It hasn't been a very good week for St. Albert taxpayers.
Fresh off a 'no frills, no-fat' budget, council learned Monday the city will net a $1.3-million surplus for the previous year. But before anyone could contemplate over-taxation at the local level, those numbers were dwarfed by Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton's fiscal bombshell, the $38.7 billion spending jamboree that is the 2010/11 budget.
The provincial budget, Morton's first since the 'fiscal hawk' was given the finance portfolio, was the most anticipated in years given the recession and a government already staring down a $3.6-billion deficit. But like an over-hyped Hollywood blockbuster, the budget proved a titanic letdown that left many Albertans scratching their heads about the direction of Ed Stelmach's aimless 'conservative' government.
Eleven ministries received pay bumps, the largest going to Alberta Health Services, which received a whopping $9 billion, a 16 per cent spike. More than half face cuts, including Housing and Urban Affairs (18.6 per cent) and Employment and Immigration (7.3 per cent), two areas that will affect Alberta's most vulnerable citizens. Even with the cuts, Alberta will sink $4.7 billion into the red, eating more of the Sustainability Fund. The province won't be in the black until 2012, and even that projection is based on a rebound in resource revenues that many critics call wishful thinking at best.
The health spending spree was by far the largest surprise, coming on the heels of plans to retool health legislation and reform the system. Tuesday's budget either signals a complete reversal, or it buys the government time to quietly plot out changes without having to put out public relations fires like in recent months. It's symptomatic of a government without a vision running scared. The Getty government of the early '90s reincarnate? The PCs were saved then by the emergence of Ralph Klein. Can they pull it off again without a palace revolt and splitting the party in two?
The uproar over announced bed closures at Alberta Hospital (now partly reversed), the fiasco of H1N1 vaccinations, entrenched and media-savvy public sector unions and the rise of the right-wing Wildrose Alliance have not been kind to the Stelmach Tories on the health front. The extra spending will surely win some measure of public support, but throwing money around won't fix Alberta's ailing health system.
Total health spending will reach $14.85 billion in 2010/11, consuming 44 per cent of this year's budget. That price tag is nearly double the $7.3 billion the province spent on health care in 2003. Huge cash infusions don't work, just ask any Albertan with the misfortune of waiting months for surgery or hours in a grim emergency room. Albertans need reform, the kind that upholds the principles of universal access but opens up the competitiveness of the health care sector. This budget only delays the cure in a move that clearly is politically motivated.
City over-taxes
Almost overlooked is the city's $1.3-million surplus, figures that coincidentally were released just days before the provincial budget. Though the surplus can be justified as 'just' a 1.2 per cent disparity on a $112-million budget, it still proves that even in a recessionary economy the city is able to take in more property tax dollars than it needs.
The surplus could nearly wipe out this year's municipal property tax increase, now 2.9 per cent for homeowners. Such a move is unlikely given the prevailing attitude at city hall to view surpluses as found money for new spending or to fill ever-fattening reserves.
Even more distressing is how this surplus nearly doubled since the 2010 budget was finalized in December. It raises new questions about who's watching the dollars coming in, and yet more doubts about what constitutes 'no frills.' Taxpayers deserve a true financial picture at budget time, not double dipping.
