Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to continue with questions towards the Minister of Human Resources, and again it’s about the GNWT vacancies. So let’s start with what we know. We know that there are 571 jobs that the GNWT is actively pursuing, and we all know that there are possibly 100 or 200 other jobs that they’re not pursuing. We can only assume that when you consider and extrapolate the numbers the Finance Minister has used that could be anywhere from $10 million to $20 million.
So let’s start with this: How many jobs out there are not being actively filled and sometimes are defined as dormant or inactive jobs? How much money is being allocated and where do we find these resource jobs referred to as dormant or inactive? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The dormant and inactive positions that are not scheduled to be filled in the GNWT as of October 31, 2013, was 161 positions.
I want to thank the Minister for laying out a clear number in front of us. So let’s work with 161 jobs that are not being pursued, of course. So we’ve ignored for just a moment the 571 jobs that are being pursued. Knowing that we have 161 jobs and we use the typical math of about $100,000 per person, that could now put us into the range of about $16 million are out there somewhere just sitting.
Would the Minister agree that some positions are not being filled by departments and that money is being used for other things that the department has on their wish list other than being directed for human resources as further directed by the Legislature itself? Thank you.
At this time many of the dormant and inactive positions are not funded. They’re unfunded positions or just PYs that appear in the PeopleSoft as dormant and inactive positions. We are undertaking an analysis with all of the departments to determine if any of these positions are funded and with the ones of the inactive, dormant positions that have funding attached to it, what is happening specifically with that funding and for what other personnel use is that money used for.
The Minister said many. Many could be one or two, three or four, maybe even 100. We don’t know, because in my first question, of course, I asked exactly and the question was how much money is being allocated to these jobs. So right now all I can do is use my traditional math provided by the NWT Department of Education, I want to thank them for those 12 good years, not discovery math, which we’re not sitting here guessing.
My next question for the Minister is, if there was a snapshot using the ever famous program called PeopleSoft, as of October 31, 2013, what would that snapshot say of how many vacant positions are there within the Northwest Territories government? Thank you.
The positions are vacant for various reasons. Two of the position categories that are vacant are the dormant and the inactive and also the to-be-staffed positions, which we use the number or 571 for that specific date as a snapshot. Counting that plus all the other vacant positions in October, no, I’m sorry. I do have a number that is from December 31, 2013, and that is 1,150 positions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a reason I keep saying traditional and discovery math and I’ll leave that up for the Cabinet to figure out. So we work with the number provided by the Minister, which is 1,150, we minus the 571 they call it actively pursuing jobs, we also minus the 161 jobs that the Minister says, well, they’re vacant or dormant, we don’t know what’s happening with them, that still leaves us 418 jobs on the table. We have 20 percent of our government unstaffed and certainly funded.
So where are those human resource dollars going? Who is spending them and who is providing the direction on how that money is being spent? If it’s not through the Legislature itself, it must be the bureaucracy deciding where human resources are being spent, overriding the will of the Legislature. Can the Minister answer that? Thank you.
The departments manage their own human resources. They do it using the vacant positions. Sometimes they maintain a home position for an employee that may be under an assignment. So that home position would be considered vacant. They may need other priorities that need to be met by not just by the Assembly but also the department priorities and they use the position by filling some casual positions to meet the mandate. They support other positions that are required, other priorities that are required and also sometimes if the department had some vacant positions, they may keep the positions vacant if they felt that if they’re filling the positions immediately could create a cost overrun in the budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
