PDF Version

May 1,

SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, David Brazil, MHA for Conception Bay East Bell

Island, substitutes for Tracey Perry, MHA for Fortune Bay Cape La Hune.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Mark Browne, MHA for Placentia West Bellevue,

substitutes for Carol Anne Haley, MHA for Burin Grand Bank.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Lorraine Michael, MHA for St. John's East Quidi

Vidi, substitutes for Gerry Rogers, MHA for St. John's Centre.

The

Committee met at 9 a.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Dempster):

(Inaudible) to my

colleagues after, I'm sure it was 17 busy days in our districts, mine certainly

was.

We're four minutes late starting. We have Broadcast tuned in.

First, I want to make note for the minutes of some substitutions. Today, we have

Ms. Michael substituting for Ms. Rogers. We have Mr. Brazil substituting for Ms.

Perry, and we have Mr. Browne sitting in for Ms. Haley.

have minutes here from the last meeting that I'll just ask for a motion to move.

They are under the Social Services Committee, the Department of Justice and

Public Safety. That meeting took place on April 10.

Can

I have someone to make a motion to adopt those minutes?

MR. WARR:

So moved.

CHAIR:

Mr. Warr.

motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR:

I'll ask the minister if

he would like to take a moment to introduce his staff and then we'll get

started; if you want to say a few words at the beginning.

MR. KIRBY:

Sure.

CHAIR:

I would just remind

everybody, when you speak this morning, for the purposes of Broadcast, to say

your name.

Thank you.

Minister.

MR. KIRBY:

Thanks.

Why

don't we do introduction and then I'll do a very brief overview. We'll start

with Ed and then go all around the circle, around that way.

MR. WALSH:

Good morning. Ed Walsh,

Assistant Deputy Minister for K to 12 Education and Early Childhood Development.

MS. CONNORS:

Kara Connors, Executive

Assistant to the minister.

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

Mary Goss-Prowse, Director

of Early Learning and Childhood Development Division.

MR. PICKARD:

Christopher Pickard,

Director of Communications.

MR. SMITH:

Paul Smith, Assistant Deputy

Minister of Corporate Services.

MS. STAMP:

Tracy Stamp, Manager of

Budgeting.

MR. KIRBY:

Thanks.

I just

want to thank all the staff for being here today. Just very, very briefly, with

respect to spending for the Department of Education and Early Childhood

Development this year, I guess the main message here is that capital is down

because many of the building projects we have ongoing are getting close to

completion or complete.

People

are probably aware that the middle school in Torbay, for example, opened last

Tuesday and other projects are getting close to completion. Capital

infrastructure has moved where it ought to be over in Transportation and Works.

With

respect to operating, it's up slightly. So that's really the overarching

direction in this year's Estimates. That's about all I would say. I'll answer

any questions folks have.

CHAIR:

Thank you, Minister.

We'll

start with Mr. Brazil, 10 minutes, and then we'll alternate to Ms. Michael.

I'll

ask the Clerk to if it's okay with everybody, this is a fairly lengthy

section, can we just go subtitles? If that's okay with yes? Okay.

MR. BRAZIL:

In the sense of after each

title, you'll ask for adoption?

CHAIR:

Yes.

MR. BRAZIL:

If I can have leave from the

minister, if there's something else that comes up that we could go back and ask

questions.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MR. BRAZIL:

I have no problem with that.

MR. KIRBY:

No problem.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you.

CLERK (Murphy):

1.1.01 to 2.2.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 1.1.01 to 2.2.01

carry?

Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you.

I'm

going to start, I guess, with the elephant-in-the-room question: Are there any

anticipated teacher reductions or teacher allocation reductions in this year's

budget? If so, based on what process or what formula to address, and

particularly what impact they may have or, from a regional point of view, where

they might be more prevalently noted?

MR. KIRBY:

The teacher allocation

formula is the same as it was last year.

MR. BRAZIL:

Based on can you explain

exactly which formula?

MR. KIRBY:

Based on what?

MR. BRAZIL:

The ratio of I'm hearing

some conversations from various administrators that there was a 1-27 ratio.

There's going to be a 1-29 implemented this year for schools over 500. Is that

just hearsay or ?

MR. KIRBY:

There is no change in the

teacher allocation formula since last year. It hasn't changed.

MR. BRAZIL:

Can you explain to me what

that is, just for the people listening?

MR. KIRBY:

What is the teacher

allocation formula?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah.

MR. KIRBY:

The teacher allocation

formula is on the Department of Education's website. I'm not going to get into

explaining it for you here today. It's pretty complicated. It's not something

that I've memorized.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, I would think and hope

that because this is recorded for the general population that people would

understand exactly what that means, if it's a ratio from 1-20 or 1-29 or 1-25.

Is it based on formulas of how many special-needs children that may be

available? Are there counselling services?

MR. KIRBY:

Do you need information

about what the teacher allocation formula is?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

Well, we'll provide that

information for you today.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, I appreciate that.

MR. KIRBY:

It's available on the

department's website.

MR. BRAZIL:

Let's go right to under the

Minister's Office. I noticed the minister has been doing some additional

travelling of late, but I noticed last year the budget to the revised was down

by nearly $10,000 and now it's back up.

Is it

you're getting back into regular travelling to visit schools to get an

understanding of what's happening out there, or is there something changed of

extra staff accompanying when you travel for the additional monies that has been

put back in?

MR. KIRBY:

There was less travel last

year.

MR. BRAZIL:

That's under line 1.1.01

under Transportation and Communications.

MR. KIRBY:

Well, this covers not just

my travel but I guess the deputy minister's travel as well. Yeah, that's

correct, right?

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

MR. KIRBY:

It's in Executive Support,

is it?

A whole

bunch of that is communications. Let me see here, so there was about $9,200 less

travel. Last year, I went to fed-prov. meeting in Toronto. I didn't take any

staff with me to that. I went to one Atlantic ministers' meeting. I took two

staff to that meeting because it was a meeting regarding child care. Actually,

that's not the case; the deputy minister went to the fed-prov. meeting. I went

to Labrador; didn't take any staff with me to that. There's no other

out-of-province travel outside of those two meetings and then there's no other

off-the-Island travel, other than one visit to Labrador.

I guess

this year it's my intent to try to visit more schools. Last week, I visited

eight schools. I've been to probably about 25 of the 40 districts now. We're

doing that relatively cheaply; very few of those really involve airfare. I guess

the one thing I haven't included is travel to the Cabinet meeting in Corner

Brook that happens annually.

intention is to continue to do school visits and that's going to require some

funding for travel. I think, really, it's important while I have travelled far

less than my predecessor ministers because I think if you go back to this line

in the previous Estimates, I think it was probably in the order $40-something

thousand.

It's

important not to cut this right back to the bone altogether because (

a) there

may be travel that arises because of sort of one-offs. For example, I believe

some time in the next couple of months, hopefully the next month, we'll be going

to Ottawa or Toronto to sign the bilateral arrangement on child care. That will

be additional travel and we will want to bring officials to that meeting. That

will be out of the province.

The

other thing is I serve at the pleasure of the Premier. So that means there could

be somebody else in this position whenever. I live within 10 minutes of the

Confederation Building and there could be a minister in this department tomorrow

who lives in Labrador or somewhere else. So I think we have to be reasonable in

terms of what we can reduce this by.

I guess

it could have been reduced by $9,200, reflecting my reduced travel, but I think

it's better to have a reasonable auger for what we want to put in here. Does

that make sense?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, and don't get me

wrong, I'm not criticizing travel, just for clarification purposes. I know you

put it back in which, in this case, I see a real need, as a former minister, for

travelling particularly around sights and engagement with professionals in

certain areas. Just for clarification purposes, if there was a specific plan for

something.

MR. KIRBY:

In terms of inside the

province travel, in the last year I've probably done more travel in terms of

travel for the purposes of visiting districts or schools than either of my three

predecessor ministers. I guess the difference for them was that Darin King,

Clyde Jackman and Susan Sullivan didn't live within 10 minutes of the

Confederation Building so they had to travel to come to St. John's. So that's

really the differences there.

