Brad Wall's Saskatchewan 'Fudget' Budget
Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party government will once again spend more than it takes in as revenue during the next fiscal year. In fact expenditures will exceed projected revenues by $622 Million. By dipping into the province's surplus left by the previous New Democratic government, Wall claims that he will have a $20 Million surplus at end of the 2010-11 fiscal year.
-An increase to tuition for the province's university students will not be very welcome.
-Downsizing the provincial civil service by 529 this year is also reason for concern. Wall's target is to eliminate 1800 civil service jobs in the next 4 years from a current compliment of 12,000 jobs.
-Literacy initiatives, Early learning and child care, funds for victims of crimes and a provincial Seniors supplement are all experiencing cuts.
-The promise of a 1% increase to municipalities has been broken and will likely result in property tax increases.
-Capital funding for schools and post-secondary institutions have also seen cuts.
-Programs for Aboriginal and Metis people, and northern development will also see cuts
-The province's co-pay for Chiropractic care has now ended except for a small number of persons on provincial assistance.
One area of government that DID see an increase in budget was .... The Office of Premier Brad Wall!
The biggest concern however, relates to changes in a number of accounting practices that the Wall government is using to try and improve the appearance of the financial mess they are making.
Just recently, the Saskatchewan Provincial Auditor wrote:
"Because the government uses inappropriate accounting policies, the GRF financial statements (for 2008-09) report net debt and annual surplus inaccurately. If the government had accounted for all transactions properly, the statements would have recorded net debt of $8.07 billion instead of $3.85 billion on March 31, 2009, and recorded a surplus of $1.62 billion instead of $2.39 billion for the year ended March 31, 2009."
Report of the Provincial Auditor on the 2008-09 Government Accounts
"Because the errors significantly impair the usefulness of these financial statements, we have qualified our auditor's report on the GRF (general revenue fund) financial statements published in Public accounts 2008-09 Volume 1. 'Qualified' audit reports are not normal and should cause concern for legislators and the public. Our audit report advises readers of the errors in the financial statement."
Report of the Provincial Auditor on the 2008-09 Government Accounts
CBC Budget Coverage
-My friend Scott, at Canadian Political Viewpoints, has more ....
I am so dissapointed in the cuts that have been made in this buget. I guess cutting the Saskatchewan programs that kept our residents here is the way to go when we can afford to bring in citizens from else where to take their places, grant you we do need experienced people to do the job but some of that money could be spent on educating our Canadian citizens and keep Canada Canadian...but it seems to be the going thing to see which province can bring in the most immigrants. How come we never see it posted or talked about how much of the tax payers money on incentives to bring, support and house the new Canadians? What things were cut for Politician due to what they get to spend..on things that are entertaining etc. and when is their raise comming for this year. Canada is a great place to live and soon those who pay taxes are not going to be albe to live beacuse there will be nothing left out of pay checks to live on unless you are a Politician.
Posted by
marilyn |
12:31 pm, March 25, 2012