The upcoming territorial budget is set to exceed $700 million.

No Yukon budget has come close to the $700-million mark. However, the new budget, which will officially be delivered on March 25, is on target to hit that historic bull's-eye.

While the government has not announced the 2004-05 budget in its entirety, Premier Dennis Fentie and his cabinet have released enough information over the past couple of months to give Yukoners a good idea of what will be there in two weeks.

What will be there is about $700 million in spending.

The 2003-04 budget, once last month's special warrants are factored in, reached $666.5 million in spending.

The total capital budget for 2003-04 after last month is at $138 million.

Fentie has promised Yukoners the capital budget for 2004-05 will top $160 million, adding at least $22 million to the spending.

On top of that, the multitude of announcements made by Fentie and cabinet add up to at least $16.78 million in operations and maintenance.

This brings the Star's preliminary estimate of the 2004-05 budget to more than $705 million.

That does not include some announcements that came without dollar figures. It also excludes any further announcements in the next two weeks before the budget is officially tabled in the legislature.

As long as there will be no major cuts to last year's funding levels, the total will exceed $700 million.

The $700 million is calculated using the government's current accounting method. When the budget is unveiled on March 25, it will be done with the new accrual accounting method and may look different.

NDP Leader Todd Hardy is astonished at how much Fentie's government is on pace to spend.

'They're spending like drunken sailors,' Hardy said this morning in an interview. 'They're going on a spending spree.'

Hardy said the government has swung in the other direction compared to last year's budget. That document had a series of 'cuts and slashes' after Fentie contended the territory's finances were in trouble when he took office.

Liberal Leader Pat Duncan said a major problem is the fact the government is releasing one figure at a time. That's opposed to taking the traditional route of announcing it all in the legislature during the budget speech.

'I'm offended that this is not being done in the legislature,' said the former Liberal premier and Finance minister.

Hardy said there is a simple process governments have used for years where a regime privately sets the budget and the session date, then introduces it in the legislature and has a public debate.

'That's not too complicated,' Hardy said of the process. 'They can not seem to handle a straightforward task like this.'

Both opposition leaders think the government is announcing the budget in this piecemeal fashion to get more media exposure.

Hardy said it looks like the government wants to gain positive publicity through the current announcements, then reap it again for the same programs when the budget is tabled in the legislature.

'They're so badly desperate to get some good news stories,' said Hardy.

The NDP leader noted the government has re-announced some spending like it is new funding. An example is the $461,000 for a new receiving home for children in care.

Health and Social Services Minister Jenkins announced the money on Wednesday like it was new spending when, in fact, the same amount was first announced in last fall's supplementary budget.

Duncan thinks the government is spending this much money and announcing one item at a time to appease groups and individuals it may have ticked off in the past.

'They're trying to get back the respect of groups,' she said.

'It's a strategy, and I don't think it's going to work. I think they're underestimating the intelligence of the Yukon public and I think they're underestimating the opposition.'

One political analyst thinks the government should not ignore the experiences of another regime which did something similar last year.

Brian O'Riordan, vice-president of Toronto-based GP Murray Research, noted the problems the Ontario Progressive Conservative government caused for itself last spring by choosing to announce the budget outside the legislature.

O'Riordan noted the Ontario Tories didn't think anybody would have a problem with the government unveiling the budget at an auto parts plant outside of Toronto instead of at Queen's Park.

'It really did backfire on them tremendously,' he said.

As it turned out, most of the province indicated it should have been released in the legislature and debated publicly so 'it wouldn't be a media-controlled event.'

O'Riordan said the budget wasn't bad but the message was lost because how it was released became the bigger issue.

'The whole thing became a complete schmozzle for them,' he said.

'People reacted ferociously against it.'

O'Riordan believes the budget debacle was one of the factors in the crushing defeat then-premier Ernie Eves and his government suffered last October to the Liberals.

While the two situations are somewhat different, he suggested the Yukon Party government could learn from its fellow conservatives' example.

'They might want to take a look at what happened to Ernie Eves,' he said.

Duncan has already heard some Yukoners on what they think about the Yukon Party's strategy.

'My e-mails and people on the street are telling me it's backfiring.'