MR. BRAZIL:

I see the merits of it, and

just for clarification there. I didn't know if there was a specific conference

coming up or a special national meeting or something like that.

MR. KIRBY:

Hopefully, like I said,

there will be a meeting in the next month or two, hopefully a month, in Ottawa

or Toronto, I expect, for the bilateral child care, early learning and care

framework. So I think that will be the only thing.

The

only fed-prov meeting our department is really involved in is in PEI in July,

and then there is the APSEA, that's the regional ministers, Atlantic ministers.

That's in, I believe, September or October in Nova Scotia. We hosted that this

year, too. So I guess that was an additional element. Last fall we hosted it

here, so we had to travel to The Rooms as opposed to Nova Scotia.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, that's fair enough. I

appreciate that.

MR. KIRBY:

As you can imagine, this

stuff sort of fluctuates up and down.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, and there could be

special meetings called. I've been there, so I understand it.

Okay.

I'm going to move on to Executive Support, 1.2.01, under Salaries. I've noticed

that $919,000 was originally budgeted, and then it was $983,000, now it's down

to $818,000. I'm assuming there's a position there that doesn't exist. Is there

somebody out of the org chart that is different now or are there two positions

engulfed in one, or did somebody retire and not filled or won't be filled this

year?

MR. KIRBY:

I think largely that's

because the ADM infrastructure position was eliminated.

MR. BRAZIL:

So that was an ADM position

that doesn't exist.

MR. KIRBY:

And a secretary position.

MR. BRAZIL:

Will it exist in your

organizational chart in the future? So the position is gone?

MR. KIRBY:

No, there are a couple of

things that have gone on there. The ADM infrastructure position was eliminated

but then the infrastructure unit, that's moved to TW as well now. So there have

been changes with respect to infrastructure, but I guess the thinking is that

infrastructure function is better suited to be located in Transportation and

Works. That was sort of the initial phase of that, if you will, eliminating the

ADM position and then subsequently, which is reflected in these Estimates now,

the unit has moved on. So, no, there's no anticipation that we're not going

backwards, let's put it that way.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, I appreciate that.

Can I

also ask, maybe for both of us, if we could have an organizational chart with

the new changes when you get a chance to share that with us, please.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, we should also I was

looking at the org chart on the Internet, for some reason, last Friday. I think

we should make sure the org chart is updated on the website, because it's

MR. BRAZIL:

I appreciate that. If you

could share it, I guess myself and my colleague would like to have copies of

that if we could.

Okay.

Madam Chair, I'll move on.

CHAIR:

Mr. Brazil, we made a

mistake on the clock because the first speaker in response to the minister does

actually get 15 minutes. So you have another five if you'd like to take them

now.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. I just want to try to

finish off this part on this

section here.

Under

Transportation and Communications, I noted it sort of stayed at the same level

but it's down a couple of thousand dollars there as part of that process.

Anything different that changed?

MR. KIRBY:

Less travel than required.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, fair enough on that

section.

I'll

let Ms. Michael go to that

section and then I'll come back to do

section two.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Madam

Chair.

It's my

understanding that anything that is requested by either person goes out to

everybody. We all know that.

Minister, could I ask you a bit more with regard to the move of the

infrastructure

section or division over to Trans Works. I can see a lot of logic

for that happening, but what has moved to Trans Works in terms of the overall

role and management? Will they also be making I'm assuming not, but I just

want for clarification.

Who

will continue to make the decisions about the need for infrastructure? You know

new schools, schools being replaced or additions, all of that issue. Is that

also moved over to Trans Works?

MR. KIRBY:

No. The Transportation and

Works manages infrastructure projects for whichever department, whether it's

Education or Health or Municipalities. The process that was in place and

continues to be in place for determination of new infrastructure builds is every

relatively comprehensive.

On that

ask, that list, they would have new school buildings, extensions, modulars.

Then, everything from that to windows, roofs, things that schools have submitted

around it could be the replacement of gym floors, changes in classroom

divisions, all sorts of things science lab rehabilitations, all these

different things, they submit on the list.

course, we have a finite amount of resources for dealing with that. So if it's a

major new infrastructure ask like a new building construction or an extension,

the department would look at the ask, would evaluate using our internal

processes whether or not we deem that to be necessary as well. Through the

budgeting process, it would go to the infrastructure committee, go to Treasury

Board and then go to Cabinet. So that's really the process for that.

terms of, say, if it's not a major infrastructure project, we would prioritize

it again internally, probably with some collaboration with the district and pay

for it out of the annual repairs and maintenance budget, like if it's roofs and

windows and that sort of thing. That's generally how it works, and that will

continue to be that way.

I guess

one of the things that I encountered as minister, observed as minister, is that

if you look at the Torbay Middle School, it was a case of our staff asking

Transportation and Works if it was going to be open on time anyways. So that's

really the way that it was.

The

thinking of having an infrastructure unit and an infrastructure ADM in the

department was that there was a significant number of building projects going on

previously. Octagon Pond in Paradise is open now, Torbay Middle School is open

now and there are a number of others that are getting close to completion, like

the one in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's and Gander.

We have

fewer new builds and sort of lesser pressure, from my perspective, but I guess

you can have a whole debate about whether that should have existed at all. But I

think this process won't be a whole lot different because again we're always

calling them asking them if I went and did a tour of a new building that was

close to completion, when we went to the site there would always be

Transportation and Works folks meeting us on site because their primary

responsibility is to provide oversight for construction.

MS. MICHAEL:

Basically, just so I have it

clear, when it comes to making decisions about new schools or additions and that

kind of thing from the educational needs of our children, that's still in your

department, always was and would remain. It's the management of the building or

whatever that's in Trans Works and that's not a change.

MR. KIRBY:

Sure. Yeah, the budget

submission would continue to come from Education based on what the ask is from

the school district.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

It would still come in that

way.

Like

everything else, I suppose, other ministers would have a perspective or advise

on different projects. Oftentimes, in that dynamic the Minister of

Transportation and Works is providing some more technical detail around what

the input on the committee the project would entail and that sort of thing.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Thank

you very much.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Will I go on to the next

one?

CHAIR:

I'll need to call it first.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

That's

all the questions I have on 1.2.01.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Shall

1.1.01 to 2.1.01 carry?

All

those in favour?

MS. MICHAEL:

Wait now, 2.1.01?

CHAIR:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

I haven't asked questions on

2.1.01.

CHAIR:

Okay. That was what I called

in the beginning.

MS. MICHAEL:

Oh, I'm sorry.

CHAIR:

My apologies.

MS. MICHAEL:

I thought I was picking up

from David on 1.2.01. That's what I was speaking to.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, so I'll go on to 2 or

David go on to 2.1.01. Neither one of us have spoken to that one.

MR. BRAZIL:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, well, I'll start

2.1.01.

Thank

you.

Looking

at the Salaries, Minister, in 2016 so 2.1.01, Salaries there was $98,000

over budget and now, in 2017, it's going down under budget, there is some

variation. If you could just explain what happened in that area.

MR. KIRBY:

Those are retirement costs

for three positions.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, great.

MR. KIRBY:

That's why it went up. Then

I guess the $49,000ish-and-change there is because of the flatter, leaner,

combining of two management positions into one.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

Basically, the other changes, Transportation and Communications, there was a

slight variation last year down by $13,000 and this year it's going to be down

by $8,700. I presume you think that there are some savings that can be made

there. Can you explain what that line means?

MR. KIRBY:

It was postage and courier

savings and then just through the zero-based process, we put it at a lower level

to reflect the expectation and continue to hold the line on it.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

Under

provincial revenue, where does that revenue come from?

