|
|
|
Taxing times |
|
|
Written by Mark Nielsen
Citizen staff
|
|
Friday, 06 November 2009 |
Council pans report; vows to watch spending
City councillors generally gave short-shrift to a Canadian Federation of Independent Business report that ranks Prince George among the biggest spenders for its rate of population growth, but are also vowing to keep a tight reign on spending as they start to consider next year's budget.
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 a population of more than 25,000 residents.
That ratio, which the CFIB calls the fiscal responsibility gap, is the highest among the province's 28 municipalities with more than 25,000 people, although it's an improvement over the 3.6 it had registered for 2006.
Between 2000 and 2007, the city's population plus inflation rose by 12 per cent, the lowest among the 28 municipalities, and spending climbed 34.7 per cent, the fourth lowest, but when one is divided into the other, the ratio turned out to be the highest.
A common complaint from council members was that the study failed to account for the challenges the city faces as a northern community, notably the cost of snow removal in the winter and road repair in the spring and summer due to frost heaves.
"We've been challenged with some extraordinary costs, maybe we've chosen to maintain services at a level that other communities are not choosing to, but we need to be very focused on making sure extraneous costs don't get in there," said Coun. Don Bassermann, who noted council already turned down a request from the David Douglas Botanical Garden Society for $30,000 pay for a bridge at the garden plus $10,000 a year for operation costs.
Coun. Cameron Stolz, who sits on the finance and audit committee, said the city is running into major expenses because the many city roads and water and sewer services that were put in place over the last few decades and are now in need of replacement.
"Right now, we've got an infrastructure deficit of over $120 million," he said. "Roads alone, we're short of $30 million of infrastructure money."
Stolz said the committee was originally looking at a 5.3-per-cent increase in next year's tax levy, but after identifying about $1million in spending cuts, it's been reduced to four per cent, all of which will go towards increased salaries and wages for police and fire fighting.
The cost of policing, which stood at roughly $18.9 million this year, will rise by about $1 million and fire fighting will get an extra $1.3 million, much of it to cover retroactive increases after an agreement to increase pay by 14.5 per cent over four years beginning in 2007.
Stolz said another round of negotiations with fire fighters are due to start next year and council will have to consider building up a reserve fund in preparation for further increases.
Perhaps one of council's most outspoken critics of city spending, Coun. Dave Wilbur called the idea of limiting spending hikes to percentage increases in population growth and inflation too simplistic.
"If you're in lockstep with a statistical analysis, you're going to be trapped forever in, at very best, standing still," he said.
But he also said the city is spending beyond its means and wants to see an independent assessment of how effectively its deploying its administrative resources.
"I think there is still a need to look for efficiencies in that area," he said.
Coun. Murry Krause, who chairs the finance and audit committee, said the committee intends to give staff clear direction on the route they should take in terms of budget preparation.
"Certainly, we're going to try and keep our increases to an affordable level, we're conscious that these are difficult times and that will be our goal," he said.
Coun. Brian Skakun said he's concerned about the level of spending the city's reached in compared to Prince George's population growth, which he attributed largely to urban sprawl.
"Geographically we are bigger than Kelowna and Nanaimo but have a smaller population," he said. "It is costing us more to provide services to a larger geographical area.
"To combat this, we have reworked our development cost charges to ensure it costs more to develop on the edge of the community and progressively less as you get towards the downtown. "We have contractual obligations to our labour force and that is not going to change so we have to look at efficiencies in other areas."
Hiring a new communication's manager for more than $100,000 a year, makes little sense, Skakun added, "but on the other side of the ledger, we are in the process of looking at not replacing employees through attrition to reduce costs."
Coun. Debora Munoz said the upcoming budget process will be challenging, but noted council is developing a long-term debt-reduction strategy and also noted the $1-million cut in spending so far.
Coun. Shari Green said she knows staff is looking to cut costs.
"It's definitely something that I want to see, that there's a dramatic effort to reduce costs anywhere and everywhere," she said.
Coun. Garth Frizzell could not be reached for comment Friday.
See how your town faired in the report on page 3.
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
 |
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 06 November 2009 )
|
|
|
Who's Online
We have 160 guests and 17 members online
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
