| Posted: 5 minutes ago | Updated: 5 minutes ago | 3 Min Read
“We’re going to put a budget together and you will see all of those assumptions put into place and they will tell the tale of what we expect to happen in the year to come," MacMaster said. However, in its second 2022-23 budget update delivered in December, the government forecast a deficit of only $142.6 million for the fiscal year that ends on the last day of March, a $363.6-million improvement from the deficit estimated a year ago.
“We’re making spending decisions throughout the year,” MacMaster said Thursday. “When we came out with the forecast updates, it looked like it was all just spent at the time of the forecast but we’re making spending decision all the time.”The auditor general conceded that additional appropriations are necessary when a department determines it can’t stay within the original budget estimate but she reported that in the past 10 years, successive NDP, Liberal and PC governments have approved $4.
“They are money bills that go through the full process of any other bill — debate and voting on each and every dollar of overspending,” Adair said. “It’s been $2 billion in the last two years in Nova Scotia and it has not been transparent.”