MR. KIRBY:

According to my note here,

it's repayments for prior year expenses: payroll, recovery of payroll

overpayments, overpayments in other grant programs that we provide for child

care for example, the centres. So if somebody was overpaid an amount, it's what

they would repay, and then the repayments of grants for travel that didn't occur

for various reasons. These are anticipated repayments that would need to be made

and, in this particular instance, the repayments were lower than what was

budgeted.

MS. MICHAEL:

It seems to be a large

amount. It's basically almost $2 million.

MR. KIRBY:

Sorry, I'm looking at

2.1.01.02; is that what you're looking at?

MS. MICHAEL:

No, 01, the Revenue so

it's 02, provincial revenue.

MR. KIRBY:

02? Is this Assistance To ?

MS. MICHAEL:

Oh, no I'm sorry; it's the

$80,000 and the $45,000.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

My eye was looking at the

line above. I was getting shocked, so you can understand why.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

With your explanation, it

makes sense.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes, okay.

Thanks.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

That's

all the questions I have, Madam Chair, for that section. My time is up anyway.

CHAIR:

Okay. Thank you, Ms.

Michael.

Mr.

Brazil, do you have more questions on 2.1.01?

MR. BRAZIL:

No, Ms. Michael has outlined

the ones that I would have, so I am fine with that.

CHAIR:

Okay, so I would call those.

Shall

the Estimates for 1.1.01 to 2.1.01 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 2.1.01 carried.

CHAIR:

Now, to avoid confusion,

going forward, we're going to go with subheadings, and my apologies.

I will

ask the Clerk to call those.

CLERK:

2.1.02

CHAIR:

Shall 2.1.02 to 2.1.03

carry?

Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

I'd like to ask the minister

if he could explain under Grants and Subsidies, there was X number of dollars

$1.9 million budgeted, $1.5 million was revised and then a little over $2

million was budgeted for this year. Can you outline exactly the variance there,

what was the difference from last year to this year and, under that, what grants

and subsidies are we talking about, please?

MR. KIRBY:

For the revised, there was

about $487,000 that was transferred to School Supplies activity to provide fine

arts equipment and other curriculum resources. That's why that went down.

MR. BRAZIL:

That's the increase from

last year to this year?

MR. KIRBY:

No, that's the decrease.

MR. BRAZIL:

That's the decrease from the

budget to the revised.

MR. KIRBY:

That's right, yes. The

amount was transferred to another line.

MR. BRAZIL:

Transferred to another

division, okay.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

Then

the grants that are in here are Council of Ministers of Education, CMEC; CAMET,

that's the Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training; the

Federation of School Councils; Cultural Connections; Murphy Centre; Encounters

with Canada; and the Learning Disabilities Association. That's all of them.

MR. BRAZIL:

Can I request, when you get

a chance over the next number of days, could you get us a list of those, please?

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MR. BRAZIL:

Just so I'm clear, what was

transferred from the School Supplies, where would that sit now? Does that still

sit in the budget and it was just a one-time or is it somewhere else now?

MR. KIRBY:

I think once we go on,

you'll see where it is, yes.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

If I

miss it, I'd appreciate you reminding me of that, as part of that.

MR. KIRBY:

Sure, yes. It will pick up

later on.

MR. BRAZIL:

There's nothing in there

relevant to the Premier's Task Force from Grants and Subsidies?

MR. KIRBY:

No.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, fair enough.

Under

2.1.03, Policy and Planning, the salary bases, dramatic difference between what

was budgeted last year to what we're budgeting again this year. Can you explain

exactly what positions are eliminated there, or was it contractual work, or what

part of it shows the decrease there?

MR. KIRBY:

You're wondering about the

budgeted '16-'17 versus the '17-'18 Estimate figure, the $421,000 against the

$256,000, right?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes, the $421,000 was

budgeted, then down to $385,000 spending.

MR. KIRBY:

There was the Flatter,

Leaner, there were two positions eliminated and there were two director

positions combined. That accounts for the difference. There were two director

functions combined and there were two positions eliminated.

MR. BRAZIL:

Can you outline exactly what

positions were combined? What was their normal policy ?

MR. KIRBY:

Director of Policy, Planning

and Accountability was combined with director of Information Management. That

required one less position.

MR. BRAZIL:

One less employee, yeah.

MR. KIRBY:

Then there was a human

resources consultant position eliminated altogether.

MR. BRAZIL:

Is that being absorbed by

somebody else or are there numbers there that dictate you need it? Just totally

gone altogether?

MR. KIRBY:

We have sufficient

management resources to cover all of it.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

I'm

going to move down to Professional Services; budgeted at $427,000, revised at

$263,000 and now at $250,000. Can you outline exactly what was budgeted last

year that wasn't spent and where and what professional services you'll be

contracting this year?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, that's largely as a

result of the Premier's Task Force not getting underway as expeditiously as I

had hoped. They were appointed in October, I believe.

Originally, I had hoped maybe to get them going around the end of July, early

August. A lot of that had to do with, you remember, we passed Bill 1 around the

Independent Appointments Commission and then we needed to you know, you have

to put all of the infrastructure in place to support that.

That

all had to be done before or had to be finalized I guess a lot of the work was

underway at the Public Service Commission, but that all had to be finalized

before we could solicit for resumes. Then we decided to do interviews with a

short list and they had to sort of confirm everyone's availability. These things

seem fairly straightforward when you're planning them, but you can always count

on there being some period of delay. So that's basically what happened, the

various expenses associated with that.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

The

$250,000 that's allocated now; how much of that is for the Premier's Task Force?

MR. KIRBY:

I think in the budget we had

it was $100,000 in this budget, right? Yeah, so that's what we approved.

MR. BRAZIL:

In this fiscal

MR. KIRBY:

Sorry, what we approved.

This is what's in the current Estimates is $100,000, to allow them to finish

their work basically.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay; and that will complete

that.

The

other $150,000, what types of services are we talking there that would be used

in this fiscal?

MR. KIRBY:

Somebody else can answer

that, but I figure it's just a lot of the other stuff that we would have done

previously.

MR. SMITH:

Mr. Brazil, the $150,000 is

for some ongoing professional support for our teachers' payroll unit. Some time

ago, a couple of years ago that basically converted to a new piece of software,

PeopleSoft, and some significant support was required to get things up and

running and stabilized in the teachers' payroll function. That won't be ongoing

cost. I would anticipate this may be the last year for that.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. I appreciate that.

Can I

just step back a bit? On the assistant education there when I talked about

getting a list of the funding last year that was received, is there a particular

criteria set out?

MR. KIRBY:

Sorry?

MR. BRAZIL:

Assistance to education

agencies and advisory committees.

MR. KIRBY:

Sorry? Which one are we on?

MR. BRAZIL:

That would have been

MR. KIRBY:

Oh, 2.1

MR. BRAZIL:

2.1.02, yes.

MR. KIRBY:

Is there a certain criteria?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, under the Grants and

Subsidies.

MR. KIRBY:

Well, mostly it's sort of

all of these things we've funded, there's no reduction here. We're a part of the

Council of Ministers of Education Canada and we pay a certain amount to be part

of that. CAMET the same thing.

Last

year, the allowance for Federation of School Councils was reduced by a small

percentage. Cultural Connections is as it was. We haven't made any changes to

that during our time in office. There was a reduction in 2013, I believe.

Again,

the Murphy Centre, it's the grant that we provide to the Murphy Centre every

year. I think this year there's a slight increase in the amount of funds for the

Murphy Centre for a GED initiative, $75,000. So they had an increase.

provide funds every year for Encounters with Canada to enable kids to go to the

Terry Fox Canadian Youth Centre in Ottawa and do all the things that are

associated with that. That grant to the Learning Disabilities Association

wouldn't have changed since you folks were in government.

It's

not something that we're expanding or decreasing very much in a year. It would

be based on a case-by-case basis if we were to consider any increases.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

I'm not aware of any

explicit criteria under that. I mean these are the groups that have

traditionally been funded under that line basically.

