UCP considers fixed dates for provincial budgets
Transparency-themed recommendation included in Mackinnon panel’s report
The provincial government is mulling over fixed budget dates for Alberta.
Finance Minister Travis Toews told Postmedia Wednesday no decisions have been made, but it’s something he was considering even before the Mackinnon panel recommended the move in its report.
“We’ve had a discussion on some of the realities around it, some of the benefits,” Toews said.
Lindsay Tedds, an economist at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, said fixed budget dates are vital for funding partners such as school boards, municipalities and non-profits to set their own fiscal plans.
“They’re all having to set their budgets for approval at the beginning of the fiscal year, and if they don’t even know what the government budget is ... you’re putting these organizations into a very precarious situation,” Tedds said.
That has already been the case in Alberta where some school boards have made cuts due to budgetary uncertainty.
A fixed budget date is one of several transparency-themed recommendations repeated throughout the panel’s final report, unveiled Tuesday.
The group, headed by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice Mackinnon, was tasked by the new UCP government to find ways to balance the provincial budget by 2022-23 without raising taxes, taking into account only the spending side of the budget equation.
It found greater levels of government transparency are key in keeping Alberta’s spending in check.
The Mackinnon panel urged the government to take additional steps to improve the quality of financial reporting, and Toews said he’s listening.
“Let’s face it — transparency is critically important as it relates to government, so in principle we would agree with those recommendations,” he said.