Here's what could be announced in today's Sask. budget, according to experts

The 2024-25 provincial budget will be unveiled in the Saskatchewan Legislature on Wednesday afternoon, outlining the government’s taxation and spending plans for the next fiscal year.

While the fine details of the budget won’t be revealed until Finance Minister Donna Harpauer rises in the assembly around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, political and economic experts weighed in this past week on some possible directions the province could take with its budget.

Tom McIntosh, professor of politics and international studies at the University of Regina (U of R), said considering 2024 is an election year, the budget may look a little different than non-election years.

“They’re usually full of lots of little goodies for people, whether they’re tax rebates or reductions or special programs and the like. There’s been a tendency to do a lot of kind of targeted kinds of things like the home renovation tax credit that this government has had in the past,” he said.

“I think that’ll be the big thing is how much pre-election spending is there going to be.”

However, McIntosh said the government is not in as good fiscal shape as they hoped it would be, which may be a bit of a problem.

“It limits how much sort of big time spending they can do, given the fact that … we’ve gone from a surplus to a projected deficit,” he said.

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Because of the projected shortfall, Jason Childs, an economics professor at the U of R, said he doesn’t think there will be any major shifts in this budget.

“I think what they’re going to want to campaign on … is sort of a fiscal responsibility type idea and they’re not going to be able to get that if their last budget before an election is a huge deficit,” he said.

Childs said he does not expect any surprises in this year’s budget, and feels the priorities in spending will remain education, health, and social services.

“I think we’ve seen the big spending announcement with the education push, I’m not expecting a whole lot more,” he said. “I think there will be very targeted new bits of spending but I’m not expecting a huge splash out.”

“I think they’ll be a little looser with the purse strings than they have been in the past but not dramatically.”

McIntosh said he would like to see a priority in healthcare spending in this budget.

“Given the state of the healthcare system, given the level of public anxiety about the healthcare system, that they would announce … at least significant changes and reforms to the system,” he said.

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In terms of taxes, both Childs and McIntosh say they don’t foresee anything dramatic.

“I’m not expecting anything major, I don’t think we’re going to see a raft of new taxes, we might see some tinkering around the edges,” Childs said.

The provincial election is scheduled to be held on or before Oct. 28. There have been speculations it may be called earlier but both Childs and McIntosh don’t see that happening, depending on circumstances.

“If suddenly we have a federal election, that might change the date of our provincial election because that’s happened in the past,” Childs said.

“I don’t think there’s any great advantage of going early at this point,” McIntosh said.

Several long-standing MLA’s are not running again, including Harpauer, which may have an impact on the budget and upcoming election.

“It may affect how they use the budget for the election a little bit but I think it has a bigger impact in somebody like Harpauer not being a member of caucus after the next election,” McIntosh said.

Childs said he could see Harpauer perhaps wanting to make a lasting impression going into her final budget as finance minister.

“I think you might see Minister Harpauer decide to be looking for something of a legacy to leave … that may be another big push to retire a bunch of debt, it may be something else.”

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All in all, both Childs and McIntosh don’t see a dramatic budget being released, despite it being an election year.

“There might be some modest increases … if there are any increases, they’ll be modest,” McIntosh said.

Childs said he gets the sense this year is going to be much of the same.

“This is going to be pretty much a steady-as-we-go budget and we’re going to run on our record,” Childs said.

“If you’re holding your breath hoping for a major new spending program, I don’t think that’s going to come.”

CTV News Regina and Saskatoon will have coverage of the 2024 provincial budget online and during the 5:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m., and 11:30 p.m. newscasts.