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Creativity, will needed on city spending

You can't fault the guy for trying. At least Coun. Brian Skakun is actively trying to find ways to save money at the City of Prince George and he's willing to look at everything - even snow removal - to reduce the tax burden on local residents.
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You can't fault the guy for trying.

At least Coun. Brian Skakun is actively trying to find ways to save money at the City of Prince George and he's willing to look at everything - even snow removal - to reduce the tax burden on local residents. Stacking up the snow on the city's boulevards may not be the best idea (alright, let's be honest - it's dumb) but it begs the question of whether there are other better ideas out there to get the job done cheaper and more efficiently.

From there, one would hope that would start an ongoing discussion at city hall to constantly reevaluate all of the city's operations for time and money savings, rather than sticking with "that's the way we do it" and throw more money at the problem whenever something new comes up.

That being said, Skakun should know by now, in his sixth term as a city councillor, that striking out alone and trying to solve the city's problems by himself has never worked out for him before and it's not going to work out this time, either.

Nor is it his job.

He does have the authority, however, along with his colleagues on city council, to order the city manager to find savings, in any or all city operations, including snow removal. Leave it up to the well-compensated professionals on the city's senior management team to present options to reduce spending and for mayor and council to decide which option makes the most sense.

Speaking of options, were there options presented to city council by the management team on how to deal with the Employers Health Tax, yet the latest in a long and continuous downloading of costs from the provincial government onto municipalities? Instead of simply passing on that $1 million tab onto local residents through their property taxes, maybe Prince George needs to start uploading costs back up to the province.

Take the Employers Health Tax, for example. If Victoria has no problem dumping a $1 million expense onto the City of Prince George, then surely they won't mind if Prince George claws that money back by taxing provincial government operations here in Prince George. In other words, the city could raise property taxes on Northern Health, UNBC, CNC and School District 57.

And keep going from there.

Municipal politicians have been passing resolutions for the past 20 years at the Union of B.C. Municipalities annual convention demanding the provincial government restore public library funding to 21 per cent, the rate it paid way back in 1986. That number has dropped over the years and now sits at a paltry five per cent, with municipalities expected to pay the rest. The City of Prince George could either roll back their annual support to 80 per cent of their local library's budget and/or hit provincial government operations in Prince George with a tax or fee to make up the difference.

On one hand, this is simply moving money around between levels of government but on the other, this would be Prince George telling Victoria (and Ottawa, if necessary) that costs kicked down to the local level will be clawed back somehow, some way.

If the area MPs, MLAs and the local boards of those provincially-funded organizations don't like it, too bad.

Skakun and the rest of city council have all sorts of power at their disposal to take control of the city's finances, by demanding reduced spending by the bureaucrats they oversee and punting downloaded costs right back at Victoria or both.

It'd be nice to see more of that and less of them acting as if they have no choice but to pass the costs down to local property owners.

-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout