Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I think you are referring to contracts from the past, previous year and maybe we can just stick to the interim appropriation. Mr. Miltenberger.
Debates of March 28th, 2000
This is page numbers 345 - 390 of the Hansard for the 14th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was chairman.
Topics
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I request your indulgence. What I asked was what was the initial budget of the PeopleSoft system, which is in their budget again this year and I was asking what that budget was and whether it included the $1.3 million dollars that was tabled in contracts in the second quarter. Just to give me a sense of how much more money we are going to spend and where this system is going. Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Minister Handley.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, yes, the $1.3 million the Member is referring to is included in that total. We expect that the only additional expense we should have beyond that figure will be about $1 million a year of ongoing operations and maintenance on the system. Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Mr. Miltenberger.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister clarify, as well, one of the things I have heard in my travels. When a cheque run is done, for the most part the PeopleSoft system is totally tied up and it is not accessible for other functions while they are doing that FIS stuff. Is that true?
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Minister Handley.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Joe Handley Weledeh
Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think that does happen when a cheque run is on. It will be fully used during that period and it would not be accessible for other purposes. Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Mr. Miltenberger.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I heard this could be as much as every three days out of ten that this system would be off limits or unavailable for basic GHRS work and pay and benefits work and other functions that the government would require. Is that an accurate figure? Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Minister Handley.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Joe Handley Weledeh
Yes, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it is down for about two to three days every cycle. That is, every two weeks. So that is generally accurate. We hope that as time goes on that we are able to trim that back, but two to three days is accurate. Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Mr. Miltenberger.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you. So we spent $6 million on a system that can only do one thing at a time? I just want to make sure I have a clear understanding of this. We spent $6 million, almost $7 million on a system that can only do one thing at a time, and 30 percent of the time is tied up doing financial business of government, leaving that percentage of time where there is no human resource, GHRS capacity or any other capacity in the government. Is that correct?
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Minister Handley.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, I will refer that to Mr. Voytilla. He is more familiar with the details of how this functions. Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Mr. Voytilla.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 385
Voytilla
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think you will find that with any payroll system that is allowing live entry into the payroll records you need to shut down data entry for a period of time for cycling the pay run. The old systems of batch systems you would do up, do your entry and then do a summary of everything you put in. Then you roll that batch of data into the system. So it was quite a cumbersome and duplicative process when it came to entering data. Both systems could be up all the time, but you still had to shut them down for particular pay cycles.
PeopleSoft is different. PeopleSoft is a live system. The people who are data entering into it are data entering into actual live payroll records. So, when you are going to run a pay run, you have to cut off their access to the system for that period of time because you cannot have people changing the database and changing the information in people's pay files as you are generating the pay run and cutting the cheques. So for a period of time, you have to deny access to the system so that you do not have people changing data as it is being used to generate paycheques.
Right now, as the Minister pointed out, for about two, possibly in some cases three days in a cheque cycle, the system is shut down and not available to other users. We hope that over time, that will be cut down dramatically, so that it will be unavailable to users for only a day or less. But we are still in the process of refining the implementation, working out the remaining bugs and getting the system performing the way we want it to perform. That is not unusual for implementation of a system of this magnitude.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 386
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you, Mr. Voytilla. General comments. Mr. Nitah.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 386
Steven Nitah Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to take the Minister back to the FMBS homes in the communities. I believe the problems with the communities is the transfer of ownership of FMBS homes that will be condemned in the near future. It is with the Financial Management Board Secretariat to pay for the upgrade of the houses before ownership is transferred and that is a concern by a lot of communities. It is great to give the homes out. I am sure these people would love the houses, but not if it is going to be condemned in the next couple of years and is going to cost regular money to upgrade it to meet the levels of whatever the management structure is involved in homes being operated. It may also reduce the costs. It would definitely reduce the long-term costs of the government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 386
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Minister Handley.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 386
Joe Handley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Normally, our houses are sold as is. It is up to the community, I guess, if they want to take the house as it is. If they do not, then they should not take it. In some cases, we may just be condemning some houses and getting rid of them. There may be situations, though, and we are looking into some of those, where we would look at the possibility of putting a bit of money into it to upgrade it. I think the most important thing is that we make sure people know the condition of the house when they take it, that it is not a house in new condition. We do not want to get into the business of renovating these houses before we sell them. In some cases we would, and I think there are some specific cases we are looking into right now. Thank you.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 386
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Mr. Nitah.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
March 28th, 2000
Page 386
Steven Nitah Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we all know, the major cost to this government is in the social programs, social envelopes. A lot of that has to do with health conditions, education levels and so on. One of the biggest challenges in the smaller communities, where most of these homes are, is housing for professional people. The high cost of living, coupled with the high cost of maintaining homes and so on, is a real challenge. It is costing this government quite a bit of dollars. I would think the government might see this as an investment to reduce the long term costs to the government in the areas of social programs by providing significant amounts of resources to upgrade homes. They could then pass on these homes to either the communities or continue to manage them. By doing this, they could reduce the costs to the social envelopes. I am just wondering if the Minister and the Financial Management Board Secretariat have considered that line of thinking. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Staff Housing
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 386
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Minister Handley.