MR. BRAZIL:

Would they be considered

core funding, as we've been in a debate about the definition of core funding for

agencies and groups.

MR. KIRBY:

Maybe according to your

definition.

MR. BRAZIL:

Well, I would hope and think

a lot of them would have been. I would think by their own definition that they

would have

MR. KIRBY:

I would never have thought

they were core funding. I can't imagine that we would consider ourselves to

paying core funding to the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada.

MR. BRAZIL:

No, but the T.I. Murphy

Centre and the School Councils

MR. KIRBY:

It's not terminology that's

ever been used in any conversations with me.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

there hasn't been a discussion about if they fit under the core funding

application process. Or will they have to go through that same process as a

number of other organizations that we understand will?

MR. KIRBY:

What is the core funding

application process?

MR. BRAZIL:

And they will have to fill

it out.

MR. KIRBY:

What is the core funding

application process?

MR. BRAZIL:

That's the million-dollar

question that we've been asking for the last number of months. What will be the

criteria for the core funding application process for agencies who felt core

funding was part and parcel of what they've received for years, to where they

are right now in their funding cuts or funding allocations?

MR. KIRBY:

I've never heard anybody

refer to any of this as core funding for anything. If you can provide me with

information about what that is, I can tell you whether it is or it isn't.

MR. BRAZIL:

Sure. I can provide you with

minutes from the agencies who feel their core funding from government is part

and parcel of that. So obviously I take it that this is not considered core

funding.

MR. KIRBY:

I've never heard that word

used to describe this. These are the organizations and activities that are

funded under this line and were under the previous administration.

MR. BRAZIL:

So the answer is no.

Thank

you.

MR. KIRBY:

Okay

MR. BRAZIL:

Well, it's not. My time is

done.

MR. KIRBY:

It isn't no, it's just I've

never heard that term used. Unless you're able to define what it is you're

talking about, I really

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

I'm at sort of a loss now.

MR. BRAZIL:

I'll ask the minister to

explain: If one of these agencies would like to apply for additional monies, how

would they go about doing it?

MR. KIRBY:

Like the T.I. Murphy Centre

basically identified a need for, that they could provide a GED service. So the

department agreed and we put forward a submission to the budget process to

Treasury Board. That was approved by Treasury Board, went to Cabinet and was

approved there. So that's, you know

MR. BRAZIL:

Would that continue as their

core funding for next year?

MR. KIRBY:

Again, I've never heard the

term core funding used in relation to any of these organizations on here.

MR. BRAZIL:

My understanding from the

budget debate, core funding would be for all agencies who receive money from

government to determine which category they'd fit within, but I guess that's a

debate we'll have further in the House of Assembly.

MR. KIRBY:

I don't know; if you can

provide the documentation to that effect, I'd be happy to tell you whether it is

or it isn't but it's never been a term used to describe this.

MR. BRAZIL:

I will dig out the

conversations I've had with agencies or minutes of their meetings where they

talk about their core funding for this year from government.

MR. KIRBY:

Sure.

MR. BRAZIL:

So it's their understanding,

it may be different from the departments but right now I can only say as we look

at this, you don't consider this core funding?

MR. KIRBY:

I would like to see the

definition you're using. In my experience, being in the House of Assembly over

the period of time that I've been here, I'm not aware that external

organizations set the criteria for government funding. I think it's really the

other way around, isn't it?

CHAIR:

Mr. Brazil, I've been a

little bit lenient here. I just want to be

MR. BRAZIL:

No, it's okay. You can let

go, yes.

CHAIR:

I want to keep things

flowing in the manner they're set out in Estimates. So if it's okay with you

MR. BRAZIL:

I respect that.

CHAIR:

I'll move and give Ms. Michael here 10 and then we can come back.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much.

Minister, in relation to that discussion you were just having, just for

clarification, when we get the list of the grants and subsidies, I assume that

will include how much money is going to each of the bodies?

MR. KIRBY:

Yes, and that would reflect

this increase in funding for the Murphy Centre this year.

MS. MICHAEL:

That's right. So we'll get

that specific information.

MR. KIRBY:

It's a pretty short list.

Like I said, largely it's unchanged from previous years. The only difference

would have been the change with the Murphy Centre and the change with the

reduction with the Federation of School Councils that happened last year.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right. Yeah, we have our

notes from last year and it's exactly the same as last year, but just to get the

amount of money.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. It's pretty well the

same.

MS. MICHAEL:

Just that clarification.

Thank

you.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

I have a general question,

but I'll ask one more specific one under 2.1.03. That has to do with the

Purchased Services. Last year $1,000 was budgeted under Purchased Services but

there was an extra $7,000 spent. I'm just curious about what that was.

MR. KIRBY:

That's still under 2.1.01?

MS. MICHAEL:

No, 03.

MR. KIRBY:

So it's the $1,000 to the

$8,000?

MS. MICHAEL:

That's correct.

MR. KIRBY:

The Premier's Task Force.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

I have

a general question. In this

section you've talked about positions being

eliminated and positions combined. Then when we talk about the Trans and Works

ADM, the infrastructure ADM gone, I'm just wondering how you, as minister, have

made the adjustments for point persons to make sure those things the ADM in

infrastructure was your point person there, so who would be the point person now

so that none of the work they were doing is lost in terms of communication

straight to the minister.

MR. KIRBY:

It would fall under Paul's

shop.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, great.

Thank

you very much.

Those

are all the questions that I have up to the end of where we are.

CHAIR:

Okay, so I'll call those.

Shall

the Estimates from 2.1.01 to 2.1.03 carry?

All

those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against?

Carried.

motion, subheads 2.1.01 through 2.1.03 carried.

CLERK:

2.2.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 2.2.01 carry?

I'll go

back to Ms. Michael to use your remaining time on the clock.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

2.2.01;

first of all just a specific question, it's not a lot of money involved in the

Salaries line, but there is a small increase over last year's budget, $94,000.

If we could just have an explanation of that small increase.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, that was a new

position that was created here.

MS. MICHAEL:

What was the new position?

MR. KIRBY:

Manager of Information

Management.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Who

would have done that work before?

MR. KIRBY:

The director of Information

Management.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, so this is an extra

position going in there.

Could

we have just a short description of what that entails?

MR. SMITH:

Information management, the

first thing that comes to mind, obviously, is the department's ATIPPA response

capacity which again is a fairly big department, a lot of issues which is fairly

extensive. As well, it's the department: like any line departments are

responsibilities under the Management of

Information Act and so forth, staff as well for managing the ongoing

information capacity within the department, making sure that we have proper

policies around information retention, electronic paper copies, et cetera.

Certainly, ATIPP response and coordination is a big part of that.

MS. MICHAEL:

May I ask of your assistant,

has there been a big increase in ATIPP requests?

MR. SMITH:

I think overall, Ms.

Michael, it's been probably recently, yes. Probably over the last month or so

there's been certainly a significant increase, probably a little less over the

last week or so with respect to requests. I think that's sort of the experience

in the different departments I've been in that it's always a lot of files but it

tends to go up and down a little bit throughout the year.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

Just to

say it's important that that is taken care of because legislatively

MR. SMITH:

Absolutely.

MS. MICHAEL:

you have to meet

requirements, so this is helping you meet timelines and all that kind of thing,

I assume.

MR. SMITH:

We certainly approach it

very seriously, yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right, thank you very much.

Still

under 2.2.01, with regard to the CAP sites, how many youth internships for CAP

sites were there in 2016 and how many will there be in 2017?

MR. SMITH:

I just got a

summary

(inaudible). It basically is about 420 hours per placement. I can make sure I

give you a certain number on it, but it's probably 30 to 40 positions each year.

MS. MICHAEL:

Well, if we could receive

the exact numbers afterwards, that would be great.

MR. SMITH:

Absolutely. So you want the

exact ones ?

MS. MICHAEL:

Please.

MR. SMITH:

More recent

MS. MICHAEL:

The numbers of last year and

the numbers of this year.

