City councillors and senior administrative staff gathered Wednesday at the Civic Centre to discuss how your tax dollars will be spent next year.
The city hosted a town hall meeting focused on the municipal budget and city managers were in the hot seat explaining how their budgets will be distributed once next year's budget is approved in late January.
Topics broached included infrastructure over-investment during the city's boom years and how that's led to aging infrastructure in need of replacement; police and fire protective services as the biggest operational budget drain; dedicated bike lanes on city streets; snow removal policies: and the city's role in attracting sports and entertainment events.
The informal public open house started at 3:30 p.m., and that led to a 2 1/2-hour question-and-answer session that was livestreamed on YouTube. The YouTube webcast is available here.
Empty chairs outnumbered occupied seats by a 10:1 ratio as only about 35 people attended the evening discussion.
Participants also had the opportunity to present their questions remotely.
Any questions received through the Slido portal not answered or not addressed by city staff and will be posted on the city's website on the Get Involved page.
Results of today’s community engagement session will be tabulated and presented to city council’s finance and audit committee on Dec. 4.
Council will discuss the budget at meetings to be held Jan. 20 and Jan. 22, 2025.
Prince George residents are also invited to participate in the city’s online budget survey to help senior staff and council identify what people consider their spending priorities.
Taxpayers can enter their property tax assessment into the survey platform to see how their tax dollars are spent on such items as roads, transportation and city facilities. The online form allows users to adjust funding allocations to understand how changes to service levels affect their tax bill.
The survey is available here.
Friday Nov. 8 is the deadline for survey submissions.
