On Friday, June 6, the City of Prince George released its 2024 annual report.
The report outlines its financial statements, major events and accomplishments, infrastructure and provides usage statistics for city facilities and utilities.
While the Citizen has already reported on many of the elements highlighted in this report, here’s a rundown of some of the highlights from the report.
Prince George city council will consider this report at its Monday, June 23 meeting.
Garbage collection
The report said that the city collected around 16.1 million kilograms of garbage in 2024, representing an average of 602 kg per household.
This is down from the 611.22 kg average per household from 2023 and the fourth year in a row that the average has gone down. In 2024, the city collected garbage from 26,667 properties.
However, a graph in the report also shows that the total weight of collected garbage increased from 2023 to 2024.
Water consumption
Prince George used 10.7 billion litres of water in 2024, with a per capita average daily water consumption of 403 litres. That’s down from the 11.3 billion litres of water consumed and the 425-litre average daily per capita consumption reported in 2023.
Transit
Transit ridership in 2024 was pegged at 1.9 million trips, up from 1.7 million in 2023. That’s the most trips taken since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when around 2.3 million trips were recorded in 2019.
The city’s bus fleet was said to travel an average of 5,963 kilometres a day in 2024, up from the average 5,896 km recorded in 2023.
Municipal facilities and venues
The city registered 438,968 visits to both the Aquatic Centre and the Canfor Leisure Pool in 2024.
The report does not list the exact number of visits to the pools from previous year, but a graph indicates a slight increase from 2023.
For residents with limited incomes, the city offers discounted access to both its pools through the Leisure Access Program.
In 2024, 2,567 residents accessed the LAP and those members visited the pools 20,877 times. That’s a slight increase from the 2,334 LAP memberships recorded in 2023 and a bigger increase from the 16,173 times members visited pools that year.
The report said that the CN Centre, other community arenas and sites at Exhibition Park were used for around 37,500 hours by 80 organizations and 1.6 million visitors in 2024.
In 2023, those sites were used for around 35,000 by 75 organizations and 1.5 million people.
The city’s parks, sports fields, outdoor facilities and school gyms were booked more that 800 times for more than 300 different user groups in 2024. The report estimates that around 20 per cent of the city’s population participated in programs offered by rental agreements with user groups.
Prince George Public Library
Though the city doesn’t directly run the Prince George Public Library, the report offers some statistics from that organization.
As of 2024, the library had 62,726 card holders, up from 60,228 in 2023.
That year, the library had 191,196 total visits, loaned out 707,287 items, had 364,730 website visits, held 1,443 public events that more than 43,000 people attended and added 18,573 physical volumes to its shelves.
All of those figures are increases from 2023, except for the number of additions of physical volumes.
Tourism Prince George
Similar to the library, the City of Prince George does not directly run Tourism Prince George but some key statistics from the organization are provided.
In 2024, the city saw around $65.4 million in hotel room revenue.
Tourism Prince George engaged 7,918 visitors, had around 1.27 million social media views, had 98,000 website visits, distributed 13,147 guides and maps and supported 37 events.
Road and sidewalk work
The city reported that it rehabilitated almost 60 lane kilometres of roads and more than 5.5 kilometres of sidewalks in 2024, as well as installed 845 metres of sidewalk.
Building permits
Prince George issued 417 building permits worth $267,129,465 in 2024.
While that’s the second-lowest total in the last five years, it is the highest dollar value in that same time frame.
Capital projects
Prince George spent $50,256,128 on 100 capital projects in 2024.
Of that total, $784,928 was spent on disposing of old assets, $14,278,110 was spent on new assets, $32,715,396 was spent on renewing or replacing old assets and $2,477,694 was spent on upgrade existing assets.
Reserves
At the end of 2024, Prince George had $178,329,548 in its various financial reserves, almost $10 million more than the $168,976,846 it had at the end of 2023.
Here is the amount remaining in each of those reserves in order of most to fewest funds:
- Lease-in lease-out legacy fund: $35,441,170
- Sewer utility: $24,777,042
- Water utility: $22,298,099
- Endowment: $16,378,411
- BC Growing Communities Fund: $13,169,339
- Downtown off-street parking: $10,336,406
- Canada Community-Building Fund: $9,925,046
- Capital expenditure: $7,575,498
- General infrastructure reinvestment: $6,169,402
- Solid waste services: $4,458,494
- Mobile equipment replacement: $4,347,504
- Northern capital and planning grant: $4,018,885
- Road rehabilitation: $3,359,372
- Debt reduction: $3,323,409
- COVID-19 safe restart grant: $3,288,709
- Climate action: $2,498,394
- Snow control: $2,102,012
- Transit operating: $1,531,009
- Major events: $938,260
- Downtown district energy: $799,576
- Miscellaneous: $452,243
- Communtiy fibre optic network: $304,759
- Extension Ospika/Marleau/St. Lawrence: $262,547
- Performing arts centre: $99,455
- EVP Crown land forest: $67,371
- Storm drainage: $9,560
Debts
At the end of 2024, Prince George had outstanding debt principal worth $100.5 million, down from $104.4 million at the end of 2023.
