SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Restraint in future years was encouraged in the territorial budget, unveiled Feb 3, and one MLA wants to make sure any future restraint won't affect smaller communities.

"Personally, I think it might be an OK budget but I think we've got to be cautious when we start talking about restraints or cuts or finding ways to reduce programs and services," said Mackenzie-Delta MLA David Krutko. The budget largely maintains current services, but urges review of these in the coming years.

Krutko said the people who will suffer most are those in communities already fraught with poverty and joblessness.

"It's sad to say but that's the reality of the Northwest Territories - we have (both) have and have not communities," he said.

The territorial budget for the coming year does not contain any big surprises, or new taxes, but it does show the government veering very close to its debt wall.

The territory's debt is projected to reach about $515.8 million by the end of March 2012, up from last $428.8 million last year. That's close to $59 million away from the $575 million authorized debt limit, and the jump is mostly due to the Deh Cho Bridge.

"Sixty-seven per cent of that debt is self-financing," said Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger when he unveiled the final budget of the 16th legislative assembly to media on Thursday morning.

"When you look at the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, the housing corporation and the majority of the debt from the Deh Cho Bridge - that will be financed through the fees and tolls and revenue generated from those different areas."

The bridge will draw in an estimated $3.4 million in tolls per year based on last year's traffic across the Mackenzie River, but those estimates were not figured into this year's budget.

Total expenditures went up two per cent, below a self-imposed cap of three per cent, to $1.34 billion from $1.3 billion. Revenues have gone up 2.9 per cent to $1.36 billion from $1.32 billion.

Miltenberger's proposed strategy to reduce the massive debt is to keep that 3 per cent cap on expenditures, and reduce capital investment to $75 million per year starting next year. This year's budget for capital projects, approved last fall, is $171 million. Last year's was $443 million, with most of the money coming from the federal government's economic action plan in the wake of the recession.

"The plan we are laying on the table and leaving for consideration is that of going back down to more manageable, affordable levels of infrastructure," said Miltenberger,

Though there will be no new taxes, the government expects to bring in $1.8 million from tobacco taxes, property taxes and liquor mark-ups that will be adjusted to inflation on April 1.

"We are managing with the money we have, and some of the modest revenues we're going to pick up," said Miltenberger.

In expenditures, there is $16.9 million in new investments, such as a $75,000 pilot program to expand respite care services across the territory and more than $85 million to continue ongoing investments, such as $300,000 for firefighting and emergency management training in NWT communities.

The introduction of a territorial heritage fund, albeit one that will be empty for the time being, was a highlight of the budget for Northern Territories Federation of Labour President Mary Lou Cherwaty.

"I think that residents of the NWT have been asking for that for a long time," she said.

There is a small operating surplus of $7 million, and that is up from last year's operating deficit of $48 million - despite there being this wiggle room, Krutko warns it is not enough.

"We could find ourselves in a very deep hole, simply by a flood in one of our communities or a bad forest fire season, or overruns in the costs of the Deh Cho Bridge or the superschool in Inuvik," said Krutko.

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