NS government claims progress toward balancing budget
Posted Dec 22, 2010 12:13:04 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Dexter government says it’s making progress toward living within its means.
But in the provincial budget forecast released on Wednesday, Finance Minister Graham Steele warns the province still faces serious long-term fiscal challenges.
The province is now forecasting a surplus for this year of $97.2 million. Steele says the surplus is a result of a number of one-time changes in revenue sources, tax revenue, pension valuation adjustments, delayed and reduced departmental spending, lower debt servicing costs and prior year adjustments.
“Although we are making genuine progress, Nova Scotia has not yet turned the corner when it comes to our deficit,” said Steele. “The immense fiscal challenge facing this province exists today, just as it existed yesterday and just as it will exist when we bring forward a new budget in spring 2011.”
The quarterly update shows a surplus because it does not include typical annual expenditures for university funding or funding for student bursaries. In 2009-10, the expense for universities was about $360 million.
Although no decision has been made for the amount next year, these expenses will recur next year and every year thereafter as the province transitions back to annual budgeting for these expenses.
Delays in planned projects also add to the expenses next year. The province still anticipates a significant deficit, about $370 million, as predicted in the four-year plan that accompanied the spring budget.
The government says this budget forecast update shows departmental spending stayed within the reduced levels set by the budget. Every department, with one exception, has forecast expenses on, or below, budget. The exception was Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, which is over, in part, because of storm damage in Meat Cove and southwestern Nova Scotia.
