I'll hand it to Mr. Bancroft. Thanks.
Debates of March 1st, 2023
This is page numbers 5517 - 5566 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was know.
Topics
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Bancroft
Thank you, Madam Chair. The $8 million that the Member's seeing there is actuals during the last year of the pandemic. And we did have a number of vacancies within court services. And they jumped to 11, that you're seeing in the far right-hand column, is the budget going into 2023-2024. So there were -- we're comparing the savings that we had during COVID times along with the budget which just saw a very slight increase over last year to this year going constant. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. So is that safe then to say are we up to capacity then, and that amount is the amount we actually need for compensation and benefits, or is there still vacancies and some of that money ends up freed up later? I'm just kind of trying to get a gauge if that's, like, the actual number for the compensation and benefits. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Bancroft
Thank you, Madam Chair. We are fully based funded for all of the positions within court services. There will organically be vacancies in any organization, but we are fully resourced in that area. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm not trying to get super hung up on the numbers changing from the COVID year because I do understand that a lot of that had an impact. Again, I sort of have the same question around the sheriff services. You know, there's a $400,000 increase from the COVID year to the next. And I'm just curious to know, again, is that just a rebound from COVID, or is that an actual increase sort of in funding, if that makes sense? Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Bancroft
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, just the change there will be the downturn in court operations during the pandemic. A significant reduction expenditure around travel, overtime for staff related to the travel and court circuits. And, yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
And lastly I guess just a quick question around contract services, which was the opposite of everything else I've been talking about was quite higher during the last year of the pandemic. Dropped again post, and then came back up. What sort of contract services are those? Are they around supports for the actual process there or is it stuff that, you know, is helping with victim services, things like that? Thank you.
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R.J. Simpson Hay River North
Thank you. So all of that work we spoke about earlier that would allow people to appear remotely installing videoconferencing systems, that accounts for that -- those funds. Thank you.
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The Chair Lesa Semmler
Okay. All right. Members, do we have any more questions under court services? Member for Hay River South.
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Rocky Simpson Hay River South
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd just like to ask the Minister if the Hay River courthouse is fully staffed and what is the full staff complement that's required to operate it? Thank you.
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R.J. Simpson Hay River North
Thank you. I believe the full staff complement is eight. I believe there are five court workers, and those are -- I believe those are fully staffed. Or sorry, court officers. I've used the incorrect term for a couple of our positions. So I can hand it to Mr. Bancroft for some more detail on that. Thanks.
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Bancroft
Thank you, Madam Chair. We have seven positions in the Hay River court registry made up of a manager, an administrator, and five court officers. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Rocky Simpson Hay River South
Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope this is the right place for this. I'm just wondering how many JPs do we actually have available in Hay River? Thank you.