Agreed.
School of Community Government, not previously authorized, $10,000.
Agreed.
Lands administration, not previously authorized, $20,000.
Agreed.
Sport, recreation and youth regional operations, not previously authorized, $8,000.
Agreed.
Regional operations, not previously authorized, $7,000.
Agreed.
Total Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, operations expenditures, not previously authorized, $93,000.
Agreed.
Moving onto page 10. Public Works and Services, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, negative $3,000. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wonder if I could just get an explanation. I see there are a number of transactions related to the implementation of financial shared services. I believe that this is an opportunity for increased efficiency and, ultimately, lower operations costs. This is sort of related to the previous one we had – $436,000 – where various departments have expenses listed. I wonder if I could just get an explanation.
Again, are we further ahead? Are there efficiencies and savings related to these new expenditures for shared financial services? Just a brief explanation overview would help here.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to the Member’s question, the amounts of money that he sees transferring out of the various departments into financial shared services and the Department of Finance represents the amount of resources and, in some cases, people that are transferring from line departments into finance that will be undertaking the financial transaction processing on behalf of departments. The intent is to relieve program managers in the line departments from the day-to-day routine transactions such as travel claims, paying bills and stuff like that, and standardizing that process across the GNWT into one processing place, which will be in the Department of Finance.
In terms of getting efficiencies, we hope once the processes are standardized and the routines are down, that we’ll start to see the efficiencies in the amount of time it takes to process claims and the amount of less time it takes to receive money and get bills paid. Right now we have a Financial Shared Service Centre up and running in Inuvik in the Beaufort-Delta. That’s the first centre. We have plans to undertake in Norman Wells in January and February, and then later on in the early part of the next fiscal year in the South Slave and then into headquarters is the plan. We’ll see transactions like this or transfers such as these over the next year, year and a bit. That will allow us to fully utilize the investment we’ve made in our new financial system corporately. Really what it will have us do is we’re finding now that things aren’t necessarily done the same way in every department and we hope to standardize that process, thereby making those transactions more routine, more efficient and relieving departmental managers of that duty, and letting them concentrate on managing their budgets and making use of the financial system to make better decisions in managing their budgets.
Thanks for that explanation. It does seem logical and like a reasonable investment to me. I did, however, hear the words “we hope” and “we expect to see” and whatnot, and I would agree that that’s a reasonable expectation. I agree on the hope part. Obviously, we would hope there was some analysis done that would indicate the high probability of savings here. I expect that’s the case.
This is a complex thing to measure, but will we have some monitoring in place and an ultimate evaluation plan? I know, over the years, we’ve seen a lot of back and forth within and between departments and across departments to wrestle with this problem. I’m just hoping that we, obviously, have some form of evaluation in place to ensure we capture the lessons that are to be learned here.
Certainly, we do have some clear objectives and we do have a matrix where we can measure the efficiencies around the transactions. Like I say, right now we only have the Beaufort-Delta office up and running, so after it’s been up and running for some time, we’ll be able to provide Members with the results of that. It will probably be a year or two years until we get the whole system up and running that we’ll be able to get the larger picture, but certainly, as the Beau-Del gets up and running and we trudge on into the Sahtu and the South Slave we’ll be able to provide the reports, after we monitor them for a while, to Members.
Thank you, again, for those remarks from the deputy minister. That sounds reasonable to me. I know that this will take a little time to put in place, and I would think it would take even longer to do an evaluation. I just appreciate the opportunity to ask questions and make sure that that evaluation process is in place. That’s all the questions I had.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Public Works and Services, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, negative $3,000.
Agreed.
Asset management, not previously authorized, $4.088 million. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As the department knows, and the Minister, I treat every capital project with the same lens and same measuring stick, and I’m doing so with this project as well.
My first question is with respect to this $3.9 million for demolition work done to the E3 school program. Could the Minister give a breakdown where exactly that $3.935 million is being used?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Of the $3.935 million being requested, $3.3 million will be for the demolition of Samuel Hearne Secondary School, $635,000 will be used to undertake some further investigative work and prepare Sir Alexander Mackenzie School for demolition in 2013-14.
Thank you very much. This clarifies, I think, yesterday’s other question that we had, so I’m glad we’re seeing clarity here today on that. I appreciate it very much.
If, by chance, the amount of demolition for the $3.3 million comes in under budget, what happens to that surplus of money if there is one?
Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The money would be lapsed and returned to the government coffers.
I would assume that there was a tracking mechanism for that money, and that may be responded to with my other question.
We know that this is the first of potentially two or more phases of demolition work to really complete the whole project of demolition. Can we get some type of idea what the scope or magnitude of the total budget for demolition or remediation is for that project?
Thank you, Madam Chair. The combined projects come to $8.855 million.
I guess my other question is: Has there been any other remediation or site preparation work done in previous years that have been added to the project in general, or is this the only time we have seen this type of remediation work with this project? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Other than I think it was referred to as destructive testing to find out what was actually there, that was referenced yesterday, this is the only work that has been done in terms of the demolition and remediation. Thank you.
The department indicated that there were bids or tenders that have gone out for the $3.3 million component of the first part of the money. When did this RFP close and when would we expect the beginning of such demolition? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The tender for this work closed just a couple of weeks ago and the contract will be awarded if this budget is approved. I would expect that the work would commence shortly. Thank you.
One final question, Madam Chair. The Minister of Finance indicated if there should be any savings in design, that money should be transferred to general coffers.
Again, My Question To The Department Minister Is: As a Regular Member, how is one able to track such money going into such coffers? What is the mechanism, Madam Chair?
When the Financial Management Board approved this for consideration by the Assembly, the department was also directed that should any funds be surplused, they are to be lapsed at the end of the fiscal year. Thank you.
I am still confused. As a Regular Member, we have the right to follow funds or capital expenditures. Should there be any surplus in a project, how is one able to track that back? We are hearing about lapsed monies. I am a bit confused, Madam Chair. How do we track these so-called savings going back to general coffers?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The year-end accounting will capture all the money across government that has lapsed. One of the specific ways, if there is direction of committee, we could look at a negative supp that would specifically target any funds should they be lapsed on this project. Thank you.
I think that is the clarity I am looking for. No further questions.
Thank you, committee. Public Works and Services, operations expenditures, asset management, not previously authorized, $4.088 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Public Works and Services, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $4.085 million.
Agreed.
Agreed. Thank you. Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $63,000.
Agreed.
Program delivery support, not previously authorized, $169,000.
Agreed.
Health services programs, not previously authorized, $1.212 million. Mr. Bromley.