MR. SMITH:

Absolutely.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much.

With

regard to the federal revenue, still under 2.2.01 and this is where the money

comes from I think for the internships. That money dropped by $32,000 last year;

now it's back up to $414,000 this year. What was the reason or the $32,000 drop

last year?

MR. SMITH:

That would be actually a

reduced take-up on the program. There was a small marginal we weren't able to

get it fully engaged

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. SMITH:

and fully topped up.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. SMITH:

Again, it's one of the

challenges of the program is to try to get the maximum (inaudible).

MS. MICHAEL:

Right, thank you.

They're

all the questions I have on 2.2.01.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Is it

okay with you if I just move to Mr. Brazil?

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Start the clock again.

MR. BRAZIL:

(Inaudible) and I know the

same list that the Member for the Third Party is asking for that I get a copy of

that particularly on the Internship Program.

CHAIR:

So you have no questions on

that?

MR. BRAZIL:

No. I'm good on that

section.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Shall

the Estimates for the 2.2.01 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subhead 2.2.01 carried.

CLERK:

3.1.01 to 3.1.05 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall the Estimates for

3.1.01 to 3.1.05 inclusive carry?

Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Obviously, there's a big

discrepancy there on the teacher allocations and Regular Teachers, Grants and

Subsidies. Can the minister explain the roughly $20 million difference there

from a payroll point of view?

MR. KIRBY:

Well, basically, according

to the collective agreement with the NLTA, teachers are paid biweekly in 26

equal installments. That assumes then that there are only 364 days in every

year.

Every

three or four years, there's an adjustment to reflect that. There ends up being

a gap, basically a reduction of one pay period to sort of net out that amount.

If you want to read more about this, I encourage you to look at the current

edition of the NLTA Bulletin which explains why this occurs.

The

NLTA is well aware that this happens. It happens every three or four years to

reflect the fact that there are 365 days in a year. What happens is in the

summer, I guess the last paycheque like I say it's probably better, Ed, that

you explain the intricacies of this, but there's a perfectly logical explanation

for it in any case.

MR. WALSH:

Sure.

Every

four to five years, as the minister indicated, there is a pay gap every summer.

Essentially what it means is that at the end of August, prior to the start of

the new school year, teachers will go three weeks without receiving a paycheque

as opposed to the standard two. As a result of that, there is a savings

associated with the Teaching Services budget.

MR. KIRBY:

That works out to $17

million.

MR. BRAZIL:

So the other $3.5 million,

what's the account for that, the reduction?

MR. KIRBY:

That's the annualization of

all of the decisions that were made last year. All of the changes in the teacher

allocation formula that were made last year and programming decisions made by

can appreciate, our fiscal year is different than the school year and how monies

are paid out for that. The adjustment is a reflection of last year's budget

decisions.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. Fair enough.

MR. KIRBY:

They weren't fully captured

in last year's Estimates.

MR. BRAZIL:

I'm just curious. The number

of teachers in the system in 2017 versus 2016, do we have a number that we know

of?

MR. WALSH:

Approximately 5,300, minus the 1,500 that are due to come out as a result of

this year's budget decisions and declining enrolment.

MR. BRAZIL:

Retirements; the notices on

retirements.

MR. KIRBY:

That's approximately 150.

month they'll be posting an advertisement for about 500 positions. Those are

retirements, contractuals, fill-in positions where people are on maternity

leave, personal leave, educational leave and away for some period of time. I'll

make sure that's widely advertised at the time. That's basically where that is.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, thank you for that.

Under

the Centre for Distance Education, I notice it's fairly stable across the board.

I'm just curious, has there been an uptake, a new renewal on that process? Is it

being used in rural areas? Have we changed the types of courses we offer there?

I'm just curious to know whether or not we're still the mainstream of where we

were when we started a number of years ago.

MR. KIRBY:

Growth and demand for

courses in 2016-17, that would have required additional teaching services. So it

is going up.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah.

MR. KIRBY:

As you can imagine, it is

really difficult to offer specialized curriculum for high school graduation

requirements with shrinking class sizes in rural communities. Obviously, that's

why CDLI was instituted in the very beginning, but as the population of the

province continues to change over time, that's one of the outcomes of it.

MR. BRAZIL:

What are the allocations? Is

it the same as the regular classroom process for CDLI instructor versus a

classroom instructor?

MR. KIRBY:

Any idea how that works?

MR. WALSH: The

allocation for CDLI is not done in the same manner as the broad teacher

allocation for the regular school system just simply because of the context of

the distance education classroom. In some situations you may have a small number

of students in a particular community who are interested in a program and those

numbers get rolled up into a broader provincial number because the teacher is

not actually located in that school.

Because there might be 16 students province wide I just

use that as an example interested in mathematics 3200, those 16 students will

still require a teacher, regardless of whether there are 16 or, by example, even

if there were 22 or 23. So the allocation process for CDLI is not similar

at all to the allocation to the regular school system.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

Thank

you.

I just

want to move to a question there about substitute teachers and the leave process

and that. I noticed it's a variation from what was spent last year to what's

been allocated, similar to what was originally budgeted. Has anything changed on

the criteria for leave for substitute teachers or the amount of leave that can

be taken?

MR. KIRBY:

That's the same as the first

question you asked about the three week about the 365 versus 364 day, 26.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, but my question is has

there been any change on the approach to what substitute teachers are entitled

to or what regular classroom teachers are entitled to, to determine whether or

not there are going to be more substitute days necessary or not?

MR. KIRBY:

There's no change

MR. BRAZIL:

To know whether or not that

budget line

MR. KIRBY:

No change

MR. BRAZIL:

fits well within the education system.

MR. KIRBY:

No change with the

substitute teacher policy. If there was any change in those things, it would

have to be negotiated with the NLTA. The change in the funding here has to do

with the adjustment that happens every I said three to four, Ed says four to

five four or so years because of the issue with the collective agreement, the

26 equal pay periods for the NLTA.

MR. BRAZIL:

So the allocated amount will

stay as normal for the policy.

MR. KIRBY:

The policy stays the same,

yes. There's a slight savings this year as a result of the three-week pay gap.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. Fair enough on that.

I'll go

to 3.1.04, if I could, under School Supplies. I'll talk under the supply process

there; $6.6 million originally, revised to $7.4 million down to $5.8 million.

Can you tell me the variation there, why there was more spent in 2016-'17 and

why we're back to less in 2017-'18.

MR. KIRBY:

Well, remember I told you

about the money that was transferred that would pick up somewhere else? That's

where that is.

MR. BRAZIL:

That's $450,000.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. Then, also, there were

monies for math PD that was transferred from Professional Development to

purchase curriculum resources, $350,000. There was some savings there, $39,000

in savings, associated postage and so on. So there was a transfer in to

MR. BRAZIL:

Does that include additional

textbooks or any of those resources?

MR. KIRBY:

Student-to-teacher

curriculum resources, texts, resource manuals and those sorts of things.

MR. BRAZIL:

Is there an in-house

government tax on the textbooks at this time with the tax on books? Is that

built into your budget lines?

MR. KIRBY:

I'll have to get back to you

on that.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, fair enough.

I want

to go to School Services, under Salaries: $542,000 originally, $575,000, down to

$430,000. I'm assuming that there's a position or two, or some change there. Can

you verify or clarify that for me, please?

MR. KIRBY:

There was again the Flatter,

Leaner. There were retirement costs that are in that. Then there was a position

that was eliminated and a new position created, effectively.

MR. BRAZIL:

What position was

eliminated, which one created?

MR. KIRBY:

Director of School Services

and that became manager of School Services.

MR. BRAZIL:

So the savings there would

be at the pay scale level, I'm assuming

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MR. BRAZIL:

and the other position was

eliminated?

MR. KIRBY:

It's a classification

difference, yeah.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, Madam Chair, I'll pass

it over to my colleague.

