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Report blasts city for hefty spending hikes |
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Written by Mark Nielsen
Citizen staff
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Thursday, 05 November 2009 |
Although it's improved slightly, the City of Prince George remains the "worst offender" for B.C. communities of its size when it comes to increases in municipal spending, says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
According to a CFIB study released Thursday, the city's spending rose at 2.89 times the rate of inflation plus the city's population growth between 2000 and 2007, the highest among the province's municipalities with over 25,000 residents.
"Among the larger municipalities, Prince George is the worst offender when it comes to its spending increases over the past seven years or so, spending three times what population and inflation growth would suggest is reasonable," said said Laura Jones, CFIB's Western Canada vice-president.
However, she added the ratio, which the CFIB calls the fiscal sustainability gap, has improved somewhat between 2006 and 2007, and markedly more so than all others.
"The bad news is that Prince George is the worst offender. The good news is that Prince George showed the most improvement," Jones continued. "Last year, when we did this report, Prince George was spending 3.6 times more than population and inflation growth.
"So there is a little bit of a silver lining."
Prince George also fared better when ranked on per-capita spending in 2007, although at $1,360 per person, the city was still a lofty sixth out of 28 municipalities and was well above the average of $1,142.
"It really raises some important questions for taxpayers, I think," Jones said. "I guess the bottom line is, every dollar a municipality spends someone worked hard to earn, and so I think taxpayers in Prince George deserve a lot more accountability and should be asking city council tough questions about this report."
That said, Jones also noted Prince George has a new mayor as of last year's election, "and so it would be unfair to suggest that he is responsible for all of this because we did look back over seven years, but our hope would be that he pays careful attention to these numbers and starts looking seriously at how to reign in costs."
Mayor Dan Rogers dismissed the CFIB's report as drawing some unfair comparisons between Prince George and other B.C. municipalities.
"You have to take it with a grain of salt because it's really comparing apples with oranges," he said. "It's at a pretty high level and I think it's dangerous to take this in very specific terms, because it varies so much from community to community in terms of the services they provide and how spread out that community is, what kind of tax base it is and there aren't those comparisons that are built in here."
For example, Rogers noted snow removal is a big expense in Prince George that most other B.C. communities do not face. The city now levies $5 million for that service, up from $4.25 million in 2007.
He also said that outcomes favour the major centres that have high density residential development whereas Prince George is relatively more spread out and "that urban sprawl has a dollar figure attached to it."
Rogers added that those areas are becoming more attractive to live and therefore are drawing more people over which the cost of municipal services can be spread.
"That is, in my opinion, a wake-up call that we should build more livable cities that are attractive for people to come to live in and to stay," he said, adding that's one of the goals of the integrated community sustainability plan the city is in the process of developing.
Jones said wages, salaries and benefits make up about 60 per cent of a typical municipality's costs and that on average its employees make 35 per cent more than their counterparts taking on similar jobs in the private sector.
"As a taxpayer, you certainly have to be scratching your head over that one," she said. "I think someone's been asleep at the switch here."
In response, Rogers said cities face tough competition in attracting top-quality professionals, and added the city is looking at every opportunity to use the private sector to provide services, noting that a significant portion of snow removal is carried out by private contractors.
He also noted police and firefighters come at a cost, "and as we've seen even in recent incidents they're ready to put their lives on the line to protect the people of this community and I'm not going to begrudge them for making a reasonable wage because of that."
Between property taxes and fees for sewer, water and garbage collection, the average household is paying the municipality $101.13 or 5.2 per cent more in 2009 than it did last year.
Council has started some preliminary work on setting a budget for next year and Rogers said the challenges will remain much the same as they were in 2009 because of the struggling economy.
"We're starting to see some signs of recovery, but I don't think we'll see that tangibly (in terms of) growth and a significant increase in building construction for another year or so," he said. "So we will be facing some challenges at council to scrutinize every line item in every budget that comes before us, starting in the new year."
See Saturday's Citizen for how we compare to other cities in the province.
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 November 2009 )
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I am constantly waiting for the Mayor to break out in song.
His joyous "app---roved"_ "opp--osed"- CARRRR_IED! is performed with the same tunelike tone consistently.
He is on stage the duration of the council meeting.
Is it possible he is of the opinion his light hearted manner is impressive?
I would think many issues are of a serious nature, and his sing song manner of speaking is not in keeping with the matters at hand.
Watch-or possibly you will have to watch some past performances if he reads this.
Or maybe he just missed his calling as a "singer!"