Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To err on the side of caution in making sure that we have the ability to continue to pay all our required debts and bills and make payroll and all those type of things, we’re going to put a bill on the table that’s going to request that we raise that $275 to $300 million for the short-term. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Committee, we’re on page 5, Department of Finance, operations expenditures, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $20.037 million.

Agreed. Office of the comptroller general, not previously authorized, negative $175,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $19.862 million.

Committee, we’re on Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, Education, Culture and Employment, not previously authorized, $764,000. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a question with regards to the funding for start-up costs for implementation of Junior Kindergarten, $375,000. I know that JK was a little bit delayed in terms of getting going in some places, and I know that some of the necessary construction projects to get JK where it needed to be were a little bit behind. I would like to know from the Minister whether these construction projects – I think they were about $30,000 each maybe, give or take – have been completed. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Jackson Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Yes, there are three particular projects that this budget earmarked. There’s Chief Julius School, Fort McPherson, the addition of washrooms for JK classes completed September 2014. Mangilaluk School in Tuktoyaktuk, also similar work, completed September. Also, Colville’s school in Colville Lake. That’s been completed this month, October.

So those are areas of JK infrastructure for the amount of money identified. Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister of Education for that information. So, these projects have been completed, yet we have not yet approved the expenditure. It’s my understanding that we have government policy that we’re not allowed to spend money that hasn’t yet been approved by the Legislative Assembly.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Education, either one, but why is it that we have contravened our policy in regard to this particular expense? Thank you.

Yes, we’re fully aware of that process itself. We had to construct these renovations into our school system before school started in September and before the JK started. So the only opportunity we had was over the summer while there were no students in the school system. That was the only opportunity that we had and we needed to move forward or else we would have been challenged with the space and the infrastructure, delivering Junior Kindergarten in these three particular schools. Mahsi.

Thanks for the explanation, but I’m sorry, that’s not good enough. We have a policy which says that if money has not been appropriated, we can’t spend it. The government had to go and approve two special warrants in order to get the funding to fight the fires this summer and special warrants have very specific criteria, but they had to do a special warrant because we had no legislative sitting where we could approve the funding for fire suppression. Yet in this case, albeit it’s a relatively small amount of money, we have said oh, that’s fine, go ahead, do the renovations to Junior Kindergarten, we’ll just get the money later. Really, we should seriously be considering deleting this item because the work is completed. So why do we have to approve this funding at this point?

I’d like to ask the Finance Minister – this is a policy of Finance I thought – what does the Minister of Finance do to make sure that other departments are in line with the policies that we have for appropriations and spending before money is appropriated? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have been the required discussions about the issue that the Member raises, and if the money is not voted on or approved, then the department will be having to absorb those costs from their existing budget. But it’s clear to all parties here that this is not the process that we have laid out to be followed. We have the issues before the House that have been identified by the Members and it’s been dealt with entirely within the government and now we’re here having judgment passed on this request. Thank you.

Thanks. Just one last comment. I appreciate that the Minister says that the situation is understood, that it’s been dealt with, but it again goes to my feeling that it really doesn’t matter what we think because stuff is going to happen and we’ll hear about it after the fact. So I guess I do have a question.

I would like to ask the Finance Minister what he will do in the future to ensure that these sorts of things don’t happen again, or will he change the policies so they can’t. If this is the way we want to go, then let’s change the policy, but let’s not flout the policy and do the work that we think needs to be done before we have the appropriation. Thank you.

I would encourage the Member to think back that we manage a $1.8 billion budget. We have supps on a regular basis and nearly 100 percent of the time, over 99 percent of the time the system works. We have an issue with this supplementary appropriation, which is a relatively small amount, as

the Member said, that didn’t follow all the steps in the process, and we acknowledge that. There’s no plan to change the process because it’s a good process. There is a requirement and need to have the checks and balances and accountability to this Legislature and it’s why we’re here today laying this out, warts and all, for dispensation by the Legislature. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Next we’ll go to Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Ms. Bisaro has set the tone and I do agree with the Minister, we do have a process for 99 percent of the stuff that we do and we’ve got an optional process for the other 1 percent. I think that’s what the issue is here. If we do have a process, we need to follow that process.

I believe when it comes to spending money there are no shades of gray, there’s just white or black, especially dealing with public funds. If it’s our own piggybank or our own money then that’s a different story. But when it comes to public funds, I believe there is no option. The rules are designed specifically for all parties to adhere to. There’s a process in place. So when you look at the appropriation that we’re approving now, after the fact, with respect to this $375,000 for Junior Kindergarten, I can equally say that we have actually embarked on the Junior Kindergarten program without even doing the changes to the act itself to allow Junior Kindergarten to even go forward. We know that’s coming down the road. Really, when you think about this, we have put the cart before the horse on many different levels, both from an operational point of view of Junior Kindergarten, not to mention the physical changes that were required for the number of schools that we are launching it in. I am really disappointed.

Again, to echo what we have already heard, there was no notice of this happening. We found out as we prepared for the business planning cycle a couple of weeks ago, and yet we knew the renovations would have had to have been approved during the summer months to allow the school season to start. Again, there is a huge gap in communication. That element of surprise is showing itself once again in this appropriation document, even though we are hearing that, well, we don’t intend to do this, but we recognize that things are moving fast and we have to move quickly because, God forbid, we don’t want the wheels on the bus to fall off here. Clearly, once again I state, Mr. Chair, we have got optional programs here, it is a pick and choose program at the whim of Cabinet.

I am going to leave it at that. I think Ms. Bisaro did a fine job of bringing it to light and I just wanted to add a little bit of my opinion to the subject.

With respect to this $375,000, my concern is, is this new money that we’re appropriating or is this

money that was used from surplus, from DEAs, DECs or school boards? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s new money. Thank you.

So again, I’m trying to do the math. I’m assuming these appropriations are coming out of short-term cash, and what we’ve heard from the deputy minister, when I asked a question with respect to the $20 million to mitigate the low water rate rider, with that appropriation the equal sign on our bank account, the drawdown was $225 million. Again, I do ask… Maybe I should rephrase my question and it might help when we get to the next page here. If we were to look at all the appropriations that we have before us, both in operations and I know we are going to be doing infrastructure after that, can we have some indication as of today, or within the last week, where are we exactly on our short-term borrowing line with respect to all the appropriations and all of the demands on the short-term account? Are we really at $225 million, say, as of today? Thank you.