The Government of Saskatchewan is trying to get back to a balanced budget, and the 2018-19 is a step along that path says Yorkton MLA Greg Ottenbreit. This year’s budget is significantly more subtle than the one that came down last year, with fewer controversial cuts and tax increases.
Ottenbreit anticipates that this year will have a deficit of around $342,000,000, but that there will be a modest surplus in 2019 and more significant surpluses in the following years.
“We did this with no sales, property or income tax increases, though we did have a shift on some of our taxes, mainly the PST when it comes to used cars.”
They do not want to increase taxes if at all possible, something Ottenbreit credits as creating a positive business environment. It’s the same philosophy that is driving their fight with the Government of Canada over carbon tax.
“It will increase the cost of living, but it hasn’t shown a reduction of greenhouse gasses anywhere it has been implemented,” said Ottenbreit.
Their greenhouse gas plan is different, with a fund to encourage technology development.
The government, dealing with a soft resource sector, has been working to find alternate forms of revenue, and Ottenbreit says trying to “find efficiencies” has been a top-down endeavor. He notes that winding down executive air and reducing the size of the government-owned vehicle fleet have been examples of how they’re cutting back.
“That’s why we’ve been looking for efficiencies in government for a number of years, whether it’s reduction of our own executive staff, legislative staff, reduction of people throughout government. We’ve continually tried to keep government efficient in that way, but also saving in a number of different areas.”
In health, two of the big pieces involve wrapping up existing projects, the Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon or Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford. There will also be a hearing loss screening program for infants, as well as increased funding for autism.
One of the big headlines in the Yorkton area will center around highways. They will be adding passing lanes between Canora and Melville, which are currently in the planning phase. The plan is to also improve the turning lanes north of the city, where heavy truck traffic is turning onto Grain Millers Road, for example, said Ottenbreit.
The other big headline in Yorkton is the City of Yorkton’s objection to the government’s handling of the grants in lieu program, which represented a large portion of the city’s budget. While the city was hit hard last year, Ottenbreit says they kept the funding level for the city the same as last year in this budget as they change how funding works in general. Ottenbreit believes their new funding formula is simpler and easier to understand, and will benefit the city if it grows, as the new funding formula will be based on a utility surcharge as well as a grant in lieu of property taxes on government facilities.
“We are moving to a new, more explainable, fair and equitable formula that makes sense across the province. What we saw was a program that, once we started looking at it, was really ad hoc. It was really hit and miss and when you looked at comparable towns, it wasn’t really fair and equitable.”
While it might be a small hit for the city in the short term, Ottenbreit believes the funding shift is also an incentive to improve the economy.
“It gives the cities some incentive to be more open to growth and more accommodating to businesses coming in... They have the potential to do very well with this new program, where previously there would not have been a whole lot of change [to funding].”
While not a calculated effort to have a less controversial budget this year, Ottenbreit said that it’s all part of their overall plan for the province.
“A lot of the more difficult decisions we had to make, we made them last year. Premier Brad Wall put a pretty good three year plan in place, Premier Scott Moe now is taking that plan, altered it to his philosophy and his mindset, and we’re continuing on with that plan.”
