Was there any doubt.

"Pay as you go" broke, and sacrifice another inch of your standard of living again.

And who is surprised with this announcement....
of course the taxes are going up....all the time!
have to pay for trips to China, and Italy and who knows where else.... somehow!

precisely acrider54 ....

and this makes the news? ... its sort of the DUH!? factor, isn't it?

Now, think about this. If we pay 4% more to cover the roadwork in the year that it happens, then the budget amount they had in previous years for roadwork would no longer have to be included in this year's budget.

So, the question is, how much has already been borrowed in the name of roadwork in past years, how much is the interest and principle we are now paying to pay for that roadwork?

Paying off a $2.5 million loan over a 15 year period should cost about $175,000 or so per year on a low interest loan. Say we were doing that over the last three years, we have a PI payment of some half million or so to make each year by now.

With the City handling finances like that, no wonder we have an increase above the 4% when switching from a pay later policy to a pay now policy.

The solution is to get the City to look at their spending and make the appropriate cuts. They also have to give up on some of their pet Capital Projects.

I have little or no faith in the taxpayers of this City doing anything other than complain, and I suspect that City Hall beleives thats all they will do, so at the end of the day nothing will happen. We will get the increases and we will pay them, and we will complain, and then in 2008 we will re-elect this bunch of Councillors and get more of the same.

This City Councel always compares us to Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, etc; when it comes to paying taxes and they always imply that we pay less taxes on a comparitive house that these other Citys, however they never say why this is so. I suspect one reason is, because we have such a huge industrial base that we collect more taxes over all than these other Citys and therefore we should pay less taxes.

I suspect that we have more staff per capita than any of these Cities, and who knows where IPG and these other entites enter into the picture. We can state that we pay a smaller % of our budget on Parks and Recreation that these other Citys but if our budget is higher that theirs, then we would, or could still be spending more than they are.

We certainly have more debt that any of the above mentioned Citys, and we certainly have more Police.

We have a smaller population than Kamloops, Nanaimo, but we have more police than they do.

Kamloops Pop 82714 Police 118 Cost $14,967,841.00

Nanaimo Pop. 79,898 Police 114 Cost $14,638,272.00

Prince George Pop 77,148 Police 121 Cost $15,524,482.00

Figures are for 2005. Prince George has since transferred 3 police officers from the community policing to regular service, and hired 3 full time civilian positions to run the community policing program, so our police number will rise to at least 124, and of course our staff numbers will also rise.

Energy costs for City facilities for 2006
Electricity $851,324.00
Natural Gas $1,049,075.00

Total $1,900,399.00

Interest on loans as shown above.

The list goes on but you get my point.

Betcha Kamloops and Nanaimo aren't gonna spend a million bucks on a gadget fer their arena. Priorities, folks.

It's all perception and how you look at the facts. Sure we're spending $1 million on a clock.....Kelowna is spending $250,000 to upgrade one of their rinks for Sledge Hockey...I can only imagine what would be said here if PG did that!
Kelowna spends nearly 5 times as much on their parks and have less than half the hectares we do.
Kamloops just spend $38 million dollars building a new multisport facility, track and ballfields.
And on it goes.......

"I suspect one reason is, because we have such a huge industrial base that we collect more taxes over all than these other Citys and therefore we should pay less taxes."

Please check things out a bit better before you write them. This city has one of the lowest ratios of business and industry to residential mill rates in the province, to start with.

We may have a higher industrial assessment than some other cities, but I have not checked that out to be able to respond to you that you are wrong. I am just saying to you, before you float something out there, research it.

Once you have done that, you will have to look further still. Some of the services, such as library, museum, art gallery, Huble Homestead, Railway and Forestry Museum, etc. are regionally funded. This city funds a high percentage, in the 60% range, of regional operations. Thus, if we were to redraw the city boundaries to the south of the pulp mills and Husky, and the north of the BCR, they would be paying taxes to the regional district and the city would then have to pay less as its proportion of regional services.

These matters are not simplisic.

So, the Lafarge Cement operation to the east of Kamloops, is out of the City limits, but does pay taxes to the regional district. In the case of some of the cities, there are satellite cities in the immediate vicinty which often have a higher commercial/industrial to residential mix. To compare apples to apples, we would have to disect that in detail as well.

I rfealy do not have to be told why we pay less. I can see it all around me when I visit those cities and then come back here. We have less services ... period! I do not know how long it takes to figure that out for those who travel.

Hold your breath!!!!
Come on-who else will want more money?
School taxes, general municipal and other taxes, hospital, municipal finance authority, Assessment authority, Regional District, 911.
I really hope I did not forget any? The line up at the trough will all have to be well taken care of.
If you taxpayers think for one minute they give a tinker's damn that you may have to lower your standard of living-you are in for a reality check.
Of course you will all complain-and complain, and complain!
It will end right there. I do find it a trifle boring reading the complaints here, as they are all a lesson in futility.
Those who can afford to pay the increases will simply do so with a head shake at their stupidity.
Those that cannot afford to pay the increases will do so and cut back in order to keep surviving.
You will elect the same "rocket scientists" to run the city at the next election, as you now enjoy complaining, and newomers may do something worthwhile and become your fun spoilers at gossip sessions. The same staff will be there to direct you to the right departments to spin you around. (Wow, I really enjoyed what Black Orchid did to the taxpayers money-a pretty good win -and well deserved). I do believe the pipes were playing for Danny Boy. Different song!Justice being served for a change. Power trip backfired. Looks good on them.
Oh, for goodness sake-who said "HABIT IS STRONG." Had to be someone in the know!
The same staff will remain to do their bidding.
Is there trouble brewing -I hardly think so! Not for the almighty at Prince George city hall!
Enjoy that 1st week of July 2007. Best you save up for it-starting now. Oh yes, and bring money. To City Hall.

