Here's a look at how your City of Prince George taxes were used in 2024

The City of Prince George published its 2024 Statement of Financial Information at city council’s Monday, June 23 meeting, revealing information on how much employees and elected officials earned that year.

Each year, public bodies are required under provincial law to produce a statement showing how much each employee earned over a certain threshold and the total amount paid out to each supplier of goods or services over a specific amount within six months of the end of their fiscal year.

As the city’s fiscal year aligns with the calendar year, Prince George’s SOFI had to be issued by the end of June.

The Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, of which Prince George is a member, released its 2024 SOFI at its June 19 meeting.

Also presented at the June 23 meeting was Prince George’s 2024 Annual Report, which it must publish by the end of June each year under BC’s Community Charter.

It includes a list of the city’s objectives, audited annual financial statements, the amount of permissive tax exemptions grants, a report of municipal services and operations and progress report on them.

While some elements of the Annual Report and SOFI, including the amounts contained in each of the city’s financial reserves, have already been published, here are some new highlights from the report.

Council compensation

The SOFI lists all salaries, claimed expenses and benefits earned by Prince George Mayor Simon Yu and the eight city councillors. Mayor Yu also receives a $9,000 vehicle allowance the councillors do not.

Councillors earn a base salary of $42,677.50 while the mayor has a base salary of $140,677.50.

Here is how much each elected official earned in 2024, including salary, claimed expenses and benefits from most to least:

1. Mayor Simon Yu: $162,054.89
2. Coun. Trudy Klassen: $51,058.31
3. Coun. Ron Polillo: $49,541.65
4. Coun. Kyle Sampson: $49,119.79
5. Coun. Cori Ramsay: $48,611.35
6. Coun. Brian Skakun: $47,473.06
7. Coun. Tim Bennett: $47,339.71
8. Coun. Susan Scott: $46,479.47

Staff compensation

The city’s total cost for labour and benefits in 2024 was around $82.6 million.

Under provincial law, local governments must list all employees who receive more than $75,000 in a year.

Here are the top five earners for 2024 in terms of combined base pay, other compensation and claimed expenses:

1. City manager Walter Babicz: $308,777.89
2. Director of civic operations: $207,515.14
3. Director of civic facilities and events Andy Beesley: 207,248.44
4. Director of finance and IT services Kris Dalio: $200,069.84
5. Fire chief Cliff Warner: $199,553.84

The statement said that three staff groups working for the city received wage increases in 2024.

Staff working for the Canadian Union of Public Employees locals 399 and 1048 received a five per cent wage hike.

Staff under the International Association of Firefighters received a 4.5 per cent wage increase in 2024, however retroactive payments worth 3.5 per cent for 2022 and 4.5 for 2023 were also made in 2024.

So-called “exempt” staff received a five per cent wage increase.

Overtime payments went down from $1.9 million in 2023 to $1.7 million in 2024.

“Overtime in 2024 was largely a result of snow removal and utilities work,” the document said.

“Utilities overtime was mostly for after-hours emergency callouts related to water and sewer services. This category also includes any payouts of banked overtime, such as when employees leave the organization, which may include banked overtime hours from previous years.”

At the meeting, director of finance and IT services Kris Dalio said the $75,000 threshold has been in place for his entire career, which means that more and more city staff appear on the SOFI each year and creates more work in preparing the report.

Capital projects

The statement listed the following as the top 10 capital projects by amount spent in 2024:

1. Road rehabilitation: $6,679,809
2. Mobile equipment replacement: $3,731,932
3. Sanitary forcemain and lift station renewal: $3,507,521
4. Sanitary lagoon re-routing: $3,086,770
5. Kin Centre refrigeration upgrades: $2,808,259
6. Boundary Road reservoir: $2,410,177
7. Water distribution system renewal: $1,905,951
8. Stormwater system renewal: $1,733,244
9. Sidewalk and walkway renewal: $1,429,164
10. Water distribution system: $1,197,774

Suppliers

Under provincial law, local governments must list any supplier that they paid more than $25,000 in a year in their SOFI.

Suppliers who were paid more than $25,000 were transferred around a collective $214.33 million by the city in 2024. Suppliers under $25,000 were transferred around a collective $6.1 million, leading to a total of around $220.4 million for all suppliers.

There are too many suppliers to list, but here’s a list of every supplier that received more than $1 million from the City of Prince George in 2024 in order of most to least received:

1. Receiver General for Canada: $44,924,935.26
2. Ministry of Finance: $19,873,893.36
3. Regional District of Fraser-Fort George: $19,379,448.69
4. Fraser-Fort George Regional Hospital District: $15,533,734.17
5. Municipal Pension Plan: $10,075,017.80
6. Lafarge Canada Inc.: $8,630,914,72
7. BC Transit: $6,113,435.72
8. Twin Rivers Developments Ltd.: $4,863,608.82
9. BC Hydro: $4,474,802.58
10. IDL Projects: $4,146,570,69
11. Sun Life Financial: $3,490,058.46
12. Yeti Refrigeration Inc.: $2,821,174.77
13. Stewart McDannold Stuart (Trust Account): $2,769,594.08
14. Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia: $2,762,826.69
15. Aon Reed Stenhouse Inc.: $2,403,427.76
16. Suncor Energy Specialty Product Inc.: $2,166,632.30
17. Tourism Prince George Society: $1,880,672.76
18. Insituform Technologies Limited: $1,667,406.65
19. Compass Group Canada: $1,617,219.23
20. Workers’ Compensation Board of BC: $1,547,255.76
21. Greatario Industrial Storage Systems Ltd.: $1,536,513.11
22. Rollins Machinery Limited: $1,195,028.12
23. Brandt Tractor Ltd.: $1,174,187.54
24. Terus Construction Ltd.: $1,151,836,08

Grants

On top of suppliers, the city listed all organizations that received more than $25,000 in grants from it in 2024.

There were 12 organizations that received more than $25,000 in 2024, who received a collective $5,575,786.98.

They were, in order of most to least received:

1. Prince George Public Library: $4,350,082.98
2. Prince George Tourism Society: $327,000
3. University of Northern British Columbia: $310,000
4. Theatre North West Society: $132,422
5. Prince George Chamber of Commerce: $100,000
6. Prince George Symphony Orchestra Society: $72,969
7. Prince George Air Improvement: $65,000
8. The Exploration Place: $54,000
9. Community Arts Council of PG & District: $51,328.00
10. Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako: $50,000
11. PG Downtown Business Improvement Association: $37,985
12. Prince George Community Foundation: $25,000

Another 67 organizations received a collective $350,783.63 in grants worth $25,000 or less.

Motions

Coun. Brian Skakun proposed a motion calling on city directors to report their expenses to council and the public twice a year. It passed six to three, with councillors Polillo, Ramsay and Sampson voted against.

Coun. Kyle Sampson proposed a motion to bring the SOFI to a closed council meeting for discussion later this summer. It passed, with only Coun. Brian Skakun voting against.

Annual report

The city’s communications director, Claire Thwaites, started off the presentation by outlining some of the Prince George’s major capital projects, progress made towards its strategic objectives, and some statistics from municipal operations

Director of finance and IT services Kris Dalio went over the financial information in the report next, calling it one of the best ways for residents to know what the city did with their money each year.

After the report was discussed, residents were offered the chance to come to a microphone to comment on it as is required under BC’s Community Charter. No one used the opportunity.