Total department, not previously authorized, $50,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 4, Human Resources, operations expenditures, employee services, not previously authorized, $1.394 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. A question here. I guess I’m just a little bit surprised that we didn’t anticipate these increased costs. We’re almost $1.4 million in increased costs for benefit payments basically on behalf of our employees. Could I get an explanation from the Minister as to why we couldn’t foresee these increased costs? Thank you.
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Member will recognize, we have an aging workforce. We have a growing number of employees and the other one that we don’t have a control over is the growing number of referrals that are requiring medical travel. Thank you.
Certainly those explanations make sense, but I guess if we know those things, why are we not budgeting for increased costs at the time that we put the original budget on the floor? Thank you.
The two that are related, most directly related, are the aging workforce and the growing number of referrals. While we know we have an aging workforce, it’s hard to anticipate the amount of referrals. We tend to base our budget numbers on the previous year’s expenditures and the other thing as we go from budget year to budget year the number of employees we try to budget are based on actuals and not projections. Thank you.
The Minister just leads me into sort of my next thought, my next question. I mean, why do we budget on last year’s numbers if we know that we’re going to have demographics that are going to likely cause us to have an increase? So it’s kind of a rhetorical question, I’ve said this before; I have great difficulty in the fact that we establish our original budgets based on numbers which we expect to change and then come back three or four times during the year and say, oh, gee whiz, we need more money. So more of a comment than anything, Mr. Chair.
Minister, did you want to respond to the comment?
I just thank the Member for her comments and her rhetorical question.
Okay, we’re on page 4, Human Resources, operations expenditures, employee services, not previously authorized, $1.394 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $1.394 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 5, Municipal and Community Affairs, operations expenditures, regional operations, not previously authorized, $392,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $392,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving on, Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, program delivery support, not previously authorized, $1.136 million. Mrs. Groenewegen.
I think maybe my question is on something else, it’s not that number I’m questioning.
Okay. Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, program delivery support, not previously authorized, $1.136 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Health services programs, not previously authorized, $4.269 million. Agreed? Mr. Bromley.
Mr. Chair, the payments for contribution funding of the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority for increased costs associated with the pension plan and so on, it’s been raised before, I think we’ve dealt with this before. Has the department done an analysis of whether it would be indeed economic to bring these employees into the fold and enjoy some reasonable payback and reduced costs over the longer term? Some of the figures I’ve heard, which were unconfirmed figures, suggested that, yeah, this might be a six or eight-year payback, after which costs would be reduced. So I guess I’m looking or have we done that analysis? Goodness knows we keep dealing with this every year it seems to come up on a supp. I’m not sure about that either, but again, where are we at on that? Thank you.
Deputy Minister Melhorn.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The cost estimates that we have now, and they are estimates only and they are ranges, because there are a number of unknowns involved. It would be about $2.5 million to $4.5 million we estimate, associated with winding up the existing pension plan, and between $1 million and $10 million associated with transferring employees to the Government of the Northwest Territories. The very wide range is due to the fact that employees have a number of options they could select with respect to their pension arrangement. They can choose the option that is most beneficial to them, but unless you know which option is chosen, you can’t specifically cost it.
I would presume with that information that there are details to it and there must be opportunities over time narrowing down those options, putting a strategy together to do that on the lower end of the cost range. Are we looking at that, Mr. Chairman, putting that together? Thank you.
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given the knowledge of the figures, the last serious effort to this was back in 2003-2004. Back then, the costs even then were considered excessive, given the money that was available, and have only increased since then. So we haven’t pursued this as an active initiative as of late. Thank you.
I wonder if the Minister could tell me how this situation developed and is it likely to continue to grow, and any chance that it would spread elsewhere as a virus. Thank you.
In regards to bargaining units, this is the one bargaining unit outside the UNW bargaining unit that is currently there for the remainder of employees, plus the NWTTA. Outside of that are the LHOs, which are a separate issue, but the Hay River Health Centre bargaining unit is the only one that is in existence. Thank you.
I guess I don’t have enough information to suggest a strategy to the Minister, other than I hope he will look at it and see if there is a long-term plan to resolve it. Thank you.
More of a comment. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the advice from the Member.
Okay we are on page 6. We are dealing with health services programs, not previously authorized, $4.269 million.
Agreed
Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to echo the comments of my colleague Mr. Bromley. We have talked about the issue with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority and their employees for quite some time now and my comment is simply just bite the bullet and do it and get it done. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. More of a comment. Mr. Minister, do you want to respond?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the sentiment. The issue is going to be as we look at this supplementary for all the other costs for health, is going to be identifying the funds to make the initial transfer. Thank you.
Any other questions? Health services programs, not previously authorized, $4.269 million.
Agreed
Supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $600,000.
Agreed
Community health programs, not previously authorized, $2.283 million. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Something that has always been of concern to me is the amount of money that we spend on facilities in the South. There are two items here, one is for increased costs associated with children in residential care outside the Northwest Territories and the other one is the increased costs with adults in residential care outside the Northwest Territories. I know that we went some distance toward our ambition to repatriate some adults with the assisted living facility in Hay River and they have the capacity for 10 full-time residents or clients in that facility, but it seems like the demand for these southern services continues to grow and I would like to know what the government’s response is to that and what opportunities for further consideration of offering care, opportunities, options for these folks in the Northwest Territories so they are not going south, which, if they require specialized treatment and care, I am still of the belief that we have the ability to recruit and retain and attract workers here with the kind of skills that they would need.
I see it as advantageous to keep residents in the North, as well, for reasons of closeness to family and reduced travel costs, and just the fees that are charged for these kinds of placements seem very, very high. So I would like to ask the Minister what kind of discussions or thoughts are had in response to these kinds of increased costs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These particular circumstances with children in southern placements and adults are constantly being assessed. There is a changing variety of presenting problems, multiple needs, many in high need categories, and the challenge is that you may only have one or two clients that have very specific high needs that can only be met in a specialized facility. If you have a number of those clients across a number of very expensive facilities, it limits our ability to meet all those different needs under one program area.
We did take a look at this, as the Member pointed out, with the adult assisted living campus in Hay River. We did manage to repatriate. The other challenge is, of course, that as we repatriate, we do have needs in clients, both children and adults, that require services that aren’t available. As we have done over the years, we have slowly built up our program base. We have assessed these and we have built facilities, we have repatriated and we are struggling with the complexities of some of the problems as well as the demand that has yet to level off. Thank you.
Does the Minister have numbers available as to how many adults and how many children are currently... This is just an appropriation for additional funds. Does the Minister have a number of people that are in care, adults and children, and what the total cost is? Because I don’t think we are seeing the full picture here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
