Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will go in reverse order because what Mr. Krutko is speaking of is freshest in my memory and I do agree.
We are not trying to evade our responsibility to the seniors, but I think the principle of harmonization, and speaking to the point the Members raised, we do have a combined responsibility to address all the key issues. It is just a matter of developing a greater coordination role between the respective Ministers and also of government. Certainly we are working towards that happy medium.
Just to point out the fact that in respect of the 80-year-old resident of Fort McPherson, she should not have had to pay any taxes. We will correct that rather quickly here. Also, there are a number of points that were raised by the two Members.
With respect to formula financing, we alluded to the fact that there was a presentation made by the NWTAM on the business and economic prospectus for the Northwest Territories by this Assembly, which we are all part of. I think what we are trying to develop with the communities is we will suffer through what I feel will be a recessional period. If we do get more resources, then we can perhaps get more money into the communities. Until then, our presentation here today will really exemplify the limited amount of money we do have to work with.
The formula financing proposal is entrenched and the dollar value will remain the same for this year. It will allow us another full year to find other alternatives. It is going to be a difficult task. We know that it is one task that we will be working with all the communities in trying to find a more equitable way of dealing with it. Again, the principles that guided us to this were that communities wanted to be more flexible and have more independence on how they make those decisions. The department has, in the past, said there were 56 different factors. Now that is reduced to three based on population, community infrastructure indicators and the northern cost index. So it simplified that, although we know several communities are not happy. Also, we heard from the NWTAM that they wanted to have input into further discussions, which we had said that we would.
I am going to continue on, Mr. Speaker, to speak to the general comments and allow Mr. Murray to speak to specific technical detail as it was raised. Again, I just want to assure the Members that we have and we will continue to work. As I expressed in my opening comments, we will take the necessary steps to ensure that the community governments will have all the tools they need to manage themselves effectively. We have proven this. In Fort Simpson, we have gone in to help them work out details of how they could do municipal planning, talk about some of their deficit problems and how we can help them out in understanding and reaching a better financial position. Likewise, we have done that for Fort Rae.
We deal with every community on an individual basis. We have directed the staff to work very, very closely with the municipalities who are experiencing deficit problems. Some of them may have planning problems. Others who may have engineering problems. Every community has a different philosophy and a different psychology and it's our intention to make sure each one has the ability to come away from those problems with some surety the department has been involved in helping them out. It further goes to say we have done the same with water problems in Fort McPherson.
I think that pretty well sums up what I am hearing from the Members, other than perhaps certification of water treatment operators. That is a joint effort between Public Works and Services and ourselves, including Health and Social Services, who guides us through the national profile. I will ask my colleagues to speak more to the technical details and also on the legislation that drives us. I think I pretty well captured it all, except in terms of Mr. McLeod's question on lease rates and his opinions. I will ask Mr. Murray to respond to that particular part of the question.