The Liberal government is pointing at the former Yukon Party regime to explain $15 million in spending for the 2016-17 fiscal year that was not budgeted for.

That eliminated a projected $9.4-million surplus for the year and instead left the government in the red for $5.4 million.

On Tuesday, Premier and Finance Minister Sandy Silver tabled the public accounts for April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017 in the legislature.

“Coming into office, we understood that Yukon had a surplus budget, yet there was no surplus. There was in fact a deficit,” Silver said.

“This deficit is a result of commitments made by the previous government prior to last year’s election. These commitments were significant and were not included in the budget for the last year and still need to be paid for.”

Silver cited a list of these commitments, including:

• $4 million in payments to satisfy Yukon Hospital Corp. and Yukon College pension solvency requirements,;

• $3.5 million for the hiring of new teachers and educational assistants at Yukon schools; and

• $2.2 million for unpaid construction bills for rural hospitals and the Crocus Ridge medical staff residence.

The list also included millions of dollars more for a new collective bargaining agreement with the Yukon Employees’ Union, continuing care beds, affordable housing, the new Salvation Army building and the MacBride Museum expansion.

However, Silver’s government was in power for five months of the 2016-17 fiscal year, Yukon Party finance critic Brad Cathers reminded the house.

“(The premier) made spending decisions during that time but would have you believe that he didn’t,” Cathers said.

“We see a pattern by this Liberal government and the premier of failing to take responsibility for their own actions and their own decisions.”

He cited pre-budget spending in excess of $100,000 by the new government on “luxuries for ministers and political staff” like furniture and electronic devices.

“Fiscal responsibility begins with leading by example, and the premier has failed that leadership test,” Cathers told the house.

Silver acknowledged that his government did spend that money, “for computers and for phones to do our business.”

He then cited the millions of dollars the previous Yukon Party government, under the leadership of ex-premier Darrell Pasloski, left the Liberals on the hook for.  

During the 2016 election campaign, Pasloski often described his government as being fiscally responsible.

Silver told the Star this morning that transitional spending for items like computers is typical for a new government, and was by no means superfluous.

“They want to have another narrative out there other than the fact that under the Yukon Party leadership for ten years in a row, the trend was there, they spent more than they earned,” Silver pointed out.

He said his government did not undertake any major new spending decisions of its own in the months before it tabled the 2017-18 budget.

“We’ve been accused by the opposition of, ‘this is just Liberal spending.’ And really, it’s like well, what things?

“It was commitments made by the previous government, and us making sure that it’s being accounted for.”

Kate White, the NDP house leader, expressed frustration with financial blame-throwing from both the government and the official Opposition.

She also acknowledged that the premier is correct in his assessment of the Yukon Party government’s “mismanagement and lack of fiscal planning.

“We have a clear picture of what the financial situation was at the end of last (fiscal )year,” White told the house.

“Blaming the other guys is no longer going to be an option. It’s time for this government to look ahead because they can’t keep living in the past.

“We look forward to future thinking, to ideas and to solutions that will help Yukoners with their lived reality in a fiscally responsible fashion.”

Government revenue has grown by 1.7 per cent annually over the last 10 years, outpaced by spending growth at 2.5 per cent per year, according to the Liberal government-appointed financial advisory panel.

The 2016-17 deficit follows past deficits in 2009-10 and 2010-11, and precedes a small projected surplus for 2017-18 followed by projected deficits for the next three years.

The Liberals tasked the independent five-member panel with addressing these challenges in the government’s financial future – a rationale underscored by the numbers revealed in the 2016-17 Public Accounts, according to Silver.

“The work of the financial advisory panel is important to the work that is needed to address the weakening of the territory’s financials over the last several years. Its discussion with Yukoners and its options will help to inform the path forward — a path that is needed to restore a strong financial future for the people who live here.”

The panel hosted online discussion forums and visited 15 communities across the territory this fall. It’s expected to complete a publicly-available final report on the consultations and the government’s financial options some time in the next several weeks.

Also revealed by the tabled public accounts is that the government’s net financial assets have dropped lower than anticipated.

In the 2017-18 budget, the government’s assets were estimated to be $93 million.

In actuality, as the public accounts show, the government had $88 million in the bank at the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year.

The value of these assets nearly halved since the end of 2015-16, when they numbered $153 million. The year before that, assets exceeded $223 million.

Silver warned of capital projects initiated by the Yukon Party government that have yet to be completed, and future operations and maintenance costs for these projects that were not budgeted for.

These include the $150-million Whistle Bend continuing care facility, which Silver said will cost the government $36 million per year to run.

Cathers pointed out that the facility will not be fully completed until the tail end of the government’s five-year mandate.

He also noted that the government’s 2017-18 budget is the largest in the territory’s history, with plans to spend down $80 million in net financial assets.

In this morning’s interview, Silver said his government actually wanted to do more with its first budget, as the Liberals were told by the Yukon Party they were inheriting a surplus.

“And then we come in and we realize no, there’s not.

“Our responsibility moving forward is how do we buck that trend, how do we get out of that and how do we get ourselves back onto a stable financial footing.

“That should be the criticism of the Liberals going forward,” the premier said.