Prince George Mayor and Council opted to push the final vote on this year’s property tax levy to Wednesday.
In budget deliberations spanning close to seven hours, Council chose to receive each agenda item for information first, before making a decision.
A report from city staff asks council to consider a two percent increase, with the largest portion of that coming from a $1.5 million boost to the snow-clearing budget.
That budget, currently sitting at $8.5 million annually, would be increased up to $10 million.
The road rehabilitation budget would also see a potential increase of $150,000, and the general budget would go up by $486,442 to meet inflation and other expenditures.
The General Infrastructure Reinvestment Fund would go up by $125,000.
The suggested increase of two percent would work out to roughly an additional $2.3 million.
Previously, the city was the recipient of $6.11 million as part of the safe restart grant from the provincial and federal governments.
Much of the discussion focussed on whether to spend that money completely to eliminate an increase altogether, or to safe part of it for a rainy day.
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Currently, the report to the city suggests spending about $796,000 of that funding, though that could change on Wednesday.
The concern with spending it all in one go, explained Councillor Garth Frizzell during the meeting, is that they don’t know what the future holds — especially with COVID-19.
“We have to balance what we want with what the costs are,” said Frizzell during the meeting.
It was also mentioned that cities who opt for increases of zero percent are often faced with spikes in tax rates over the course of several years, instead of incremental increases.
Budget deliberations will be picked up again on Wednesday at 3:30.
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