Thank you, Mr. Ouellette. Mr. Dolynny.
Madam Chair, are these costs reflected in this operating budget? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Speaker.
Madam Chair, not to pre-empt the detail of the budget, but when we look at statutory officers and operations expenditure summary, there is somewhat of a large decrease, albeit we also see an increase in the Information and Privacy Commissioner which I believe is going to full time. But we’re spending roughly $160,000 less this year than last year and yet we’re hearing that we’re having to make an investment into this new storefront location. Maybe I can get some direction. Where are these expenditures for this so-called dedication to this single storefront location? Where is it in the budget? Thank you.
I’ll let Mr. Ouellette take that one. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Ouellette.
Thank you, Madam Chair. When we look under the Languages Commissioner, under the detail, previously last year she had an operations budget of $250,000. That was when the Languages Commissioner was from the Inuvik region. That’s decreased to $173,000 because of the move to the Yellowknife area, and there was also a re-profiling of one of the staff positions. The Information and Privacy Commissioner, previously the budget for that was $62,000 a year. That was because of the approach that was used for the Information and Privacy Commissioner. It was an as required per hour fee base and it’s now moved to a fixed rate annually. There’s also been an operations budget that has been provided for that particular stat office.
The Human Rights Adjudication Panel has essentially stayed the same budget. It hasn’t moved from the $210,000 per year. It could be challenging just to put a number on that one because it is case dependent for that particular statutory office. But one of the things that we’ll be working with is that they will be sharing staffing resources. Last year the Human Rights Adjudication Panel was providing a charge for that particular service for us.
Thank you, Mr. Ouellette. Mr. Dolynny.
Madam Chair, I have no further questions.
Thank you. Any further general comments on the budget of the Legislative Assembly?
Detail.
Thank you, Members. Would you please stand down page 5? We will return to it. Page 6, revenue summary, information item. Are there any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you. Active position summary, information item.
Agreed.
Expenditures on behalf of Members, operations expenditure summary, $8.999 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The biggest increase in the budget for the Legislative Assembly is the compensation and benefits, $1 million roughly. Could I get just some explanation of what this is about? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Mercer.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Two primary reasons for that, one is the payment of a transition allowance to an expected six Members who we are budgeting for and may not be returning. The second one is a reflection in our pension accounting for the fact that we have adopted Canadian, as opposed to American, mortality tables, which has resulted in an increase to the accounting treatment for the MLA pension plans. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Mercer. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The second one, I’m not astute enough to understand or have the context to understand that one, but I’ll explore that one maybe out of the House. Thank you for that response.
I also see the increase of operating expenses, and perhaps that’s included in the response I got, but operating expenses of about $600,000 and the Member’s pension expenses are about $400,000. I think that was part of the explanation I just heard. But the first one, are there some details I could have on that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Ouellette.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s actually a combination of a number of expenses. As Mr. Mercer had mentioned, one of them was due to a pension expense increase, which is sort of a non-cash expense that has to be provided on the books of the Assembly according to the Public Accounting Standards for pensions. Then we also have, I guess, cost of living increases that are calculated in there on an annual rate. Then we also had some transition costs for moving to the next Assembly. Mr. Mercer mentioned that there were transition allowances. We make some assumptions in terms of how many Members will be outgoing, how many new Members will be incoming, and for the new incoming Members we also have to account for new office expenditures and that sort of thing.
There are also a couple of other allowances in there, retraining allowances that we make some assumptions on in terms of how many of those allowances we’ll have to budget for in the upcoming fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Ouellette. That’s everything. Are there any further questions on expenditures on behalf of Members, operations expenditure summary, $8.999 million?
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, operations expenditure summary, $1.65 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, active positions, information item.
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, $8.409 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to check on that contract service, the slight increase over last year’s. I’m just wondering if there are details available for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Mercer.
Madam Chair, the majority of that increase in contract services is as a result of renovations required to the first floor of the Laing Building to accommodate the three new statutory officers.
Thank you, Mr. Mercer. Office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, $8.409 million. Mr. Yakeleya.
Madam Chair, I just want to let the Speaker know and also the Office of the Clerk that I appreciate the work that their staff do to accommodate us during our busy work as MLAs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, $8.409 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Clerk, active positions, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Office of the Speaker, operations expenditure summary, $356,000.
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Speaker, grants, contributions and transfers.
Agreed.
Thank you. Office of the Speaker, active positions, information item.
Agreed.
Thank you. Statutory offices, operations expenditure summary, $1.761 million.
Agreed.
Page 24, statutory offices, grants, contributions and transfers, contributions, $250,000.
Agreed.
