Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Supplementary Appropriation No. 2 requests authority for additional appropriations of $11.201 million for operations expenditures and $5.450 million for capital investment expenditures.

Major items included in this request for operations expenditures are as follows:

$4.7 million for the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development for additional fire suppression costs incurred due to severe forest fire conditions in 2004.

$2.5 million for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for emergency repairs to Samuel Hearne Senior Secondary School in...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess ultimately we’ve come down to the fact that there was an underestimating of the consumption of power and the gas, as well as maintenance required for the facility. The facility did double in size from just over 4,000 square metres to over 8,000 square metres. The new code requirements for air exchange units and air cooling systems add more to the cost of the ongoing daily operation of that.

For example, from 2002-03 to 2003-04 the heating costs increased by over 80 percent. Power consumption has more than doubled from just over one million kilowatts to just...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the member is right on the process of how things go and the numbers. Where the money came from was the money would have been lapsed by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, if it did not have to book this. Because it had to book this, it put them over the budget, and now by the shortfall that is showing here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount in the document covers two years. The first year shortfall is the 2003-04 fiscal year and that’s about $919,000. That’s made up by the increase in heating fuel costs as well as power and a small amount for maintenance. The heating fuel cost increased substantially, the volume is almost 80 percent of what was existing. So there is a substantial jump. For recourse, for anybody else outside, I am informed that we have very little room for recourse. As to when the building was initially designed, estimates were put in place and then construction and coming...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as Mr. Voytilla stated, when we realized there was a potential loss, we had to build in the numbers of what we estimated that would be. The money wasn’t paid out at the time, but it had to be accounted for. In following the rules, once you make that accounted, it is a liability and has to be set off against our budgets, and we didn’t have the full appropriation amount in our budget. That is why we are coming forward with this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that amount was worked on by a number of groups. One would be the Department of Public Works and Services, one would be through Health and Social Services and, as well, the health board. I believe there was a consultant involved in working with the health board on the design, what it would take to operate and so on. There were a number of groups that were involved in this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, when this file had come forward and we realized that we had to account for this, we had built the $3 million amount that would be the potential loss, but that went over our appropriation amount by the amount given of $231,000. Thank you.

No, Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Miltenberger and other responses we have made have covered this area, and we have committed to provide more information on the estimates that were used to substantiate the initial costs or estimations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount that is being returned is the amount that we would have transferred over to the community. I guess it would be those buildings that they had agreed to do maintenance for us. This is the Public Works side of the agreement. Thank you.

Yes.