Before I begin the Member’s new set of questions, I just want to say the Member is right from the last question that there are two parts to this funding request, the biggest being what’s in front of us now under capital funding for $904,000.
I also want to address why, when we knew this for a year and a half or so, why did this become urgent and is it lack of planning on the department’s part. Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is this came as a surprise to us, but it does happen when a vendor decides that they will not support software, and, obviously, software, the support is important, that there’s always the ongoing check and if there are bugs, that they will give us maintenance. They have decided to stop doing that. The department did make a proposal to an interdepartmental committee that looks at IT investments such as this, but given this is such a large project, we were asked to look at all options available, including continuing to do a -- there’s a technical language for that -- doing something more compatible to what we were using already or should we go to another program or looking at all of the funding options. That’s why we did not make the ’09-10 funding schedule and we are going into having to come back for a supp.
We were also asked to look for some internal funding and we were able to… The total cost project for this is about $1.7 million. We’re asking for $904,000. We were able to find some funding from within plus the money that the IT committee gave us.
I think there were some third questions. Right. The vendor told us that they would no longer support after December ’09, but they gave us a conditional extension until the end of December, but they would not give us full technical support. They would just have it on, so to speak. So we are at risk of not changing this as soon as possible. At the same time, they’re charging us a premium for that conditional use. Whereas the normal charge would be about $58,000, they’re charging us $230,000 for using this service conditionally.
The last part I think that’s of value to the Members is that this system is hooked up to Canada Health Infoway where we get funding from the federal government, and there are some milestones that we need to meet. We need to have this to meet that, in order for us to get reimbursed for about $700,000. So there are many reasons why this couldn’t come right away and why it is imperative that we get this approved and get the project going as soon as possible. Thank you.