CHAIR:

Thank you.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll

have to back up, of course. Just a couple of questions under 3.1.01; I won't

repeat any of the questions that were asked already. Minister, how many deaf and

hard of hearing teachers do we have now in the system?

MR. WALSH:

Ms. Michael, there are four

the same manner as last year.

MS. MICHAEL:

And are there any in the

French-speaking school district?

MR. WALSH:

No, there aren't.

MS. MICHAEL:

They don't have any

requirement for that?

MR. WALSH:

No.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you very much.

And I'm

just curious why this year's budget shows a separation: Substitute Teachers

the cost of leave, and Substitute Teachers Professional Development. Why two

different lines for that?

MR. SMITH:

That was a decision taken to

improve the presentation. I think the concept was that Teaching Services would

more completely reflect the cost of teachers in the system, including substitute

teachers. I think in prior years that was reflected in a separate activity in

the Estimates under professional development, but again it was considered an

improvement in disclosure to provide it under Teaching Services.

MR. KIRBY:

I believe that was in

response to the Auditor General's commentary on teacher PD there some previous

(inaudible)

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. I think I have a vague

memory actually of the Auditor General saying that.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

I had forgotten that.

Thank

you very much.

I can't

remember if Mr. Brazil asked this or not, under the provincial revenue line,

again in 3.1.01, it's usually $100,000 and last year it was $398,600. What

exactly is the source of that revenue and why was it so much higher last year?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, it was funding. It was

basically an invoice for teaching units for the francophone school district. It

was an invoice for 2015-'16 that was paid out in '16-'17.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

I know it doesn't fit

totally under here, but since we've mentioned the francophone school district a

couple of times, where are you right now, Minister, in terms of discussions with

them over their identified needs for a new school?

MR. KIRBY:

Last year, following the

closure of Holy Cross, I suggested to the then-chair of the Conseil and the CEO

I guess the then-CEO because both of those people have changed since then I

asked them if they'd like to have a discussion about using that as an interim

solution for their ask for a new school. They had wanted a new school to be

constructed, I believe, in the west end of St. John's for high school grades.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

They obviously agreed to

enter into that discussion. Since that time, we've had discussions with the

Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John's about using the site. The

the property under the

section of the act regarding the moving away from

denominational education prior to that, they would have had rights to the

site.

Where

it is really right now, I think last week there was a tour of the site by

parents; it was an open house. At this point, if they decide to go ahead with it

for sure, they give us an indication that they're in agreement to use that

facility, then we should be good for September.

MS. MICHAEL:

That's good.

MR. KIRBY:

So it's good

MS. MICHAEL:

And this will be high school

students, will it?

MR. KIRBY:

That's correct. Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

It's good because we have

heard a lot of commentary around capacity issues up on Ridge Road.

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

So this would be our sixth

francophone school in the province. I'm very hopeful at this point that that's

where we're going to go.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

But it really will be up to

the board of trustees at the Conseil to decide.

MS. MICHAEL:

Is this an interim solution?

The reason I ask is that it has been presented to me by them that the reason

they wanted the west end is because their schools are regional rather than

community and they wanted something that was more central to the region.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. It's a five-year plan

as it is.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Under

3.1.02, my questions are mainly under the Grants and Subsidies, this is the

School Board Operations. We have a drop next year from what was budgeted last

year under the Regular Operating Grant. I won't go into all of the amounts. We

have a big drop under the Administration Grant. Then under the Centre for

Distance Learning and Innovation, we have a drop in that grant.

Could I

have an explanation of all of the decreases, because there are major decreases?

MR. KIRBY:

On the Regular Operating

Grant, that's the one you're interested in, right?

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes, that's the first one.

MR. KIRBY:

There was an amount that

transferred to School Supplies and Student Support Services for more or less

consistent with the recommendations of the Auditor General. That was more

appropriate to include those funds under those areas.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. So we might pick that

up when we get over there and see where that money went. Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

Effectively, yeah.

The

next one was the

MS. MICHAEL:

Administration.

MR. KIRBY:

Administration Grant.

MS. MICHAEL:

It's down by $1.6 million.

MR. KIRBY:

The district office last

year moved from the million-dollar view in Atlantic Place

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

to the former site of CSSD

it is now, but it was CYFS.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

So they have relocated their

headquarters there. That's the annualization of that. Again, it wasn't captured

perfectly in last year's budget, so we picked up $650,000 there.

Also,

the attrition management under that line with the NLESD is another $281,000.

Then, it also reflects the five-year attrition management for the Conseil.

That's another $211,000-or-so. So those are those amounts.

MS. MICHAEL:

Minister, would it be

possible to get the details of the attrition management? Because, obviously,

there are positions that are gone that haven't been filled. Just to get those

details of what added up to those figures you've just given.

MR. KIRBY:

I suppose we would have that

but you could also get that directly from those agencies

MS. MICHAEL:

From the agencies and

boards.

MR. KIRBY:

because it's their plan,

not ours. This was the attrition plan that was prior to this administration.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

It was requested from them.

They would have provided it based on sort of broad parameters given to them.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. If we have any

problems we can come back to it?

MR. KIRBY:

Sure, if you have any

problems getting it directly from them, let me know and I can help facilitate.

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Then,

my third one was the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation Grant.

MR. KIRBY:

Various contracts there; a

transition to the NLESD. The funding is being transferred to the Regular

Operating Grant there in the order of about $209,000, the elimination of the

director position and then the funding more or less that function is being

transferred to the NLESD, Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

It will no longer be

directly managed by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development;

it will be managed by NLESD.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay and that's why there's

no director with it.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Under

the Student Assistants, my question is a bit different. I think the budget said

there would be an extra $500,000 going in to student assistants, but the

increase over last year's budget is $1.3 million, which is more than the extra

$500,000.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, because of the JES

step funding.

MS. MICHAEL:

All right. Okay.

Thank

you very much.

MR. KIRBY:

Again, the full

annualization of what was announced in last year's budget. So last year there

was an additional $500,000 allocated for student assistant time.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

One hundred per cent of that

wouldn't have been captured in last year's budget; you need a full budget cycle

in order for that to be reflected. Likewise, I anticipate that next year you'll

see a bump again, so the full reflection of the $500,000 that was announced in

this year's budget.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you.

I think

my time is up.

CLERK:

Okay.

Will I

call that or are you

MR. BRAZIL:

No, no, I still have some

questions there on 3.1.02, School Board Operations.

CHAIR:

Okay.

MR. BRAZIL:

And particularly under

Purchased Services. Is there a list that is available of what services were

purchased under that heading that we could avail of? I'm curious to see what

type of services are directly contracted there as part of the School Board

Operations. Is that available?

MR. KIRBY:

For the most part, that's

insurance premiums.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, insurance.

With

the additional 15 per cent on insurance rates now, has that had an impact on the

budget lines for School Board Operations?

MR. KIRBY:

Not here. No, that's not

anticipated. In fact, the insurance premiums were lower than anticipated.

MR. BRAZIL:

As a result of the premiums

being lower, the budget lines, even though the 15 per cent was there, it still

fits within your budget line?

MR. KIRBY:

The number remains the same,

yeah.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. Yeah, fair enough,

good.

The

grants here, Allowances and Assistance, $49,000 down to $26,000; this is for

students travelling, isn't it, who have to travel in

MR. KIRBY:

Sorry, which one?

MR. BRAZIL:

From Allowances and

Assistance, $49,000, $26,000 was used, now it's back up to $49,000.

MR. KIRBY:

Just lower take up of

bursaries for students who are living away from home to complete high school.

MR. BRAZIL:

Do you a number of how many

students took advantage of that last year?

MR. WALSH: There

are four students currently accessing bursaries in the province.

MR. BRAZIL:

What's the maximum we think we can handle with the addition?

MR. WALSH:

Probably, somewhere in the order of 10 to 15 with the current budget line.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

Because I'm not overly familiar with the process there, if

a student had an extreme need cost wise, can we adjust the budget accordingly to

meet a particular need if it's determined that person fits that criteria?