Owl. When you talk of less services can you give me some examples. At present we enjoy the same or better services in the following areas.
(a) Policing
(b) Fire Protection
(c) Snow Removal
(d) Garbage Disposal
(e) Recreational/Arts/Museums/Parks/etc;
(f) City Facilitys and staffing
(g) Schools
(h) College
(i) University

We also have a huge debt load compared to say Kamloops and Nanaimo.

Unless you can tell me the number industries/business's that are located in the City of Prince George, and the amount of taxes they acutally pay in regards to the services that they receive, then your talk about ratios of business/industry to residential means absolutley nothing.

The industry located on the pulp mill road Ie;
(1) Husky oil
(2) FMC Corp
(3) Chem Prep
(4) Intercon Mill
(5) PG Pulp Mill
(6) Industrial Park

all pay a significant portion of the taxes to the City but get very little if any services in return. Maybe some snow plowing on the main road, however they provide most of their services themselves. The same thing applies to Industry located in the BCRail Industrial Park. Lots of Industry, but very little services provided by the City. This could explain your ratio.

You cant have the services mentioned above, along with the attendent costs, which are prohibitive, and have less taxes than comparitive Citys, unless you are getting the money from somewhere else. Its only common sense. Thats why I said I **suspect** that is comes from Industrial/Business taxes. We certainly have more industry located within the City than either Nanaimo/Kamloops/Kelowna, and therefore that has to be where the money is coming from. Of course if we do have a shortfall we just borrow more. We lead all these comparitive Citys when it comes to debt.

Lets have some concrete examples of the **less services** that we have in Prince George, other than the much coveted **Performing Arts Centre**. If the PAC is part of your argument about services, it has to be made in conjunction with the Theatre Northwest, Prince George Playhouse, and Vanier Hall.

Have a nice day.

Unfortunately our city council is a microcosm of society as a whole. The majority of people (in Prince George and elsewhere in this country) simply do not have a respect for money. They think it is o.k. to go through life piling on debt and saving nothing. History has shown us over and over that recessions (and depressions) do happen. I suppose that it is too much to ask for to have a city council with leadership and vision which recognizes this fact.

There are ways that a real democracy could deal with this.

The concept of government run by a straw poll once every three years heavily manipulated by special interest funding should be part of the history books.

We are in the electronic age, but rather than use it to strengthen our democracy our elected officials are enabling those that would use it to diminish our participatory democracy. They build electronic counting devices, without paper trails and other safeguards, and then proclaim efficiency in the democratic process.

I would propose Elections BC be mandated to bring democracy as close to its citizens as it can not only at election time every 3-4-5 years, but throughout the year on an issue by issue basis. I see no reason why the official vote in the Legislature should not be benchmarked against the will of the active voting citizens on issues put forward by the parties themselves. Ditto for municipal elected governments.

Election BC could easily issue every voting citizen in this province a password for access to a single vote per citizen in an Elections BC managed web site. Parties or members could forward a limited number of issues for a vote and debate. Each citizen would have one vote and a limited (by words) opinion piece on the issue. The vote totals could be instantly tabulated (per electoral district and as a whole) with your own personal secret code published along with the rest so as to verify the accuracy of your votes count.

A system like this would not be perfect, but always striving for that. What a system like this would do is simply provide a benchmark to measure an elected representatives official votes with that of those in which they represent.

This way democracy is transparent and not 'managed' by pollsters, media-corp, and 5th column financed political parties. Everyone is involved, making it rewarding for everyone to participate. Everyone can see for themselves this is my opinion, this is my communities opinion, and that is the opinion of my neighbours who elected that idiot down south. That’s what democracy is supposed to be all about in order to bring about greater awareness and understanding in the governance of our tax dollars and rights as citizens.

The current democracy enabling system is not up with the times and I blame Elections BC for that one.

Talk is cheap.I have to agree with Trusted on the whining on this site.

Some of you are spining your wheels on who contributes what amount to the City tax base.

Had you gone to the information session you would of recieved a brochure on where the taxes are coming from. The City also publishes this information annually on their web site. The chart given out at the 4% levy session on page 3 shows that about 25% comes from heavey industry, about another 30 % from commercial business and over 50% comes from residential. It is a pie shaped graph so its hard to get the exact figures. But like i have said check the City website for exact amouints.

So stop spining your wheels and get the facts straight.

I had actually sworne off this site becaues of the long winded post that appear almost daily. I just couldnt pass these post up today.

Cheers

Kimbo. The brochure given out by the City at the information session outlines the portion of the levy that would be paid by Business, Major Industry, and Residential and pertains to the $2.35M levy, specifically for the road rehabilitation program.

This percentage may or may not be the same for yearly taxes. I am trying to locate these numbers on their website. No easy task as this is one of the worst sites I have run across, to access information.

I have to agree with Palopu's post with regard to the poor quality of the City of Prince George's web site. I have gone there many times trying to research budget and financial matters. Very rarely have I managed to find an answer to my search question.

It's my understanding from a reliable source that approximately 90% of the city's budget is committed to previous obligations.

The other 10% is what is up for discussion or consideration. Good luck. Chester