Nova Scotia writes off $12.7M in bad loans, uncollected fees

Bum loans and uncollected fees and finesforced Nova Scotia to write off $12.7 million in bad debt in 2015-2016.

That's down from anannual average of$13.9million in bad debt recordedover the past decade, the government said Tuesday.

"Provisions for these debts were made in previous fiscal years so thewrite-offprocess has no impact on departmental budgets or Nova Scotia's deficit or surplus position," the province said in a news release.

• Nova Scotia government writes off $12.2M in unpaid debt

The biggest writeoff was a $3.7million losswhen Hants County blueberry operation Rainbow Farms went into receivershipin 2013.

Rainbow Farms received a $4-million loan in 2010 from the Industrial Expansion Fund, a forerunner of the Jobs Fundssince cancelled by the Liberals.

$2.4 millionin defaulted student loans

The Business Department also wrote off $349,000 under a small-business loan guarantee program operated bythe Credit Union. However the department saysthat program has a 95per centsuccess rate.

Labour and Advanced Education wrote off $2.4 millionin defaulted student loans, down from $3million last year.

"The vast majority of amounts listed under student loans have been in collections for at least four years," department spokesman Andrew Preeper told CBC News.

That includes:

• $1,071,506 for universities,up from $900,000 last year.
• $284,440 for Nova Scotia Community College,down from $932,000 the previous year.
• $1,096,526 million for private colleges, down from $1.3 million last year.

The Department of Agriculture gave up on $1.3 million in unrecoverable fisheries and farm board loans.

Here is breakdown of the company names and amounts, released by the department:

NS Farm Loan Board

• John andGrethaHutten, $341,578.34
• John and LindaNauss, $89,870.47
• David Burgess, $85,895.34
• StonehameFarm Limited$758,326.91

NS Fish Loan Board

• Tri County Fisheries Ltd., $2,374.36

Unpaid ambulance fees $2.4 million

Almost all of the $2.4 million written off by the Department of Health and Wellness was uncollected ambulance user fees.

A breakdown of the bad debt for the department:

• $2.3.million ambulance user fees.
• $92,527 in Life Flight air ambulance fees.
• $10,488 in education bursaries for incomplete programs.
• $957 in overpayments to physicians.

The Department of Justice also wrote off $2.3 million in uncollected fines.