MR. WALSH: In

the current bursary program, there are a number of criteria that are used to

determine the amounts the student would qualify for to help them with living

arrangements, which is essentially what the bursary program is for.

MR. BRAZIL:

Uh-huh.

MR. WALSH:

Anything that's outside of that or outside of that criterion is not normally

captured by this program.

MR. BRAZIL: Are

there students who get denied for it? Have we had applications where

MR. WALSH: No.

MR. BRAZIL: We

haven't. Okay.

Just so I'm clear, when they go into this program, what age

category or what class category are we talking about? What level?

MR. WALSH: It's

normally high school.

MR. BRAZIL:

High school.

I want to go to

Transportation; school

children there from what was budgeted to, we're into pretty well on the same

baseline. Do we anticipate any differences in population, the routes, schools

being built closer or further away from existing routes, increases in contract

costs or decreases in contract costs? Is this based on the continuum that we

have 85 or 90 per cent of our contracts already in play or are there new

contracts to be negotiated?

MR. KIRBY:

It's based on what our most

recent experience is with awarding tenders for busing.

MR. BRAZIL:

What's the normal

discrepancy between regions? Is it $1,000 a month for is there a big

discrepancy? Is it fairly close? I'm only now starting to get my head around the

differences between them.

MR. KIRBY:

Assuming that we can release

the information to you, we can release the information we have on tenders but

I'm not sure around the commercial sensitivity of that. I don't know if there is

any

MR. BRAZIL:

If you can I'd appreciate

it.

MR. KIRBY:

If there isn't, we can

provide that information to you in some form.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, even a regional

background to know if it's more expensive on the West Coast and the Northern

Peninsula.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, there are different

kinds of busing, though, because there's board-owned busing and then there are

the private contracts. It's different around the province based on predecessor

arrangements, when we had multiple boards versus what we have now.

MR. BRAZIL:

Is there any discussions of

going one route or the other, like all private or all board controlled?

MR. KIRBY:

No one has brought that to

me from the school district.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. I'm curious to see

where we are on that.

Student

assistants, obviously we had some discussion on that, the additional money. I

know there's some money announced there. Can you outline to me exactly what that

may equate to in the number of hours, or is it going to be based on positions,

or is it hours or is it for regions? Is it broken down by regions or broken down

by particular needs of students? Is it broken down by particular schools? What's

the allocation or process of doing that?

MR. KIRBY:

Student assistant hours are

allocated based on need in an hourly amount, basically.

MR. BRAZIL:

I know there's an application process and it's outlined and it's assessed, but

are you breaking it down per region? Because I know in the St. John's region,

there's no doubt, they could allocate very quickly the $500,000.

MR. KIRBY:

The allocations made by the

school district, correct, and we would provide the funds to the school district.

They have a process for allocating student assistant time to schools.

MR. BRAZIL:

So they would follow the

same process they used in the past.

MR. KIRBY:

They would just have more

MR. BRAZIL:

From four hours to six hours

where necessary.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. They would have more

student assistant time to allocate.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

Yeah,

I'm good on 3.1.02.

MS. MICHAEL:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Okay.

Are you

okay with ?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, Ms. Michael can go and

finish up those.

CHAIR:

Okay.

What

I'd like to do then is we will let Ms. Michael ask a couple of questions, then

we'll take a five-six minute break and then come back and start with the new

section.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

Minister, I don't know if it's you or the school district who gives us this, but

we'd like to have a list of the numbers of the board-owned buses, private buses,

private vehicles, alternate transportation.

MR. KIRBY:

It's probably better you

just go to the district to get that and, again, like I said before, if you have

any problems getting it because especially when it comes to the individual.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

If it's, say, somebody is

being it's a one-off sort of thing, then, yeah, they would be dealing with it.

We don't deal with that level of it.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Thank

you. We'll do that.

MR. KIRBY:

If you have any problems

getting that list, we can help facilitate it.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Minister, in responding to Mr. Brazil with regard to the drop in buses, you did

mention differences now because of the one school district and not the four. Is

there any intention or do you have intentions of evaluating the impact of having

moved from four to one? We really haven't had an evaluation of that done.

MR. KIRBY:

It's not something that's

really a priority at the moment. In terms of evaluating this system at the

moment, our priority continues to be the task force and whatever recommendations

they come back with.

Governance was not an explicit area for review by the task force; however, if

they have a recommendation with respect to governance, I've asked them to

provide it. It wasn't explicit, but I have also given them the direction to

provide what recommendations to government that they see as vital at this point,

if it's beyond the scope of their mandate.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

So that's where that is.

MS. MICHAEL:

And you have made that

request to them.

MR. KIRBY:

We had a conversation with

one of them about it yesterday.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right. Good.

Okay

then, that's all I have, Madam Chair, to the end of 3.1.02.

CHAIR:

Okay.

I'll

call the Estimates.

Shall

3.1.01 to 3.1.05 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

I'm not finished, because I

forgot there were sections that Mr. Brazil skipped over. I haven't asked them on

3.1.03 and the others. So I still have questions under this whole section.

CHAIR:

You can continue on the

clock because we had called to 3.1.05.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Yes, I forgot that.

Thank

you.

Under

3.1.03, I don't have questions there; 3.1.04, I think we have that answered,

yes. I just want to check and make sure I'm not leaving out any questions. I

think Mr. Brazil asked about 3.1.05. I think he covered what I wanted to ask. I

just wanted to make sure there's nothing that has been left out. No, that's

fine.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

You're good?

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Mr.

Brazil, I understand you're finished up to 3.1.05.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes, I'm finished right down

to 3.2.01.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Shall

the subtitle 3.1.01 to 3.1.05 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 3.1.01 through 3.1.05 carried.

CHAIR:

We'll take a break and

resume at 10:30. Is that okay with everybody?

All

right; we will come back and start at 3.2.01.

Recess

CLERK:

3.2.01 to 3.2.02.

CHAIR:

Shall 3.2.01 to 3.2.02

carry?

Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Under

this

section here I want to first go to Transportation and Communications there,

and see the difference from what was budgeted to what was used to, now, what's

allocated.

Can the

minister outline, or one of his officials, exactly what that would entail for

this year under that particular heading?

MR. KIRBY:

Which one is it again?

MR. BRAZIL:

Transportation and

Communications, under

section 01 Salaries.

MR. KIRBY:

3.1.01?

MR. BRAZIL:

3.2.01, under 01 Salaries;

I'm looking at the Transportation and Communications Estimates line.

MR. KIRBY:

Under Curriculum

Development?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

Less travel required than

anticipated, $45,000. Then based on the zero-based exercise, this is sort of

assigning a figure that's more closely fitting to the activity that's required.

MR. BRAZIL:

What kind of travel would

this entail?

MR. KIRBY:

For Curriculum Development?

MR. BRAZIL:

In-house, out of province,

out of country.

MR. KIRBY:

It's all within the province

travel.

MR. BRAZIL:

Pardon me?

MR. KIRBY:

It's all within the province

travel.

MR. BRAZIL:

How many staff would we be

talking who would avail of that?

MR. WALSH:

That would be travel

associated with any of our program development specialists as they're out

working with groups of teachers in the development of curriculum. In some cases

that occurs at the department; in other cases it occurs in regions in the

province where it's more efficient to do it in that manner.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

Thank

you.

MR. KIRBY:

I just want to go back to

3.1.05, School Services. I had said the director of school services was replaced

with a manager of school services, that's not the case.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

It was just a position was

eliminated outright.

MR. BRAZIL:

All together.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. Again, the

responsibilities assumed under a different role basically, in the same

MR. BRAZIL:

But within the same

division.

MR. KIRBY:

In Ed's department, or

division area.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. Thank you on that.

Just

moving down the lines here; under 01 Supplies, it's a minimum amount of money

but can you explain what that would include? I see it under Kindergarten to

Grade 12 Education and Early Childhood Development, and the Program Development.

