The City of Prince George will take a look at one way to reduce costs for snow removal in the City.
According to a staff report presented to City Council at last night’s (Monday) meeting, the City went $300,000 over budget for snow removal in 2024.
Director of Civic Operations Blake McIntosh said it’s important to recognize there are fixed costs associated with snow removal.
“Our staffing model, those staff are dedicated to snow for the five or six months that we’re there, so we account for those costs within the snow budget,” he said.
“All of our materials, salt, sand, liquid calcium that we use for anti-icing, that’s all attributed within the snow budget, everything we put down, we have to pick up, so that’s a fixed cost right there.”
The City keeps a reserve from the surplus of previous snow budgets to be used incase the City goes over budget on snow during the year. During budget meetings this year, City Council approved a snow budget of $10 million, a cut of $1 million of what was asked for by administration.
“It’s really just a matter of how much risk you’re willing to take on, I don’t have the amount of snow answer better than anyone else, I can’t tell you what 2025’s expenses are going to be,” said Director of Finance and IT Services Kris Dalio.
“We’ve gambled with the reserve before and we’ve lost. I believe it was 2020, we had I think almost $2 million in the reserve and we felt pretty safe, we dropped the budget to like $8.5 million. We ended up spending $10.5 million in 2020, wiped the whole reserve out and had to dip into the surplus.”
Councillor Cori Ramsay proposed reducing services on stat holidays, something that was previously suggested when potential cost savers came to the Council table in November.
“This is four days of the year where the estimated cost is $846,004,” she said.
“I think Mr. Dalio really said it quite aptly, it really depends on our appetite for risk, having a million-dollar reduction to the budget without reducing services, while seeing that we have already been over-budget for the previous year, it makes my heart beat a little bit faster.”
Ramsay put forward an amendment to the policy, extending timelines for snow removal by up to 24 hours should a major snow event occur on a stat holiday.
City Manager Walter Babicz said City Administration would need time to determine what wording changes would be specifically required in what parts of the policy. After that it would be returned to Council for final approval, and Administration would report on any other implication that may arise as a result of the change.
McIntosh added he would like to see a threshold where crews would go out to remove snow if enough snow fell.
“If we’re within a threshold, we would not work on a stat, but if we got a dump of 30 centimetres, if we don’t go, the town is shutting down, that’s what I worry about,” he said.
Ramsay’s motion was ultimately passed.
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