Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of the financing of the boards and the dealing with surpluses has been an issue for some time. In order to respond to that in a planned, rational way, there was a change made to how surpluses, defining what a surplus is and how it can be accumulated, so that the rules have been clarified and put in place so that the new Surplus Retention Policy is going to be 1 percent of the revenues up to a maximum of $250,000. As well, we will provide committee members with the information. The work that was done on the budgets of the boards are all based on the audits that are done yearly out of the health boards that document and lay out in some detail the expenditures and where there are cost overruns or not or where there are surpluses. We will share that information with the Members.

As well, I would point out, of course, that health and social services is and will continue to be the single biggest budget item in our budget and the single biggest user of supplementary appropriations all for good reasons, the majority of which is the money will flow to the communities to provide for costs like southern travel, southern placements, and other unexpected costs. I appreciate the concern from all the boards that they wanted some certainty and a clear policy, and we believe we’ve achieved that now. This is a one-time adjustment. From here on in, we should avoid those circumstances as over time there were deficits or surpluses accumulated as they have been in the past. Thank you.