Prince George City Council has wrapped up their first budget meeting of 2024.
The proposed budget comes with a tax increase of 6.24 per cent, which could change depending on cuts or enhancements made by City Council.
There are several proposed enhancements that could potentially bring the tax increase up to 8.23 per cent.
While nothing was decided during tonight’s (Monday) meeting, Council heard reports and presentations from staff and organizations who are in service agreements with the City.
City Manager Walter Babicz and Director of Finance and IT Services Kris Dalio started with a presentation giving an overview of the city’s tax levy and infrastructure.
“The geographic size of Prince George and our infrastructure was based on our city having more than 200,000 people by now, and until our city’s population grows, together with our tax base, we’re likely to continue to have challenges maintaining all of our infrastructure,” Babicz explained.
Babicz noted the average age of infrastructure in Prince George is about 46 years, the age of the Elksentre Arena.
“Our infrastructure’s old, and it has to serve a very large area,” Babicz said.
He later noted Prince George’s municipal taxes, per representative home, are among the lowest among peer communities. (Kamloops, Nanaimo, Victoria, etc.)
“What’s surprising is that we are on the higher end of these stats in order to maintain our infrastructure with our low population density,” Babicz said.
“The good news about this, from a competitive advantage standpoint, is that in comparison to some of these other cities, it’s still relatively affordable to purchase a home in Prince George, again, in comparison to some of these other cities.”
The City’s total tax levy is made up of four individual levies:
- General (operating) – provides the operating funding for all City service categories with the exceptions of Off-Street Parking, Snow, Solid Waste, Sewer, Water and District Energy.
- Snow Control (operating and capital) – funds the full scope of costs associated with providing the City’s snow control service.
- Road Rehabilitation (capital) – created in 2004, and funds the reinvestments needs of the City’s transportation network.
- General Infrastructure Reinvestment Fund (capital) – created in 2013 to start closing the gap between the reinvestment required and the funding available to maintain the City’s existing Civic Facilities.
City staff has proposed these increases for 2024:
2023’s snow removal budget is anticipated to be approximately $1.2 million over budget, despite a lack of snow to end the year.
“If you remember January, February, March were not very fun, there was a lot of snow in those three months,” Dalio said.
“I think a lot of the things that people don’t realize is that we have costs even if no snow falls at all, if we don’t have a single flake of snowfall, we’re still going to have costs. We employ people and we retain contractors from November 1st to March 31st.”
For the Road Rehabilitation Levy, it’s currently able to maintain approximately 50 lane kilometres per year.
The one per cent increase for the General Infrastructure Reinvestment Fund came from a council decision to amend the Sustainable Finance Policy, a decision Dalio called a smart and strategic one.
“Our reinvestment needs aren’t coming soon, we’re an old city, they’re here and they’re expensive,” Dalio said.
“If we don’t bolster this reserve, then when I start suggesting and proposing Capital Reinvestment Projects, I’m going to have to turn to debt more and more.”
Council also went through the 2024-2028 Capital Plan as well as budgets for several city departments and service categories.
Service Agreements:
Corporate Management:
- Office of the City Manager
- Mayor and Council
- Legislative Services
- Human Resources
- Communications
- Capital Program Management Office
Public Safety:
Council will resume budget meetings tomorrow afternoon (3:30), and will go over the budgets for Civic Operations, Civic Facilities and Events, Planning and Development, and Finance and IT Services.
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