Thank you, Madam Chair. When it comes to the vacancies there’s any number, a host of things that could affect those particular jobs and you’d have to go over them almost position by position. Is it maternity leave issues? Is it a transfer assignment issue? Is it one where it’s difficult to fill and we’re doing a contract arrangement? As a government we haven’t fully funded the benefits for departments. We fund $17 million and it’s actually $23 million, so there’s a 6 percent spread and departments have been told to fund that from within. So what departments have done historically is looked at their vacancy rate to free up that money, which can be a significant amount of money if you have a very large staff complement and you’re short 6 percent on pay and benefits. You have to also be able to absorb, in some cases, retirement costs, which is an issue we’ve been making efforts, as a government, to in fact now start to fully fund departments so that we can get away from that and have, as the Member’s pointed out, a clear accounting of what money is being used and where it’s being spent. So, Madam Chair, those are some of the issues that would eat up some of that money that is there in vacant positions. Thank you.
Michael Miltenberger on Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 25th, 2015. See this statement in context.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
February 24th, 2015
See context to find out what was said next.