Prince George city administration’s current proposed operating budget for 2025 would mean a 6.55 per cent property tax increase, according to a report tabled at a Wednesday, Dec. 4 meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance and Audit.
That would mean residents owning a representative household would pay around $178.49 more in property taxes next year. By comparison, council approved a 6.78 per cent increase in 2024.
The BC government defines the representative household in Prince George for 2024 as owning a home valued at $453,777. Each one per cent worth of tax increase was said to represent an approximate tax increase of $27.25 for a representative household.
This would represent a $9,096,428 increase in tax revenues from what was collected in 2024. Collected taxes represents about 80 per cent of Prince George’s annual revenues, with fees and charges for services making up about another 10 per cent.
Administration’s report also projects a $1.3 million increase in revenues from non-market changes – in other words, changes in the assessed value of properties.
However, director of finance Kris Dalio told the committee that he expects that figure to be closer to $1 million by the time BC Assessment provides the city with its final report.
The proposed operating budget includes approximately $6.7 million more in general operating expenses, approximately $1.4 million more for the general infrastructure reinvestment fund, $700,000 more for snow control funding and $300,000 more in road rehabilitation funding.
In the 2025 budget, staff propose the addition of the equivalent of 4.9 full-time positions to the city’s workforce to hire a new information and records co-ordinator in the legislative services department, more electricians to work on street lighting, dedicated IT staff at the RCMP building, people to maintain the Downtown District Energy System and the realignment of some staff in the sewer department.
The city is obligated to provide IT services to the RCMP building under its contract for policing services. If the city doesn’t provide those services, staff said at the meeting that the RCMP would hire their own at a much higher cost, an expense that would be passed on to the city.
One challenge with staffing for those positions is that the individuals are required to receive security clearance through a process that takes up to 18 months to complete.
Some one-time expenses proposed for the 2025 budget include the creation of a dedicated stormwater utility and the demolition of the training tower at Fire Hall No. 2.
In 2021, the proposed tax increase brought to the Finance and Audit committee was 3.16 per cent, but the final approved increase was zero per cent. 2022 saw an initial proposed increase of 7.58 per cent, which was eventually trimmed to 6.37 per cent.
The initial 7.22 per cent increase proposed in 2023 went up to 7.58 per cent when council approved the budget.
Last year, there was an increase from 6.24 per cent in the initial proposal to 6.78 in the final approved budget.
Overall, the city approved 18.32 per cent in property tax increases between 2021 and 2024. Administration’s report said that over the same time, the Consumer Price Index commonly used to measure inflation increased by 17.70 per cent.
