Is committee agreed that we’ve concluded the Department of Transportation?

Thank you, committee. I think next on our list we were going to review…Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Minister. I will thank your witnesses as well and get the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort them out of the Chamber. Thank you.

Committee, our next item of business was Tabled Document 17-16(3), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-09. Before we go into that, we’ll take a break.

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Okay, colleagues. I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have before us for consideration Tabled Document 17-16(3), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009. Does committee agree?

I will call on the Minister of Finance for opening remarks. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009. This document outlines additional appropriations of $17.833 million for operation expenditures and $6 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

Major items for operation expenditures include:

1. $5.1 million for costs associated with

Northwest Territories residents receiving hospital and physician services outside of the Northwest Territories;

2. $2.8 million for the increased costs associated

with the new contractor between the Government of the Northwest Territories and NWT physicians;

3. $1.6 million for increased costs associated with

children in residential care outside the Northwest Territories;

4. $1.2 million for increased costs associated with

the Territorial Power Subsidy Program.

The major item for capital investment expenditures is the $3 million to advance construction of an all-weather road from Tuktoyaktuk to gravel source 177, a Building Canada Plan project.

Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to review the details of the supplementary appropriation document. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Any general comments? Before I go to that, Minister Miltenberger, do you have witnesses you would like to call?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, committee. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses in and the Minister to introduce them. Thank you.

Minister Miltenberger, please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance, and Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to FMB.

Welcome to the House. General remarks. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just to be consistent with statements or comments that I made during the review of supp one and the review of supp two in the previous budget session, we had talked about the previous supp amount of $25 million, $15 million of that was taken and rolled back into the departments and I believe, and at the time many of my colleagues believed as well, that that was to help the department’s plan so they wouldn’t have to come forward with as many supps, which left $10 million for supps to come forward. Between the first and second supp we had spent $6 million, leaving us with around $3 million. When I go through this, this supp, on the operations expenditure side is $17.88 million, which is significantly higher than the $10 million we started with and $3 million we had left. When I go through it I see a lot of that money is actually a nil effect to the GNWT because money is coming from other sources, but there is still about an $11 million hit against our $3 million that we had available, which actually puts us a long way over what we’d originally allocated for supps for the ‘08-09 fiscal year. So I’d like the Minister to explain that and talk a little bit more about that, given that we had hoped that we wouldn’t go so high over the supp.

I think the total now with this $11 million is going to be around $18 million, which is less than the $25 million we had in previous years, but it’s really $18 million plus the $15 million that we gave the departments already so that they didn’t have to come back. So we’re talking about $33 million that the supp would have been this year if we hadn’t changed the way we were doing things.

Mostly this statement is as a reminder that we had not wanted to go so high in supps and if we’re going to do this in the future, and I think we’ve already done it or it’s proposed for ‘09-10 to go to this similar sort of supp breakdown, we need to make sure that the departments are actually

thinking about what their future expenditures are going to be. Some of these things in here -- and we’ll talk to them individually as we get to them -- I think could have been predicted. Not all of them I think are surprises. A supp is supposed to be for surprises, things that we can’t plan for. I think as we go through this one in particular, because it’s just so much money, I think we can identify ones that the department should have been able to plan for to some capacity even if it had been a projection. I’d like to not see this much in the way of supps coming in for the ‘09-10 fiscal year, and this is only number three, I know there’s going to be a number four. So we’re even going to be higher by the time we’re done.

So just some comments and I’d like some clarity on what our intentions are with the $10 million supp fund once the Minister does his response to our general comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Any further general comments? Thank you, committee. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, over the last five years this is the second lowest amount of supps if you look at the list that we gave you, including the $15 million that was already apportioned out. I think ‘04-05 was probably the year that was slightly lower. Every other year was significantly higher.

I take the Member’s comments. We’ve had this discussion about the process and it’s not surprises so much as we targeted areas where we know that there’s costs we may not control, and rather than build in estimates into the budget, which can be imprecise, the direction has been to departments to in those areas where, like some of the hospital health costs come back when you’ve spent the money, or as you’ll notice in some of the information that we’ve given you there is some significant cost increases from some of the out-of-territory suppliers.

We’re always interested, this is a new process where we took $15 million and carved it up among the departments. We would like to be as precise as possible, as well, and we’re very interested in working with committee to figure out what’s the best way to be as accurate as possible in this area. Keeping in mind all the years that I have been around, even before we came in government there always seemed to be these types of costs in government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. We’ll move on to detail if committee is agreed.

We’ll start on page 5, Legislative Assembly, operations expenditures, Office of the Clerk, not previously authorized, $120,000. Is committee agreed?

Total department, not previously authorized, $120,000. Agreed?

Moving to page 6. Executive, operations expenditures, executive offices, not previously authorized, executive operations, $163,000.