Method: budget against actual, the deficit and net debt

Two bases of accounting

The province publishes its finances on two bases. They answer different questions, cover different bodies and count at different moments. This site shows both and never adds a figure from one to a figure from the other.

What was budgeted, and what was spent?

Documents. Budgeted: the Estimates given to the House of Assembly with the budget. Spent: the Report on the Program Expenditures and Revenues of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Basis. Modified cash: a payment counts in the year it is made.
Covers. Government departments and the Legislature, including the grants they pay to other bodies.

Did the year end in surplus or deficit, and what is the debt?

Documents. The Public Accounts: the audited Consolidated Summary Financial Statements.
Basis. Accrual: a cost counts in the year it is incurred, and buildings and roads are spread over their useful lives.
Covers. Departments together with Crown corporations, boards and authorities, such as Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services, Memorial University and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

Budgeted against spent

Like for like. The Report is drawn up on the same basis as the Estimates. In its own words it uses "the modified cash basis of accounting", which "is the same basis used to prepare the budgeted appropriations and revenues as per Government's Estimates presented to the House of Assembly"¹Source 1 . Its statements print the Original Estimates beside the Actuals.
Budgeted is the original figure: gross expenditure in the Estimates as tabled with the budget, current and capital accounts together. It is not the amended estimate, which moves during the year as money is transferred between departments.
Spent is gross expenditure in the Report, before "related revenue" (federal cost-sharing and fees that a department collects against its own spending). For 2024-25: $11,013,336,000 budgeted, $10,644,852,000 spent.
By department, the budget is the department's "Total: Program Estimates" in the Estimates, and spending is its line in the Report's summary statements. Where a department in the Report is not in that year's Estimates under the same name, the budget is the Original column the Report prints for it.
The Report is prepared by the Comptroller General and is not audited.

The deficit and net debt

The surplus or deficit is the "annual surplus (deficit)" line of the Consolidated Statement of Operations in the Public Accounts: total revenue less total expense for the whole government. The budget figure beside it is the Original Budget column of the same statement, which the province marks unaudited.
It is not spending less revenue from the cash statement. In 2024-25 departments' cash spending outran their revenue by $1,983,025,000, while the annual deficit was $296,637,000. The cash statement covers departments only and counts construction and equipment at full price in the year they are paid for; the accounts spread those costs over the assets' lives and include the results of Crown corporations and other public bodies.
Spending can come in under the budget in a year when the deficit is larger than forecast, or the reverse, because the two are measured differently and the deficit also depends on revenue.
Net debt is total liabilities less financial assets, from the Consolidated Statement of Financial Position: what the province owes (borrowing, pensions and other retirement benefits, payables) less the cash, investments and receivables it holds. Buildings and roads are not counted as financial assets.
Per person. The Public Accounts print net debt per capita themselves: $33,799 for 2024-25. That figure is used as published. Dividing net debt by the population this site uses elsewhere (545,080, Statistics Canada, 1 July 2024) gives $33,822; the province divides by its own population figure.
Restatements. Each year is shown as that year's accounts first printed it. When the following year's accounts print a different figure for the earlier year (after a change in accounting standards, for example), the restated figure is given in a note under the table.

Checks

The figures are read from the PDF documents by a script. Nothing is typed in by hand. Each run then checks:

Every subtotal in the Report's cash statement recomputes from the lines above it, for actuals and for original estimates: 48 of 48.
The departments in the Report's summary statements add to the statement's gross expenditure: 6 of 6 years.
Each department's program lines in the Estimates add to its printed total, and the departments add to the gross expenditure in the budget's Summary of Cash Requirements: 8 of 8 years.
The Original Estimates the Report reprints equal the budget's own summary: 36 of 36 figures. Department by department, the Report's Original column equals the Estimates as tabled: 112 of 114.
In the Public Accounts, revenue less expense equals the printed surplus or deficit, liabilities less financial assets equals net debt, and net debt is the same in two statements: 24 of 24.
From Budget 2024, when the budget's own statements are published as Statements and Schedules, the Original Budget column in the Public Accounts equals them: 4 of 4.

Where a check does not hold, the province's documents disagree with each other, and the Estimates' figure is used:

Executive Council, 2020-21: the Report's Original column adds to $250,118,900; the Estimates as tabled say $252,162,100.
Labrador Affairs, 2024-25: the Report's Original column adds to nothing, because the Report prints no program detail for the department; the Estimates as tabled say $18,124,300.

The same checks run on sample documents for every change to the code, and the results of the last full run are in the reconciliation record.

What this does not show

Budgets for the public bodies outside the departments (the health authority, Crown corporations) line by line. The Public Accounts give their results in total.
Why a department spent more or less than budgeted. The documents give the figures; the reasons are in the province's own discussion and analysis and in debate in the House.
Results for 2025-26 and 2026-27: the Report and the Public Accounts for those years are not yet published.

Sources and licence

Report on the Program Expenditures and Revenues of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Published by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador; used under its copyright notice.
Estimates of the Program Expenditure and Revenue of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Published by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador; used under its copyright notice.
Budget, Statements and Schedules. Published by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador; used under its copyright notice.
Public Accounts, Consolidated Summary Financial Statements. Published by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador; used under its copyright notice.

No open licence is stated for these records. The province's notice grants the public and non-government organizations permission to use the information on its website.

Budget against actual