The projected deficit for the current fiscal year in Manitoba has ballooned by half a billion dollars, says a mid-year report from Finance Minister Adrien Sala.The projected deficit for the current fiscal year in Manitoba has ballooned by half a billion dollars, a mid-year report from Finance Minister Adrien Sala said Monday.
The biggest driver of the increased deficit is rising health-care costs, according to the report. Sala's report blames that on "longstanding failures to deliver services within funding or anticipate financial pressures," and suggested health regions are not keeping tabs on spending. But the Tories loosened the purse strings in their last two years in office before losing the 2023 election. The extra spending, combined with a drought-induced revenue shortfall at Manitoba Hydro and a one-time, half-billion-dollar legal settlement over child welfare payments, created a large deficit for the NDP to inherit.Gas tax holiday, pay raises strain budget
The government's path to balancing the books relies on keeping annual spending growth below 2.5 per cent. Some of the collective agreements with large unions, such as nurses and civil servants, contain wage increases higher than that. "There's always more work to do and continue to improve, but what we know is that this is a massive improvement over what we were left and it shows that steady progress towards our balanced budget goal in that final mandate year," said Sala, who recommitted to balancing the budget by 2027."They're saying on one hand they're making progress on shrinking the deficit but at the same time it's increasing by over 500 million.