Saskatchewan plans to spend almost $100 million less on agriculture next year, but minister Bob Bjornerud says program have not been cut.
Spending for fiscal 2010-11 is projected to be $383 million, down from $480 million last year.
Nearly all of the $93 million difference had been allocated to business risk management programs such as AgriStability, AgriInvest and crop insurance.
Bjornerud said those programs didn’t cost governments as much as they expected last year, and predictions for this year show costs will be lower again.
“We go by projections from the federal government of what they think the AgriStability program will cost the province and what it will cost them,” Bjornerud said.
“And of course we don’t know until pretty near a year later when the applications come through the process whether those dollars were adequate or, quite often, more than we actually needed.”
Projections for this year show AgriStability will cost the province $56 million less, while AgriInvest will cost $7 million less. Crop insurance details were revealed earlier this month,showing reduced spending of $28 million.
Administration costs for crop insurance and AgriStability are also down.
The budget includes $14 million less for the crown land sale incentive program, reflecting lower than expected participation.
The ministry will also save slightly more than $3 million by cutting 23.5 full-time equivalent jobs, most of which are vacant. Only two of those positions are filled: one in the livestock branch and one in financial programs
The budget also includes winding down SaskBio, which provided loans to help establish biofuel production facilities. The program is set to end March 31, 2012, and by that time all projects must have been applied for and completed and the bills submitted.There are no applications at this time.
The regional services branch budget has increased from $20 million to $32.6 million, reflecting the funding for most of the non-business risk management programs in Growing Forward.
Overall, Saskatchewan plans to spend $10.12 billion on revenues of $9.95 billion and inject $194.2 million from its savings fund, which will result in a surplus to its general revenue fund of $20 million.
The only new revenue measures are increases in tobacco taxes, effective midnight March 25, and liquor taxes,effective April 1.
Cigarette taxes are increasing2.7 cents per cigarette to 21 cents, or $5.25 per package. The government isalso limiting tax-free purchase of cartons by First Nations people to one per week instead of three.
The combined measures will bring in $35.7 million.
The cost of a case of beer will go up 75 cents. Spirits will rise 50 cents for 770 millilitre bottles and 75cents for 1.18 litre bottles. Tax on wine costing more than $20 will rise by five percent. The increase will raise $18.1 million.
