More than one million dollars in efficiencies were found by the City's Continuous Improvement team

By Tommy Osborne

Budget Savings

More than $1 million found in efficiencies by City of Prince George

Jan 15, 2025 | 4:41 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The City of Prince George’s Continuous Improvement program reported more than $1 million in efficiences were implemented in 2024.

A screenshot of the City’s presentation, detailing some ways it saved money

Another screenshot of the same presentation

Finding these efficiencies allows the City to provide the same level of servicing within a budget, as opposed to increasing the budget, so while it’s not exactly money saved, Gupta explains it has a similar impact as it keeps taxes from raising.

“Had we not done that CI (continuous improvement), to be able to do the same work (that we did last year), we would have had to increase our budget by 80% to be able to do the same work. So looking for efficiencies basically allows us to extend the tax dollar to its maximum extent,” said the City’s manager of Continuous Improvement and Innovation Anurag Gupta, when discussing the 80% efficiency found in liphooks.

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While money saved and keeping taxes down is an obvious motivation for continuing to push ahead with continuous improvement, Gupta adds it’s also an important way for the City to meet the demands of a growing city in a budget friendly way.

“We have increasing demand with the population growing, we have younger people moving into the city. The city is turning in to a centre of attention for a vibrant and a thriving community. At the same time, we have aging infrastructure. To be able to face those challenges, we’re implementing programs like CI to be able to extend those tax dollars to its maximum extent,” Gupta said.

Looking ahead, Gupta says he’s excited to continue finding ways to improve the City’s efficiency and find more cost savings, and hopes to build a culture at the City of Prince George where continuous improvement is, as the name suggests, a continually ongoing process.

There is always room to grow in every operation. Our vision so far is that it is an employee driven culture where we lead and implement efficiency ideas driven by employees,” he said.

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