Don Stewart

Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Minster noted, we've recently gone through a review of our funding framework, the way we calculate the resources to boards. There are a number of changes that we did and worked with the boards on. One of the things that we are looking at is how we fund positions. There are some changes that need to take place. This won't impact the 2016-17 school year; it will be subsequent years to that. For example, the way the benefits have been calculated in the past is somewhat inconsistent with the way it is overall in the GNWT, and we think we need to align that.

Secondly, right...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The wages and salaries are based on information that we get currently from the boards in terms of the incumbents that they have. In terms of benefits, it is a percentage of those salaries that we use to calculate the benefit amounts. It is a similar system than what the GNWT currently uses in terms of the rates that are used in those sorts of things. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2015-16, we had a particularly high caseload under the Income Assistance Program. Now we received a supplementary appropriation to reflect that higher caseload. That was one-time money. It isn’t ongoing at this point in terms of the caseload. But as happens in many years, if there is higher caseloads then we would have to come back for another appropriation, but in 2015-16, there were higher caseloads than the historical case. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of timing, the changes for income assistance that do not include the Canada Child Benefit and custody payments as part of the calculation. That'll take place on August 1st for the calculation for the August month. My understanding is that the federal changes will start to roll out in July, so it'll time well with those changes. The changes to the NWT Child Benefit will require the legislative changes and the likely timing is the fall for that. Once we have those changes in place, then we have to work with the federal government on implementing those, although we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's two components to these changes. The one is the change, as the Minister talked about, to the Income Assistance Regulations to make sure that we're not counting Canada Child Benefit as well as the NWT Child Benefit, as well as support payments to families on income assistance in calculating that level. That'll take place in, as the Minister mentioned, August 1st assessing July income, so that'll have that impact. In terms of the NWT Child Benefit, there's a couple changes that are needed. One is changes to legislation, specifically the NWT Income Tax Act, so we'll...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister has noted, the Healthy Children Initiative, when we did the review of the program one of the things that was noted about that program was that a lot of the funds that went out to it was for general wages and salaries inside of daycares. The numbers that reflect here reflect the first part of the year we had the old programs and now we're rolling out the new programs. There is going to be much more concentrated approach to the Early Childhood Intervention Program to make sure it's going to kids with special needs, and so what we've done is allocate a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister noted, we fund the Literacy Council through a variety of specific projects that they deliver on behalf of our department. Last year, their funding was about $922,000. A portion of it is here, but there are portions elsewhere as well for adult literacy as well as other programs. We would expect the funding to be similar this year as it was last year. Many of our contribution agreements with them are multiyear, so they are pretty consistent in terms of their funding levels. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The amount in 2014-15 is quite large because of the cost of litigation related to residential schools. It was a one-time expenditure that we had to pay out on the residential school amounts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a lot of big pieces in this overall sort of area of education and culture. A couple of the ones I will note are the changes in early childhood program funding in terms of the subsidy adjustments that we are making is reflected in this budget. There are changes in terms of the funding of the education renewal initiative in that you see under some of the items here. There is some portion that is collective bargaining increases under the NWTTA which was the last portion in this first quarter of this year. There are also tweaks that were done around the Aboriginal...

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I think in terms of the corporate management contract services, that is primarily related to the student information system that the ADM was speaking of earlier. There's been some purchases that had to take place under that in terms of both software and those types of things to get the new information system in place. Thank you.