything can sometimes be a little over the top.

Perhaps it would do some people some good to get out and talk to everyone in the community to get a true taste of what people think, instead of only listening to their own specific morning coffee crowd.

nmg,thats what we do nmg or city councillor!

good support to pay over market value than tear the p.g motel down! hip hip horray!! i c what u mean nmg

My bad, I didn't realize that the PG Hotel was for sale on the open market through a commercial listing with a realtor. How much was it listed for?

As an aside, I have no real issue with the tear down if it means an eventual improvement to that part of the downtown core.

mwk, so thats residential taxes. Have you looked at what businesses pay in this city? Our business taxes have increased approx. $1,000 each year and the services certainly haven't increased. In fact, the roads in our business area steadily get worse. The CFIB's research on PG city taxes showed that business in PG is being royally screwed on their property taxes. City Hall needs to rein in their spending; less surveys and studies and maybe no more pay raises for non-essential city staff until the private sector wages catch up (or at least get within 10-15% of the city wages). Police, fire services, road maintenance in the winter is what I call essential services.

When you look at the financial statements for the city, the following expense items account for 77% of total spending:

- Protective services - 27%
- Transportation services - 20%
- Water and sewer - 11%
- Sanitation and waste removal - 3%
- Parks, recreation and cultural services - 16%

I would consider all of these to be "essential" services when it comes to operating a city. I suppose you could argue that the parks and recreation stuff isn't necessary, however, if stuff like that doesn't form the makeup of what a city is, I don't know what does.

Anyway, back to my point. If all of these "essential" things account for more than 75% of the operating budget and we don't want to cut any of them, how the heck is the city supposed to makeup any meaningful amount of money when it comes to cutting other stuff? I haven't even factored in that some money is obviously required to keep city hall running, keep people employed to process property tax payments, etc. I suppose one could cut back on some of that stuff, but how much money do you actually expect to save?

If people want big changes, then I only see two real ways to achieve it. You either increase revenues through tax increases (either by rate increases or by attracting more people to the city), or you chop your PRIMARY spending items, INCLUDING the stuff mentioned above. I don't think that tinkering with a few staff at city hall will have that much of an impact when over 70% of your spending is on "required" items that people don't want to see chopped.

Of course, the way the financial information is presented is also somewhat useless. The generalized expense groupings doesn't really provide all that much detail. It doesn't show how costs are allocated, there is no way to tell what areas may be losing money vs making money (i.e. maybe the swimming pools lose huge amounts of dough and the ice rinks make money), I can't find what percent of costs are wages vs. other costs and overall, you have to make allot of assumptions. The financial statements are not very user friendly for the average person trying to read them or understand them.

The only people with in-depth access to the financial info would be the folks at the city and the auditors for the city. The auditors don't make any decisions on operations, so it's up to the city to do their due diligence in managing their financial resources appropriately. Based solely on what is presented in the financial statements (and assuming that they are fairly presented), I don't see where the city has a whole pile of flexibility in cutting costs without impacting the services that most everyone demands on a day to day basis.

It's almost like the Republicans in the US who scream for cuts to out of control government spending but they don't want to cut the "war on terror", military spending and other items that account for the vast majority of the spending. Obviously there will always be things that can be cut, but I'm not sure if the amount saved from those cuts would be all that noticeable in the grand scheme of things.

That doesn't mean that cost control shouldn't be undertaken, because it should, but people should be realistic about what can be achieved with cuts unless they are willing to see some their own "sacred cows" on the slaughter block as well.

I wasnt going to comment on this article because as usual we go round and round with the same old arguments.

The fact of the matter is, City spending has to be looked at in relation to the amount of money they bring in, and not just focused on the taxes.

We have a huge tax base with Industry, Commercial, and regular tax payers.

The City has revenue streams from the RCMP in excess of $1 Million per year, and from Gambling in excess of $1.5 Million per year plus gas tax transfers from the Province, etc; etc; etc;.

So we have a huge amount of money coming into the City coffers every year, and guess what???. We spend it all and borrow more. I beleive that the Citys debt at the moment is around $116 Million and will rise by an additional $36 Million for the new Police Station, not to mention the additional cost of our portion of Boundry Road, and the $12 to $15 Million cost to taxpayers for the 2015 Winter Games. There is also the additonal $4 Million for the Community Energy System, and the list goes on.

Interest on the money borrowed for the Police Station will be $32 Million over 20 years, so this will give you some indication of where we are headed.

Debt servicing by 2019 will be in excess of $30 Million per year.

For a City of 75,000 people this amount of debt and spending is atrocious, and clearly shows that we are totally out of control.

I havent seen any effort from the present Council to curb spending, or reduce debt, just more borrowing, and more debt. In addition to the above there is also those who want to spend $50 Million on a Performing Arts Centre.

Most of the projects that are driving us into debt, and raising our taxes are hairbrained ideas from City Administrators, and Council. None of them would ever be built by Private Money, because they are just too **Border line Stupid**

1. $40 Million for a Police station plus $32 Million interest over 20 years. $72 Million. When a $5 or $10 Million renovation would do the trick.

2. $15 Million for a community energy system. ($4 Million City money) $11 Million for the Feds. If the Feds didnt have $11 Million for this project we would never build it. It will not do anything for cleaner air, and will take at least 20 years to break even. Does anyone really beleive that Lakeland Mills will still be here in $20 years??? Why couldnt we just pipe the hot water from the Intercon Mill?? ANSWER. Because this project is about spending money, not about commen sense.

3. Huge expenditure for the Boundry Road Connector. City Portion approx $6 Million. Do we need this. Who benifits from the project other than those who will entice people to relocate in the light industrial park that will be created. No one else. This is a direct cost to taxpayers with no return.

