Prince George city council voted to have staff develop a report on implementing a pilot project to eliminate or reduce snow control services on statutory holidays at its Wednesday, April 23 meeting.
Going over a report staff prepared on the subject, director of civic operations Blake McIntosh said budget savings could be realized by reducing snow control on statutory holidays, but it could cause issues with sidewalk accessibility, compacting snow and road conditions.
The report said if there is a snow event that falls on a stat holiday, it requires three shifts worth of staff to respond. Eliminating that could save up to $211,501 per holiday or $848,004 for all four winter stat holidays, though the report cautions that those savings are only realized if there is snowfall on those days.
Coun. Cori Ramsay, who asked for a report on the move earlier this year which prompted staff’s report, said she wanted to think more about the issue. She asked whether staff could prepare a report on the options for reducing snow control on holidays as a one-year pilot project to see what the cost savings could be.
Ramsay put forward a motion calling for staff to develop a revised snow and ice control policy with two options: no snow control on holidays and changing the threshold for responding to a snow event on holidays.
Coun. Tim Bennett asked how this would impact Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which are consecutive statutory holidays. McIntosh said there’s a chance eliminating snow control on holidays could severely impact transportation on those days if there is a snow event.
Following up, Bennett asked whether they could find a happy medium, like reducing hours on holidays or not having staff work overtime on those days.
McIntosh said overtime is paid out for every hour during a stat holiday, though there could be some savings in limiting the involvement of contractors and non-city equipment on those days.
Manager of roads and fleet Jordan Wiseman said that Cranbrook Hill and Foothills Boulevard can be particularly difficult for crews during snow events.
Ultimately, Bennett proposed an amendment to Ramsay’s motion to add a third option: prioritizing priority one and two routes and decreasing service for priority three routes on statutory holidays. It passed unanimously.
Ramsay’s motion was passed unanimously as amended.
Priority one routes are major arterial roads and adjacent sidewalks, priority two roads are collector roads and adjacent sidewalks and priority three roads are residential roads and adjacent sidewalks.
During an earlier discussion on the snow control budget, Coun. Trudy Klassen said she thought council needs to take a close look at the file because it represents $10 million in yearly spending.
Last year, the City of Prince George spent around $10.58 million on snow control after budgeting $10.3 million for those services. This year, council voted to reduce the snow control budget to $10 million.
She asked about a line in staff’s report on snow control expenses for November and December in 2024 about retroactive pay to staff and why it wasn’t foreseen.
The report said there was $296,000 in retroactive pay to staff in the last two months of 2024.
McIntosh said collective bargaining wasn’t finished until late in 2024 and retroactive pay wasn’t worked out until late November or early December.
As for whether the amount was predictable, he said it would be more a question for finance but director Kris Dalio was not present to answer questions on that front.
Ramsay, the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance and Audit chair, said the money was saved as a contingency in the budget and then allocated once it was agreed upon, though Dalio would have more information on the specifics.
Coun. Brian Skakun moved to have administration provide a more detailed breakdown of snow control costs in the last two months of 2024, including the $133,000 in standby costs, costs for three major snowfall events, external and internal equipment costs and labour costs.
He suggested that the balance between leasing and outright purchasing snow equipment might be a topic the finance committee might want to delve into.
Going into more specifics about overtime, McIntosh said that when the city declares a snow event, that requires five days of work with three shifts per day working 10 hours, which is two hours of overtime.
Skakun’s motion carried unanimously.
Coun. Kyle Sampson was not present at the meeting while Bennett connected remotely. The meeting was rescheduled from Monday, April 28 to avoid a conflict with the federal election taking place that day.
