Prince Rupert city council adopted its 2024 Financial Statements at a special regular meeting on May 8.
Corrinne Bomben, the city's chief financial officer presented highlights from the auditor's annual report.
These included a significant reduction in the city's financial assets, which Bomben explained was primarily due to the transfer of Watson Island from financial assets to tangible capital assets, which will now generate revenue for the city.
"The change to the city's financial assets also reflects the use of debt and cash held in reserves to invest in the revitalization of the city, as is reflected in the increase in the city's capital assets," she said. "These activities support council's Strategic Plan objectives of community renewal."
Bomben also highlighted a budget variance to reflect a $2.2 million surplus in 2024.
"Most of the surplus has been generated through the high interest rate environment that we are in, coupled with a warmer winter affecting roads, limited staff available for deployment in parks, and increased use of recreation facilities than budgeted," she explained.
Council voted unanimously to adopt the audited financial statements.
Having done so, Mayor Herb Pond urged the public to review the statements.
He summarized where the bulk of the $51 million operating revenue came from, highlighting $31.5 million from taxes, $14.3 million from the sale of services (i.e., water and sewer), and $1.1 million from recreation fees.
He also noted what the bulk of the expenses go toward including $14.7 million to protective services (police, fire) and $13 million to water, sewer and solid waste.
"I appreciate that financial statements can be confusing," Pond said. "There's many pages to this, but I really do encourage people to have a quick look and see where their hard-earned tax dollars go."
While the financial statements were the only agenda item for the special meeting, the mayor opened the floor to other business.
Coun. Barry Cunningham brought up the controversial roundabout project.
"There seems to be a lot of confusion that the city is doing it, and it's coming from our tax base," Cunningham said.
"In reality, it's a provincial project that is on a provincial highway, and we are benefiting from the fact that they're going to be doing some of our infrastructure work that we would have had to pay for. So we're quite happy with that, but at the end of the day, it's not us doing it, it's the provincial government."
