Don Stewart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the short answer would be yes, but it really is based on, as opposed to just going in with the $2 million, it is as we refine estimates of cost and those sorts of things or identify new sites, it is sort of up to $2 million. Although, obviously, if some event happened and you had to allocate more, then we would have to come back for a supplementary appropriation or those sorts of things. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks, Mr. Chair. The Member I think is looking at page 141. What we have done is, rather than just combine it under deputy secretary of the FMB, we separated out the Mackenzie Valley fibre link payments, which is the $13,987,000. The other $2.8 million is other costs related to the office of the deputy secretary of the FMB, so it is salaries and those sorts of things. The other thing it includes, as you can see it is significantly higher than last year, it also includes the amortization for the fibre link project in that value.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I tend to agree with the Member on this. This is part of the reason for the changes to the Child Tax Benefit that are in the Income Tax Act. We are moving some of that from the legislation to regulation, which will make it easier to increase rates into the future. You know, I do not want to call it a historical artifact, but when these pieces of legislation were set up they often had that, and I think the concept that the Member is talking about makes good sense to make it easier to adjust these as you go forward. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. There were two positions that were reduced. They were involved in the devolution implementation. One is in the management and recruitment services and one is in strategic human resources.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The program costs in the directorate are related to the deputy minister’s office, the office of the Chief Information Officer, and the shared corporate services unit that will be providing the services to both Department of Finance as well as Executive and Indigenous Affairs. Thank you.

Sorry, Mr. Chair. Could I get the Member to repeat the question?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right now, we get information from the boards on their current suite of teachers and their salaries. We then do adjustments for any expectation, not just for teachers but for all staff, any expectation of staff increases, those sorts of things, and any collective bargaining increases that would be expected in the upcoming year. On that basis, we calculate the expected salary and benefit requirements for every board. That is what goes in for that portion of the budget, currently is the way we do it. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member is probably aware, there is a funding framework that goes with how we fund the various boards that is linked to any wage or salary-type information as well as benefits as well as enrolments is a key input to that. That is the basis on which we come up with an initial estimate across the various components that go into the contributions to the boards. Then the boards take that and develop their budgets off of those estimates that we give them for the initial amount, working within the framework that we give them for the total. We do give them the detail on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The value that's in there is the total cost of operating the Student Financial Assistance program. That $16.4 million breaks down, and these are approximate numbers, there's about $685,000 for the staff that operate the program, there's about $13.3 million that are the grants that actually go out for the basic allowance and the supports that are provided. There's a small amount of other O and M for materials and travel, but the biggest other portion is a valuation allowance for student loans. It's about $2.4 million. That’s the difference between the amount that goes out...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Minster noted, we've recently gone through a review of our funding framework, the way we calculate the resources to boards. There are a number of changes that we did and worked with the boards on. One of the things that we are looking at is how we fund positions. There are some changes that need to take place. This won't impact the 2016-17 school year; it will be subsequent years to that. For example, the way the benefits have been calculated in the past is somewhat inconsistent with the way it is overall in the GNWT, and we think we need to align that.

Secondly, right...