Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It would be that number, 42, isn’t a static number. It keeps changing. As the deputy minister mentioned, we filled 20 positions. That number will keep changing. It’s a rolling process where we identify positions that need to be filled and then we fill them. That number is always going to change. It’s not always going to be 42. It’s not always going to be 20 that we’ve filled just recently. Some months it may be more, other months it may be less, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
These types of questions are sometimes asked in committee, but the public lacks the ability to be in committee to hear the answers. Vacancy has been a bit of an issue right now and I would think the department would be somewhat ready for this or at least know they would be asked some of these questions. What is the value of the 42 positions? There must be some sort of rolling dollar amount. As the Minister said, these are a rolling process. There must be some assessment of what human resources dollars aren’t being consumed in the department in this particular case. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, we did come prepared to answer the questions. A lot of this information was provided to committee two weeks ago. The Members made assumptions on vacant positions and what their value is. If you have 42 positions and we filled 20 of them, that leaves you with 22 vacant positions. You can do the math quickly for what a full encumbered position costs the Government of the Northwest Territories and figure that out easily. It’s not rocket science.
Again, it is a rolling average, Mr. Chairman, and something that not just the Department of Justice deals with, but every department across government. We do the best to fill the vacant positions that we have. Thank you.
I keep asking the question for the benefit of the public. It’s been stressed, reaffirmed, continued… Ms. Bisaro’s phone is ringing there. They must be calling in with the number, I guess.
I keep asking the same question that is not before the public and I’m trying to get it on the public record. Is the Minister unwilling or unprepared to answer the question I keep asking about the value of these positions when it comes to the monetary portion? Thank you.
It’s almost impossible to answer that question because some positions are vacant for a month, others are vacant for two months. You have to bring in casuals at some point to carry out the duties of those positions on a case-by-case basis. It is not something that you can just put a number at and say this is that. We have a department to run and we’re always filling positions as they come up. That number is going to change, as is the number that’s there. It’s not a static number. It’s something that’s constantly changing. Thank you.
A moment ago on the record, the Minister told me to just do the math, you can figure it out. Now he’s telling me it’s impossible to calculate. Which is it and what can the department provide? Thank you.
Mr. Hawkins, I believe that question has been asked and answered. Do you have another question?
Well, the Minister just told me I can do the math. Now he’s telling me it’s impossible to calculate and he can’t calculate that value, so I’m trying to understand. How much of this is in resource value, in the sense of dollars and, perhaps, what’s the average vacancy of the Department of Justice? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I mentioned that earlier, that was a ballpark number. If you have 20 or 22 vacant positions, you could arrive at a number, but that’s not going to be the number you have to go with because it’s always changing and evolving. On an annual basis the vacancy rate at the Department of Justice is roughly 9 percent. We continue to fill positions to the best of our ability day in and day out, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Hawkins, your time has expired. Just let me know if you want to get back on the list. Committee, we’re on 9-10, Justice, information item, active position summary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of relief positions, there doesn’t seem to be a protocol for reporting those and I don’t even know if they’re part-time positions or seasonal. If we have seasonal, they’re not here.
Is there any way of bringing transparency in reporting? Is that something the Minister could look into and report back to the House at some point to see what would be an appropriate way to bring some transparency to that?
I realize the dollars are in the budget, so I think the transparency is there, we ask the appropriate questions, but it might be useful just to make it transparent from the start. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is something that we could look into. Given the nature of the facilities that we operate, the corrections facilities that we operate, the requirement for relief workers is there. That’s something that is real for us.
In terms of reporting it, that’s something I will talk to the officials about and we’ll see if there’s a better way to report that and show that relief worker number. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for the commitment. The second question is: I understand there’s a legal translator position that will be deactivated. I believe that’s a funded position. I’m wondering what happens to those dollars. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll go to Ms. Haener for that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That position was created in anticipation of needing that function to support the implementation of devolution. As it turned out as we worked forward with our planning, we did not need that position. There was no funding associated with it and it is being deactivated. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Haener. Moving on with questions on page 9-10, I have Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister said there was an average, if I understood it correctly, vacancy of 9 percent for the Department of Justice. For the folks at home and certainly for the Members, specific to the Department of Justice, what would that add up to?
Mr. Hawkins, I will get you just to add the disclaimer at the end of your question. Mr. Hawkins.
The 9 percent I am referring to specifically, what would that add up to in dollar value? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, 10 percent of the 475 positions that we have times the fully encumbered cost of those positions would give you that figure. Thank you.
What is the fully encumbered cost or the average the department is using? Again, I can’t use committee documentation that the Minister keeps referring to here because it was given in camera. It makes it difficult when he keeps saying it was given to us, but we can’t reference it specifically. That is why I’m asking what is the average cost used for the fully encumbered cost per position as he’s highlighting. Thank you.
The full compensation and benefits paid to GNWT employees on an annual basis divided by the number of employees would give you that calculation. Thank you.
Not all employees are created equally and there’s an average being used. I mean, a deputy minister’s salary is much different than a clerk’s salary and certainly a correctional officer’s salary is different than, say, a director’s salary, so it’s difficult to know what reference he’s using or not wanting to ask. Is there a reason why he doesn’t want to assist with the clarification of this number?
