Alberta's auditor general will not get more money after a motion asking for an additional $2 million was defeated by an all-party committee at the Alberta legislature Wednesday.

All the Conservative members of the committee voted against the motion.

If the funding increase had been approved, Fred Dunn's budget would have been increased to $25 million.

The motion's defeat means that the auditor general will have to postpone or drop 27 of 80 audits planned for the next year.

"We're going to end up [priortizing] the work that we have to do in order that we can bring the best reports forward to this committee," Dunn said.

Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason brought the motion forward. He said the defeat came as no surprise.

"The attitude of the Conservative members is more an interest in protecting the government from any negative criticism than it is [in] actually grappling with the issues," Mason said.

"There are a lot of audits that are going to be delayed that are on very important social programs, economic programs."

But the Conservative MLA for Athabasca-Redwater, Jeff Johnson, said money can't be added to department budgets during tough economic times.

"We're in a time of great financial restraint … all Albertans are having to tighten their belts," he said.

He also suggested Mason give up some of his party's funding to give to Dunn's office.

"We've got a jurisdiction that affords some significant funds to official third-party status and leader allowance to a party that only has two members in the house," he said. "If that honourable member feels this strongly about the effectiveness of spending and the auditor general needs more money, maybe that's one place to look."

But Mason argued money spent on the auditor general is well-spent.

"If you invest in the auditor general, he will repay us by finding savings, ten-fold," he said.

The impact of underfunding will be felt in the long-term but his office will try to do what it can right now, Dunn said.

The committee spent part of Wednesday's meeting discussing issues that were raised in an audit by Dunn's office in 2006 that reviewed the handling of drinking water by communities across Alberta, he said.