N.S. auditor general calls for more oversight on spending outside budget process

For the second consecutive year Nova Scotia’s auditor general is calling for legislative oversight of spending sprees that happen outside of the regular budget process.

Kim Adair’s financial report says extra government spending has reached a 10-year-high, close to $1.7 billion on top of the $14.7-billion in expenses originally planned for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Adair is recommending, as she did in 2022, that the province’s Finance Act be amended so that elected representatives are required to debate government expenses that aren’t included in annual budgets.

One example of extra spending she cites is the $257 million spent near the end of the last fiscal year on bonuses for nurses, which resulted in 148 nurses returning to work — rather than the anticipated 1,500 to 2,000.

She says that example shows why decisions to spend hundreds of millions of dollars should be brought to the legislature for debate.

Meanwhile, Adair’s report also mentions the soaring costs for the toxic waste cleanup at the Boat Harbour lagoon, near a First Nation, which have risen by $139 million over the past four years to reach a current projected cost of $350 million.