The Member asked for an average, so I was trying my best to give him an average.
What would the dollar value be of that particular average? Could the Minister put it on the record?
It would be under $6 million.
Thank you for that. If we may work with just under $6 million, then, as a figure, if there is just under $6 million in resources in the department wrapped up in the rolling average of vacancies within the department, does the department have a utilization plan specific to those types of dollars and how is that money spent?
That’s not how it works. The turnover government-wide on an annual basis is about 10 percent. Last year the government turned over roughly 600 positions government-wide. I’ll ask Deputy Minister Haener to help explain why that’s not the case.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Ms. Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the numbers that the Minister was previously referencing would be an annual amount, but as you know, positions are rarely vacant for a year. Sometimes they may be vacant for days if we’re able to hire a casual to fill behind someone who has resigned. Vacancy lengths vary and trying to come up with a number in terms of the salary dollars would be challenging.
Thank you, Ms. Haener. Mr. Hawkins.
Generally, I would agree with I’ll call it the broad observation provided by the deputy minister, and I would say, from my point of view, I hear your point, but the issue of a 10 percent average, as the Minister has highlighted, a 9 percent average as he said earlier specific to the Department of Justice, and this dollar amount adding up to, on a rolling basis, just under $6 million. That tells me that if a position is open, there are dollars not being allocated whatever number of days that it’s not being allocated towards. Now, you don’t pay casuals at 100 percent of the normal cost and they don’t cost the full value of what a full-time employee may have cost, so they’re rolling dollars that are being left, I guess, in the system as positions are being filled and being made vacant. At the same time, I agree that, yes, in some cases it may be short periods of time they’re vacant; however, at the same time there are positions where there are extended vacancies so that’s where we get the rolling average, I would assume.
If there is a rolling average then I would ask this: If the Minister has identified just under $6 million that’s attributed to the approximate 9 percent vacancy in the Department of Justice, out of that just under $6 million, how much money is basically not being spent in the department on human resources? Because this is probably a calculation the department makes every year when they look at rolling the money back as a surplus at the end of the year.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The assumption the Member is making is that the vacant positions are vacant for the entire year. That, of course, is not the case. That’s not reality, but I’ll go to Ms. Schofield for a further explanation.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Ms. Schofield.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The 9 percent that was used was based on the vacant positions from the number of positions we have, and when you had asked the question about how much that would work into dollar amounts, a simple calculation was done to take that 9 percent or 10 percent and apply it to the salary dollar amount, so it doesn’t necessarily correlate, like the deputy minister had said, because there are varying times throughout the year how long those positions are vacant. For example, in the main estimates document, in 2012-13 the department spent almost $54 million on salaries, compensation and benefits and our main estimates amount for ’13-14 was roughly $55 million, so if you take into consideration that there would have been a salary increase in ’13-14, we’re spending our salary dollars, so they are being spent in the department. There is not a lot of leeway or leverage there associated with a vacancy.
Thank you, Ms. Schofield. Mr. Hawkins.
There must be some of those salary dollars not being specifically allocated to human resources, because when you have the rolling vacancy that means there’s a vacancy. Yes, sometimes it’s 9 percent and sometimes it’s probably down to 4 percent, other times it must be 15 percent. That’s why we pick an average to work off of and that’s why I asked the department about the average. How much of that money isn’t being allocated to human resource dollars and where is that money going?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
It’s being spent on compensation and benefits for the employees that we have at the Department of Justice. We operate 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 day a year operations at our facilities and those dollars are spent in the areas that the Members see in the main estimates.
I can take that at face value, but how do you account for 9 percent vacancies and just say that all the money is being used up? I mean, the money must be going somewhere. I mean, when you add up 9 percent, which is just under $6 million, there are vacancies so that position, whatever the vacancy is attributed to specifically, that money has got to go somewhere, and that’s the money I’m asking about. What we’re hearing is it’s just being gobbled up through other human resource needs. That may be the technical fact, but how it gets there is kind of the issue I’m getting at. I hear that we have just under $6 million left on the table and yet it’s mysteriously being used through human resource things that I’m not seeing the direct connection to. That’s the connection I’m trying to get here, because quite frankly I mean, if a direct…
Quite frankly, what I’m seeing here is that, for example, if a director’s position was empty, I mean, you just don’t fill it with a casual that day. That’s an example, for goodness sakes, so we don’t take that on as an actual. You have the position vacancies. I don’t. The point being is in a director’s salary, I mean, where does it go? Oh, my goodness, you have more time at the jail and more time in the courts and money may be spent in those areas? Probably, but I view it as money that is specifically passed by this Legislature should be going to those particular allocations, and I’m trying to sort of put my finger on some of that.
Mr. Hawkins, was there a question in there?
I’m trying to put my finger on those allocations as to where the money is going. Thank you.
Okay. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the Member is looking for a connection in the Department of Justice, there isn’t one there. We have the main estimates before us today. The Member talked about a director’s position. We’d look at putting somebody in there in an acting capacity. We’d look at perhaps training somebody. There are transfer assignments. There’s maternity leave, the use of casual, relief workers. The money that we do have is certainly earmarked for compensation and benefits to our employees.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, we’re on 9-10, Justice, information item, active position summary. Any questions?
