YELLOWKNIFE (February 5, 2015) – Finance Minister J. Michael Miltenberger presented the 2015-16 Budget today, the last budget for the 17th Legislative Assembly.

“Members of this Assembly can be proud of their work to protect and enhance programs and services while managing to generate operating surpluses to invest in strategic infrastructure to grow the economy,” Minister Miltenberger said. “Together we have achieved some game changing objectives, including rolling up 5,000 kilometres of red tape when we gained responsibility for the management of our lands, waters and non-renewable resources on April 1 of last year. Through careful management of expenditures, we will have invested $112 million more in social programs by the end of this Assembly while still producing enough operating surpluses to fund an extra $100 million in capital investments in 2014-15 and 2015-16.”

The 2015-16 Budget also contains a warning for the medium term. “Over the next five years, total revenues are expected to be basically flat and we will have to make difficult choices to keep expenditure growth in line with revenues,” warned the Minister. “Our ability to propose $24.2 million in new initiatives in this Budget to continue to advance the priorities of this Assembly was partially achieved through departments’ efforts to find savings and re-profile funding from within their existing budgets; however, in the future other expenditure management options may need to be considered.”

The 2015-16 Budget projects an operating surplus of $147 million for 2015-16 from operating expenditures of $1.68 billion and total revenue forecast of $1.83 billion. Total short and long term debt is projected to be $671 million at March 31, 2016. After adding the projected $43 million in other instruments included under the definition of borrowing for the purposes of the borrowing limit, borrowing is expected to be $714 million at March 31, 2016, leaving $86 million in available borrowing room under the federally-imposed borrowing limit of $800 million.

Highlights of specific initiatives of the 2015-16 Budget are included in the attached Budget Highlights document. The 2015-16 Budget Address and Main Estimates can be found on the Department of Finance website at http://www.fin.gov.nt.ca/.

Media inquiries:
Shaun Dean
Director, Cabinet Communications
Government of the Northwest Territories
Tel: 867-669-2304
Email: shaun_dean@gov.nt.ca