'It's a bit unusual, but it does happen,' DM says

Money, money, money will sit at the top of the agenda when Nunavut's third legislative assembly gets down to business next week in its first extended sitting since the election last Oct. 15.

But the government won't even introduce its operations and maintenance budget for 2009-2010 until June, Peter Ma, the deputy minister for finance, told Nunatsiaq News this week.

That's three months after the start of the fiscal year that it's supposed to cover, which begins April 1.

In the meantime, Ma said, his boss, finance minister Keith Peterson, plans to use the last days of March to introduce, and hopefully pass, an interim appropriations bill "to allow the government to continue to spend" until the budget is presented.

It also hopes to pass the territory's capital budget for 2009-2010 before the end of March, as well as two supplementary appropriation bills to cover spending to the end of the 2008-2009 fiscal year – which ends March 31.

"It's a bit unusual," Ma admitted, "but it does happen. Our cycles have been completely changed because of the date of the election last year," he said.

He noted that the government of the Northwest Territories did a similar thing last year when it was late with its budget, also because of an election.

Signs around the legislature suggest politicians and bureaucrats are hopping to get up to speed for the crunch of money bills that need to be passed before the end of the month.

Neither Peterson, premier Eva Aariak, nor government house leader Louis Tapardjuk were reachable for comment, and it took repeated attempts to reach Ma, who was involved in multiple meetings leading up to the next sitting.

One of the upcoming supplementary appropriations bills will be for capital spending, while another will be used to authorize operations and maintenance spending, Ma said.

The government cannot legally spend money until those expenditures have been approved by the legislature, which would leave precious little time to pass the supplementary bills and use the money between this Tuesday, March 17, when the legislature resumes sitting, and the end of the fiscal year.

But "we have things lined up in the background, so once the bills have been passed in the house, we're ready to go," Ma said.

This sitting will be a continuation of the first session, which has only seen two one-day sittings since the election: on Nov. 19 last fall, and January 26 this year.

It also held a one-day leadership forum on Nov. 14 to choose premier Aariak and the other cabinet members.

A source in the premier's office said the government plans to end this sitting by the end of the month.

It will start a third sitting with a speech from the throne on April 1, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the creation of Nunavut.

The longstanding practice in Nunavut has been to introduce the capital budget for the upcoming fiscal year during the previous fall.

The capital budget provides money to pay for construction of new buildings and the purchase of new equipment. It's always done early to help contractors meet the following year's sealift deadlines after the issuance of GN tender calls and requests for proposals.

The operations and maintence budget is normally introduced in February or March, just before the end of the fiscal year.

"With so many new members (in the legislature) and the government so new, getting everybody up to speed is a bit of a challenge," Ma said.

"In June, we should be back to business as usual."

Perennial staffing shortages and turnovers also continue to plague government departments, challenging the government's ability to function.