Don Stewart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we are absolutely looking at the impact on enrolments that are likely to happen when junior kindergarten is implemented in the communities that aren't currently offering it. We're doing the modelling to try to understand what the impacts will be overall financially on the system as well, given various scenarios around how that funding may take place. Yes, we are looking at those enrolments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right now, we get information from the boards on their current suite of teachers and their salaries. We then do adjustments for any expectation, not just for teachers but for all staff, any expectation of staff increases, those sorts of things, and any collective bargaining increases that would be expected in the upcoming year. On that basis, we calculate the expected salary and benefit requirements for every board. That is what goes in for that portion of the budget, currently is the way we do it. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member is probably aware, there is a funding framework that goes with how we fund the various boards that is linked to any wage or salary-type information as well as benefits as well as enrolments is a key input to that. That is the basis on which we come up with an initial estimate across the various components that go into the contributions to the boards. Then the boards take that and develop their budgets off of those estimates that we give them for the initial amount, working within the framework that we give them for the total. We do give them the detail on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The value that's in there is the total cost of operating the Student Financial Assistance program. That $16.4 million breaks down, and these are approximate numbers, there's about $685,000 for the staff that operate the program, there's about $13.3 million that are the grants that actually go out for the basic allowance and the supports that are provided. There's a small amount of other O and M for materials and travel, but the biggest other portion is a valuation allowance for student loans. It's about $2.4 million. That’s the difference between the amount that goes out...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That early work in 201415 and into 201516 was really getting the system in place. It is there now. Now, we are into the stage of some level of customization and those sorts of things that the boards wants to see in terms of being able to report out attendance and making sure that the report cards are being generated and all of that sort of stuff. I think we are at a much more manageable phase now where the pace is more controllable in terms of making sure that we don't need to make those big onetime expenditures. I think we are pretty confident that we will not have to...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think we can try for 201617. I wouldn't be surprised if it's early next fiscal year though, realistically, with some of the other changes, there's a lot of consultation, I think, that needs to be done on this one in terms of what we should include in that type of legislation. I think realistically it may be next fiscal year that you see actual legislation on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Minister mentioned, the $3.8 million is around support for Aboriginal language revitalization efforts as well as those types of programs, and then on the French side it's also related to the delivery of French language services that came out of the court case. For the schools, it is a pot of money that's provided that is added to by the money that the GNWT provides, and that obviously covers both the O and M side and any of the capital that's required. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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.