Victoria spent $8.2 billion more than it said it would over the last decade, according to a C.D. Howe Institute study released this morning.
The study, Target Pracetice Needed, compared what legislators voted for at budget time with what was actually spent during the year.
It measured the federal and provincial territorial governments over the past decade, and found that, when added up, spending overruns totalled $65 billion. “It’s not surprising,” study co-author Colin Busby told BIV.
He said the overruns have added to current deficits. According to Busby, many governments adopted conservative budgets for years and then spent surplus cash as it flowed in.
“This whole whack of unbudgeted spending initiatives just arrived naturally because here’s this extra money [so] let’s spend it,” he said. “We’re saying this is a problem because the budget document sets out [what should be spent].”
Resource-based economies such as Saskatchewan and Alberta fared the worst in the study, while Quebec and New Brunswick showed the most fiscal constraint. B.C. landed in the middle among jurisdictions. The province’s worst year for spending changes was 1999/2000 when the increase was 6.4%.
B.C. showed a change in increased spending every year for the past decade. The changes, however, hovered between the 1% and 4% range.
“There’s very little oversight. There’s very little monitoring of this,” Busby added. “We’re trying to fill this void. Why don’t people ask how well government actually does what they say they’re going to do?”