All eyes were on the provincial legislature on Thursday afternoon as the Redford government delivered its finance blueprint for the next 12 months.

Finance Minister Doug Horner delivered the budget at 3:15 p.m. and told Albertans that this budget builds on Alberta’s strengths.

Horner says the budget addresses three main areas; building Alberta by investing in families, living within our means, and ensuring that our resources get to market.

Even though the government is not increasing its overall spending on operations, it anticipates a $2-billion deficit on revenues of $38.6 billion.

Provincial revenue from bitumen royalties is expected to be $6.3 billion lower than forecast the year before but Albertans will not see any new taxes in the budget, or tax rate increases.

Horner said the shortfall can't be helped, but he isn't happy about it.

"It's been very rare for Alberta to have an operating deficit. That's a big deal to me. I don't want to see operating deficits in the future."

The budget is divided into three separate parts, operating, savings and capital.

For the operating budget, the province expects to spend $36.4 billion – a number that only slightly changed from the previous budget – that budget plan is estimated to come in with a $451 million deficit.

The gap will be covered by the government's Sustainability Fund, now renamed the Contingency Account.

That plan includes the introduction of Bill 12, the Fiscal Management Act – that will legislate a balanced operational budget, limits on in-year spending increases and puts a cap on infrastructure spending.

Legislation also includes a savings plan, set to begin in the 2014-2015 fiscal year – but the province said it will start saving as part of Budget 2013, since Bill 12 allows for accelerated timelines.

Under the legislation, a portion of revenue from non-renewable resources will be set aside for savings in the Contingency Account until it reaches $5 billion – at which point that revenue will be used for other savings.

The third plan outlined in Budget 2013, called the Capital plan, outlines how the province will spend a $5.2 billion portion of a total $15 billion slated to be spent over three years on infrastructure projects.

In the 2013-2014 budget year, the province expects to spend a borrowed $4.3 billion (with $1.1 billion borrowed in the previous year), on infrastructure projects.

While the province faces contract negotiations with a number of unions, including teachers and doctors, no money has been set aside for wage increases for any public sector staff.

A number of other programs are also slated to be changed, suspended or cut altogether.

The budget includes an increase to more than $6.1 billion for operating costs of public and separate school boards – with funding for school capital projects adding up to $1.4 billion over three years.

The project cost includes $500 million slated to start the process of meeting Premier Alison Redford’s election promise of adding 50 new schools, and modernizing 70 existing ones over six years – an initiative that’s expected to add up to a cost of more than $2 billion.

However, no details on the plan were released  but they are expected to be made public in the coming weeks.

As for staffing, the province has not allocated any funding for adding teachers to teach students at those new schools.

Post-secondary institutions will lose about $147 million to their operating funds – leaving about $2 billion in operating grants.

Budget 2013 has allocated $17.1 billion for health – an increase of nearly $500 million, or 3 percent over the year before, in addition to $393 million for operating costs of new facilities.

More than half of that - $10.1 billion – has been set aside for base operating funding for front-line health services, the government is also putting $262 million into Primary Care Networks, Family Care Clinics and addiction and mental health services.

Alberta's overall economy remains strong, unemployment is low and the population of 3.7 million is growing by 100,000 a year

(With files from Edmonton.ctvnews.ca and ctvnews.ca)