City Council seeks information on potential cost savers for snow removal

It’s a little over a week before the official start of Summer, but Prince George City Council is already looking towards the winter.

At last night’s (Wednesday) meeting, Director of Civic Operations Blake McIntosh gave a brief overview of the city’s current policy on snow and ice control, which was last updated in 2019.

“The weather is variable and it’s hard to predict,” said McIntosh.

“As we all know, we’ve received large accumulations of snow and then we’ve had durations where it’s just basically ice control.”

A lengthy discussion on the policy ensued.

“The intent of having this come back to staff was to really look at some options around where we might be able to tweak, especially I think looking at perhaps some of the minimum metrics, of snow accumulation,” said Councillor Tim Bennett.

“What would the financial impacts potentially be if we increased that from seven-and-a-half to nine centimetres? Or what other options could be available around snow accumulation in order to help offset some of the costs we face with our snow removal budget.”

Bennett added one thing that could break the city’s snow removal budget was how much it snows between December 24th and 26th.

“I think there’s an interest in the community to maintain service levels, and I think in order to do that, we need to look at where cost-savings can occur to try to keep our service level in-and-around the $10 million budget,” he continued.

“In order to do that, we’re going to then have to look at where service levels can be adjusted.”

“I’m not saying that necessarily I want to go there, but what I would like to see, is if we were considering not to clear driveways, what sort of savings could we incur?” inquired Councillor Ron Polillo.

For 2024, the snow removal budget was set at $10.3 million, $5.9 million of which has already been used.

Council voted to have staff return reports outlining budget implications if the city were to cease clearing driveways, as well as increasing snow clearing service minimum metrics by 2.5 cm and reducing clearing on statutory holidays.