TIGHT BUDGET
Confirms it will be balanced
Brad Wall drops hints of a tight budget as ‘revenues are flat’ this year
REGINA — Expect the next provincial budget, which will be released next week, to be a tight one, Premier Brad Wall told the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) convention.
“Revenues are flat,” Wall told reporters Wednesday in Regina after he addressed the convention.
“If we’re going to balance the budget, that means we’ve got to make decisions around expenditures so those two match … Last year’s was tight. This year’s will be similar on that front, too.”
Wall said he didn’t bring that up in his speech to the convention to manage expectations, but simply to be honest.
He also reminded rural municipal leaders in attendance that, early in his time in office, the government moved to address concerns about education property taxes that were voiced most strongly from rural parts of the province due to disproportionate amounts paid for farmland.
Then the premier referred to the idea he floated at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention earlier this year — raising education property taxes to pay for infrastructure projects. He noted raising taxes would be a “last resort” in any budget.
Wall wouldn’t deny such a move will be included in the budget, but he acknowledged there was more opposition than support for the idea after he raised it at the SUMA convention.
“There was certainly, at best, mixed feedback from Saskatchewan people, some who don’t want us to increase any taxes at all, which by the way is our default position,” the premier said.
“We also have unprecedented growth demands right now in terms of infrastructure, so I think coming to SUMA and SARM and initiating a discussion about what forms of tax, if any, would be acceptable to use for those kinds of projects is the right place to do it.”
Wall confirmed that the 2014-15 budget will be balanced, but said acknowledging that isn’t the same as revealing whether the government will move forward on raising education property taxes to pay for infrastructure.
“It’s part of our DNA. It’s promises that we’ve made in terms of our government dating back a very long time, that we’d balance the budget,” the premier said.
Wall and members of the provincial cabinet also participated in a “bear pit” session at SARM. They fielded questions from delegates on topics including rural health care, amalgamations of RMs, crop movement, roads, water, pastures and other issues.