There may be contention over the methods, but the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) stands by its report that Prince George city hall is overspending.
Prince George municipal leaders were asked for their input on this issue and The Citizen was assured that comments were pending.
The report's co-author Laura Jones, Vice President-Western Canada for the CFIB responded to Mayor Dan Rogers's suggestion to The Citizen that a reason Prince George showed a poor spending result in the organization's study, particularly for 2008, was the costs associated with the ice jam.
"That could be," said Jones. "But it wasn't like you were looking like a star before then, even if you take out 2008. There are sometimes logical reasons for jumps in spending, but every year?
"And your per capita spending is a bit on the high side - $1,521 per person. Not only has the growth in Prince George municipal spending gone very high, but the per capita spending is also high. We don't want to be Greece (a total economic collapse), but we are on the road to Greece and it is time for taxpayers to wake up."
Jones suggested ways to cut back that spending without upsetting the balance of the local economy - namely, freeze certain municipal wages.
"We keep ignoring the elephant in the living room and that is the drastic imbalance on the wage side and that has to be addressed," said Jones.
She said that CFIB research pins the gap of 35 per cent, on average, between the amounts being paid in the private sector with the amounts being paid similar positions in municipalities.
"Yes, wages are set in contract and this report raises questions about the amounts being promised. These are way out of whack with the private sector and if that is true of the past contracts then what does it suggest for future ones?"
She stressed that firefighters and policing are big line items for any city, and it is hard to compare those professions to anything in the private realm, but clerks and janitors and labourers can be directly cross-referenced, and that is where the disconnect is.
"I think it would be very fair and reasonable to freeze wage increases until they are within five per cent of their private sector counterparts," she said.
"That doesn't cut anyone's wages, it isn't draconian, it doesn't put anyone out of work, it doesn't even claw back what has already been negotiated, but it restores some reasonability."
And although layoffs may seem reasonable in the business sector, Jones said large cuts to a workforce can destabilize a local economy, which is not good for local business or, ultimately, the local taxpayer.
She also stressed the need for Prince George's fiscal architects to go to the "zero-base budgeting" system. This doesn't disallow an emergency fund or rolling projections, but it insists on building the immediate budget only on the immediate availability of money.
The CFIB's report ranks cities on their spending fluctuations year to year compared against that city's population fluctuations, plus the rate of inflation.
Jones said Prince George's spending is four times higher in 2008 than it was in 2000, yet the population did not go up by the same rate and wages did not increase that much either.
In response to the mayor and Chamber of Commerce president's scepticism over the CFIB's methodology, Jones said it was too bad municipalities did not provide data any newer than two years old. She admitted the CFIB's methodology might not be an absolute barometer for a city's finances, but it is an effective warning flag that, if raised, should open a robust analysis of many other benchmarks.
"Don't just dismiss our report. Challenge it," she said. "Let's see some core reviews in your municipal budget and comparisons to our numbers and talk about it publicly."
