City of Prince Rupert's May Variance report continues to tell story of reduced revenues

City of Prince Rupert CFO
Corinne Bomben relayed the
May financial variance report Monday

The numbers tell the story of COVID so far when it comes to an impact on some of the key revenue streams for the City of Prince Rupert, with the City's Chief Financial Officer Corinne Bomben providing the financial snapshot as of May at this months only public Council session.

Her report for Council became a two part affair on the night, the first an official relay of the details of the May variance report, where she advised Council that revenues and expenses continue to perform as expected given the  COVID pandemic and transition to essential services provisions, noting that the results of May were much the same as that for April.

She further explained that the coming months will prove whether the savings some departments have been able to achieve will cover some of the revenue losses experienced prior to the resumption of those department services.

The May Financial Variance Report
(click to enlarge)

The full May Variance report can be reviewed from Monday's Council Agenda beginning on page

A more expansive look at some of the revenue generating elements came towards the end of the night, when Councillor Nick Adey used the Questions from Council portion of the night to seek out a wider overview of the financial impact of COVID.

"In the opening statement on your report it talked about the fact that we had lost revenues to some of our revenue generators such as the airport ferry, marina, recreation, transit and so on. I guess my question is where are some of those revenue generators at in the context of slowly moving towards reopening. So, I guess what I'm asking is what is the levels of activity at the moment in some of those areas" -- Councillor Nick Adey on the May variance report 

Towards a reply, Ms. Bomben observed that she could only offer up anecdotal background at the moment with only data until May available,  she did however providing a general overview of the situation to the moment.

"Well, I can only speak anecdotally at the moment, because I don't have the variances for June just yet, cause we're still only part way through July. So I think anecdotally, the Cow Bay Marina hasn't really seen a return of any real itinerant traffic, the Recreation Centre has opened up some kids camps that they are permitted to do. 

The Airport Ferry, at the airport started flights at the end of June, so they're just starting and there's only one flight a day, so we're going to be down by about half at least. 

The volume of passengers I understand has actually, steadily increased on the flights, but we're still only gonna to be, if we max out on one flight, we're still only gonna be about half of what it was before.

Transit as I understand, it's come back fairly well, anyway there's still people that aren't travelling that much, so it's not as good as it was before, as I understand it, but it's still doing OK" -- City of Prince Rupert Chief Financial Officer Corinne Bomben, with some anecdotal observations on revenue streams impacted by the COVID pandemic

The data provided in the May variance report notes that to date the Airport Ferry revenues are $317,708, The Cow Bay Marina $41,784, Recreation $255,232 and Transit $85,871, all are down significantly from the expectations for the year.

City Council has not as of yet indicated when such services as the Recreation Centre and Earl Mah Aquatic Centre may be reopened and once again generating wider revenue for the community.
As part of her Monday night review, the CFO also updated Council on the work on roads to date, as well as to note that Capital projects are beginning to move forward, outlining how the Water Dam project is now at 15 percent complete as well as to note that an RFP has been issued for the expansion of the Landfill site.  

Ms. Bomben also reminded council that the two Alternate Approval processes seeking the approval of the public for the Dam and Landfill projects will be coming to an end this week.

For more notes related to the City's Financial themes see our archive page here.

The conversation on the Financials can be reviewed from the City's Video archive, first at the 21 minute mark and then later in the evening at the one hour two minute mark.





Further background on Monday's City Council session can be found from our Council Timeline feature.

Our review of past Council Discussion themes can be explored here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.