Get ready for publicsector warfare over budget cuts
The UCP’S first budget could not be more direct, determined and defiant.
Premier Jason Kenney and crew really kept those promises about cost-cutting, and not just in a general, aspirational way, but very specifically.
In the budget speech Thursday, Finance Minister Travis Toews pointedly noted that all public service contracts expire by next year, and there are no provisions for any wage increases in this four-year plan.
Portions of the budget outline the need to reduce overall pay for nurses, doctors and many others who work in the public sectors.
For doctors, the government says, it will be necessary to change the schedule of medical benefit, and “reduce the rate of growth of the supply of physicians.”
Why? Because fewer doctors means less cost.
There is going to be public sector war over a budget the unions and associations will hate, but a great many Albertans who voted for Kenney are bound to support.
Page 190 of the Fiscal Plan, which lists full-time job totals in the various departments, will be read with dread by civil servants for weeks to come.
The overall job count in all government departments will drop by 824 in this budget year, from 27,840 to 27,016. Including government agencies, the net job loss is 764 full-time positions.
Community and social services, for instance, will lose 223 employees, which seems odd since the same department is actually getting a 7.6 per cent funding increase.
The clue may lie in this sentence: “A full program review will determine what activities provide value while clearing tasks that distract from client service.”
That’s a signal of the unprecedented restructuring planned for nearly every department.
Justice and solicitor general will lose 198 employees. Environment and parks drops 110. In post-secondary institutions — the biggest single target of
UCP restraint — 300 jobs will disappear.
And the derided Alberta Energy Regulator, slapped by scandal, loses the astonishing total of 270 employees from a complement of 1,240 — a 21.7 per cent drop in the workforce.
Some agencies gain jobs. In education, school boards are expected to bring on nearly 700 new certified and non-certified staff.
But overall, the budget calls for a total full-time staff reduction of 7.7 per cent by 2023. Kenney says most of the departures will be through retirement, although there will be layoffs.
That’s the general tone — control and cut, because Alberta faces a “fiscal crisis” as annual interest payments on debt top $2 billion.
Yet this is also a big budget with a couple of soft spots.
Many people will be relieved, for instance, by the spending increases for departments serving the most vulnerable — children’s services and community and social services.
The government also holds the line on spending for health and education, with some modest increases.
Health gets an extra $200 million, mostly for mental health and addictions, and to deal with opioid response. There’s also $6 million for a new sexual-assault hotline.
But you see how the UCP has moved the dial. It’s now a big win in government simply not to be cut. It’s an even bigger win to keep your job.
Overall, there will be no more money to offset inflation in any department over four years. System-wide operating funding will drop 2.8 per cent.
That puts the whole system at least 10 per cent behind, even without cuts like the whopper inflicted on advanced education — a five per cent reduction this year, heading for a total drop of 12 per cent by 2023.
The 2.8 per cent target sounds fairly tame ( just “three cents on the dollar,” says Kenney) but it’s actually a very serious cut, unlike anything in the past 25 years.
Despite all that, the deficit will still be $8.7 billion in 2019-20. The government blames the NDP for the oil-by-rail deal it felt compelled to buy out for $1.5 billion, claiming the arrangement put taxpayers at risk for much more cost.
This budget is so transformational, so important to Alberta’s future, that I believe Albertans at large need to join the suffering classes and read the thing.
All the documents are on the Alberta Finance website. Have a nice weekend.
It’s now a big win in government simply not to be cut. It’s an even bigger win to keep your job.