I could go on but I wont. Prince George is a small town with access to big dollars, and run by a bunch of people that have no concern about spending our money.

We should be ashamed of ourselves for letting these people consistanly tax the hell out of us and piss the money away on foolish programs.

As for anyone leaving this town. I suggest that those who support this kind of insane spending should be the ones to leave. They are the ones that create all the problems.

I love how a lot of people that comment on this website like to run with headlines. Of course referring to the Independant Business Council report on PG spending.

Well, look a little deeper into that report and here's what they say:

The report showed that Prince George's government operating expenditures grew by 48 per cent from 2000-2008. This was by no means the worst increase in B.C., in fact it was the fifth smallest increase among cities bigger than 25,000 people.

5TH SMALLEST IN BC.......yeah that's right 5th smallest.

Yet, people say there is a lot of waste and we don't need all these projects and our tax bill is too high....blah blah blah.

Come on people, the main reason the Independent Business Council didn't like the spending situation is because the spending is increasing, but our population is decreasing.

We could just say forget any project to make this city better and go into cost cutting mode. Sure people love living in a city with no services and a bad track record. I think the population would shrink even more if we did that.

We need to renew this city and if it costs a few dollars to make this city nice, then let's do it. If more people stay here and maybe even a few move here we can spread those costs between all of PG's citizens.

If the population shrinks it will mean a higher burden for each of us that are left. I'm sure people would complain about that..........

pgguru wrote: ".. my house in surrey valued at 650 000,u know waht the taxes are? 2700,"

Here is a house in Surrey that has an asking price of $649,900. It has a toal area of 2,096 sf. There is no basement. 3 bedrooms. one quarter acre lot. 12 years old.

Taxes ... $3,312

Sell your $275,000 PG house and move into the Surrey house. If you have no mortgage here, you can put that into the down payment and at 4.5% you can start to pay $2,084/month PI mortgage for 25 years. Whatever real estate, legal, inspection, and moving costs you may have are extra -$15,000 to $20,000 perhaps by the time everything is taken care of.

Not even considering the merits or demerits of moving to a GVRD bedroom community, you are welcome to the move and thinking that Surrey has so much more to offer.

Has anyone really taken a close look at where that extra money will go to. Have you ever considered that the money is going to the banks? Twice as much money for the same living accommodations and the lenders are the winners.

Enjoy your move.

Oh, BTW, there seems to be a discrepancy of about 22% in the taxes you are suggesting for a $650,000 house in Surrey and the one that I have linked to.

http://www.surreyrealestate.org/listings/#http%3A//idx.myrealpage.com/wps/recip/10971/browse/details-14270757,mrph-3825

Palopu.....

Money borrowed over 20 years through the Municipal Finance Authority is currently 4.69%

Assume $36million is borrowed, then at 5% for good measure, the total interest paid over the 20 years is $21,020,176 if payments are made monthly. ($237,584)

That is $9million less than you state.

http://www.mfa.bc.ca/marketrates.htm

Oops, you stated the interest on $36million would be $32million, so that would make it $11million less than you stated.

BTW, there are many reasons why one municipality has different tax rates from another.

One is the distribution of property taxes over differenet classes of property.

PG has the lowest ratio of business to residential. In other words, for every unit of property value residential taxes here are higher than other in other BC communities.

Ranking City Ratio
1 Prince George 1.65
2 Kamloops 2.18
3 Chilliwack 2.25
4 Kelowna 2.26
5 Nanaimo 2.27
6 Abbotsford 2.49
7 Victoria 2.78
8 Surrey 2.94 (3.3 in 2010)
9 Port Coquitlam 3.10
10 Richmond 3.11
11 New Westminster 3.17
12 North Vancouver 3.35
13 Burnaby 3.49
14 Coquitlam 3.90
15 Vancouver 4.35

Those are 2003 figures.

This city does not dare to increase business class taxes.

Since some of you seem to put so much faith into the straight goods and unbiased information put out by the Business Council, then it follows that you should be jumping up and down in support of HST, since they are as well, LOL. I mean really, if they are correct about one thing, it stands to reason that they would be correct about other things.

Personally, I tend to view groups like these as business advocacy groups and as a result, I also tend to assume that there is a bias in their stance in favour of business. I wonder what their stance would be on the airshed in Prince George, corporate responsibility, increased regulation and even the sale of BC Rail?

It really dosent matter what the Business Council tells us Anyone with any knowledge at all can see that our City is heading for the dumper. The residents and the business community contribute the most to the City budget, residential is 53% and commercial 25%. And industry that poisons our air pays a measly 17% .

The City is the biggest landowner downtown using tax dollars to buy up property with the hope of attracting more retail outlets in the area. At the same time they are taxing the hell out of the same area. When in fact if they taxed industry at 25% of the budget and 17% for the commercial operations they could probably attract more commerce.

What has happened the planing has destroyed the down town area and now the City is using tax dollars to try and cover their blunder. Unless council decides to clean out the bad management in City hall we are heading for a disaster. Its taken seven years to get the golf club property producing tax dollars how long will it take to develop the property that the City now owns?
Cheers

Gus. The $36 Million is what is left to borrow. They have already borrowed $2.8 Million so in effect they will borrow $38.8 Million. The interest that will be paid approx $32 Million is the number that I got from the City, it is a conservative estimate, so if you have a problem with it, I suggest you talk to City Hall.

Have a nice day.

This City Council (and the last one) make it very clear that voting here is a useless waste of time. They will do whatever they want and most of this city follows along with their head in the sand. You know who's running this city?? Dan McLaren, John Majors and Don Kheler.