Auditor general's budget increasing, but falls short of amount requested

Finance Minister Allan MacMaster says the office of Nova Scotia's auditor general is getting a record budget amount for the coming fiscal year, but his government was not able to provide all the money Kim Adair requested.

"I've got a binder on my desk that's about four inches thick of budget requests and we're balancing all of these asks and priorities," the minister said in an interview Thursday.

The 2024-25 budget for the auditor general, included in the provincial budget MacMaster tabled Thursday at Province House in Halifax, is almost $6.3 million. It's an increase of about $200,000 from the last budget, but well short of the $1.1-million increase Adair wanted.

In January, Adair said her office needed the additional money because of growing responsibilities related to audits of the health-care system.

The Tories campaigned in 2021 on having a dedicated health auditor and that responsibility has fallen to Adair's office.

Along with examining the books for the IWK Health Centre and Nova Scotia Health, her team has done audits looking at the provincial ambulance system and the process the government is using to build transitional care units, including the purchase of an unfinished hotel at 21 Hogan Court near Bedford.

More audits are planned, but Adair told MLAs on the legislature's management commission in January that funding would be the limiting factor for how much more work she could take on.

Her budget request would have allowed her to hire three more people focused on health audits, raise pay levels in her office to keep up with industry standards and hire experts on a short-term basis.

In an emailed statement, Adair said she was pleased with the increase her office is receiving. The extra money will allow two more people to be hired to work as part of the health audit team, she said.

"That brings the total number on that team to six," she wrote.

Health care tops $7 billion in the provincial budget when construction projects are included, accounting for 44 per cent of all spending.

'Red flags'

New Democrat MLA Susan Leblanc said Adair's full request should have been granted based on that fact alone.

"It raises major red flags," she said in an interview. "This is something that was in the mandate letter of the minister of health and the AG has asked for this money for two years in a row."

Adair's report on Hogan Court — which found the purchase of the former hotel to be a "highly unusual transaction," included millions of dollars in untendered contracts that did not follow government policy — highlights the importance of her work, said Leblanc.

Liberal MLA Braedon Clark said that work will be even more important as "the Goliath" of the QEII redevelopment project starts to ramp up.

Halifax Infirmary

The government announced Wednesday that prep work for construction at the site of the Halifax Infirmary would begin this spring, more than a year after it was supposed to be wrapping up.

"I think it's reasonable that the AG has the resources to investigate properly," said Clark.

He said the shortfall on Adair's request amounts to "another broken promise when it comes to oversight and transparency from this government."

But MacMaster said the government has followed through on its commitment to provide "some special treatment when it comes to auditing" the health file and they accept that the work "can bring about continuous improvement to the system."

The Halifax Infirmary redevelopment is being done as a public-private partnership. MacMaster said the company doing the work will also be responsible for maintaining the facility when it is complete, so there is an incentive for them to do good work to help lower their maintenance costs.