What would that $4,000 be for?

MR. KIRBY:

It's Supplies under

Curriculum Development still?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

I don't know what the

supplies are specifically. We can provide you with whatever it is but my note

just says lower than anticipated. So that's $1,000 lower.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, I'm just curious

because it's such a small amount.

MR. KIRBY:

It could be photocopying.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah, I was going to say, it

couldn't be for all the schools because if that's the case it is very minimal.

MR. KIRBY:

It's within the department,

yeah.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. Yeah, I'm curious just

to see what that is.

Under

Professional Services, dramatic changes from what was budgeted, to what was

revised, to what we're allocating now. Can you just explain under what services

would be there and, particularly, what was built into that last year that's

different for this year, that's not necessary?

MR. KIRBY:

There was an additional

$64,000-about because curriculum development expenses were higher than

anticipated, obviously. Any comment, Ed, on the activity in particular?

MR. WALSH:

In that particular category,

Professional Services, last year in preparation for combined grades, there was a

significant amount of work completed over the summer in order to allow teachers

to be prepared when school opened. That activity and that work is captured

there.

MR. BRAZIL:

So that would have been done

by an outside agency or contract work?

MR. WALSH:

It would have been done by

teachers working over the summer.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, outside of the

mainstream school year. Okay, fair enough. That was a one-time shot that's

completed now, okay.

Under

Purchased Services, also again, the discrepancy there, but back up to $81,000.

Meaning that last year $11,000 versus $83,000, so $72,500 wasn't spent. The

rationale: What didn't get done or ?

MR. KIRBY:

The amounts for the previous

line that you asked about were transferred to there to cover that cost.

MR. BRAZIL:

Properties and furnishings,

just explain who avails of that amount of money. I know there's $4,000 less this

year.

MR. KIRBY:

The increase last year over

what was estimated was due to ergonomic assessments and then equipment purchased

as a result of the

MR. BRAZIL:

For in-house staff.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

Office equipment. And then

the amount that's there for the coming year is basically the result of

zero-based exercise; it's just the amount plus $1,000 to try to anticipate any

coming need.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

I want

to move to line 10 there, Grants and Subsidies. From $65,600, the full $65,600

was done now up to $256,000. What are your anticipated grants and subsidies

there? What kind of grants are we talking about? Who can avail of them and what

the process is if you could.

MR. KIRBY:

The Grants and Subsidies are

associated with expenditures for curriculum development. Basically, the funding

was taken from professional development and put under this grant expenditure

line. Because in accordance with the recommendations made by the Auditor General

some time back, those funds were more appropriately put here rather than in

professional development.

That

was the same as a couple of the other questions that I responded to, which are

moving funds from one line to the other in response to concerns that the Auditor

General had expressed with respect to provision of funding for teacher

professional development.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay. Under these Grants and

Subsidies, who could avail of them?

MR. KIRBY:

I think it was the same as

what Ed had said but

MR. BRAZIL:

Former teachers in the

summertime, outside agencies or other professionals?

MR. WALSH:

It would be for the benefit

of the school system, teachers and students.

MR. BRAZIL:

And solely

curriculum-oriented?

MR. WALSH:

It would be in support of

programs like skilled trades and technology. It would be funding to support

intra-provincial travel, grants for students and the department support for the

provincial immigration strategy.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, so intra-provincial

travel. So there would be an application process in some cases here?

MR. WALSH:

There would be for the

intra-provincial travel.

MR. BRAZIL:

And that would be the

standard way we advertise and promote how we get that message out to schools or

regions or agencies that could avail of it. Okay, fair enough.

I want

to move on to 3.2.02, Language Programs. Down under Professional Services, a

change from $160,000 to $110,000 last year, up to $150,000. Can you clarify what

didn't get spent last year and what your anticipated professional services would

be this year under the Language Programs?

MR. KIRBY:

Well, there were fewer

prepared, so couldn't translate it into French because it wasn't available in

guess, priority areas because we received funding from the federal government

under the Official Languages Agreement.

MR. BRAZIL:

So other areas related to

official languages, the second official language (inaudible)

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, so it was provided to

French Immersion resources instead.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

Just

under Purchased Services, the difference from $10,000 down to $2,300, now to

$8,800.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MR. BRAZIL:

Is there something there

that we had anticipated we'd purchase that we haven't purchased that we're now

going to purchase in this fiscal?

MR. KIRBY:

No, it was just training

funds that were not required.

MR. BRAZIL:

As part of the budget.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, Madam Chair, my time

is just about up. I'll pass it on to Ms. Michael, please.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes, just going back up to

3.2.01, Curriculum Development, just with regard to curriculum development,

could we have an update on what curriculum reviews are happening at the moment

and what curriculum was being dealt with over the past year.

MR. WALSH:

The department has a three-

to five-year curriculum development plan. It's pretty fluid simply because the

nature of curriculum development can't always be nailed down to specific time

frames.

course, the work of the Premier's Task Force, when they present their report, is

going to inform some of the work that Curriculum Development, I'm guessing, will

be doing in the next couple of years. Despite that, we continued to work, in

particular, in the areas of science. In September coming we will be implementing

Science 3 and 5, and we also have ready to go Franais 3202.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

I just

have one question. If I may, a question, and maybe the task force has heard

people speak to this, I don't know. I'm sure the minister and you too, Mr.

Walsh, are aware of the call that's been made by people with regard to bringing

coding into the educational system. Is that being looked at?

MR. WALSH:

One of the courses that's in

our review cycle is Communications Technology 2104. That is intended to address

some of the concerns that are there regarding coding.

course, coding by its very nature also occurs in the mathematics curriculum. We

would expect and hope, I guess, that when the task force comes with their

recommendations, that they're going to have recommendations specific to coding,

and where and how much of it should be in the curriculum.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, so we can keep our

eyes open for that and see what happens.

MR. KIRBY:

We've met with a number of

external groups around coding and interested in pursuing that. There's currently

some informal instruction going on that's not directly associated with outcomes

in a curriculum like the day of code and those sorts of activities that teachers

will undertake independently with these sorts of initiatives.

We met

with NATI, or NATI met with officials in the department a while back and

expressed an interest in working on some individual school-based initiatives for

the coming school year. We are attentive to the need to move in that direction

but as you can imagine, there are a lot of competing demands for curricular

change and curricular reform from yoga to you name it, but coding is something

that a lot of provinces have moved towards or have been speaking about moving

towards.

expect a lot of our attention has been, as I said, devoted to the task force and

supporting their work and looking forward to structural change, if you will, in

the school system, what that might entail. I expect, or I hope the task force

report and recommendations in June will be the trigger to pursue broader

curricular reform. As you can imagine again, a lot of stuff will fall out of the

broader recommendations they will make.

that's what I have been trying to communicate to various stakeholder groups in

and out of the system, that once we get the task force report and start working

on the action plan associated with that, there will be other activities

generated by that report.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

I know

I don't have to say this to you, Minister, I'm sure you know, but just to put on

the record, I think coding is something we need to look at in a much larger

picture in terms of job opportunities and future economic growth here in our own

province and having our students, as they're coming forward, being able to look

at issues around IT and all the opportunities that are growing in that area. I'm

sure we see coding in a much broader picture.

Thank

you.

Under

3.2.02, Language Programs, last year the revenue from the federal government was

up by $3.6 million, almost $3.7 million. It looks like it was a one-time thing.

What was that?

MR. KIRBY:

It was just a difference in

when we received the federal payment and where the fiscal year fell.

MS. MICHAEL:

Oh, right.

MR. KIRBY:

So that's just an adjustment

because of that.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right, which happens

frequently.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes, it happens every now

and then.

MS. MICHAEL:

That's right.

MR. KIRBY:

It's really the difference of when the cheques are cut.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

Thank

you.

That's

all I have for those two sections, Madam Chair.

CHAIR:

Mr. Brazil, were you

finished with that

section as well?

MR. BRAZIL:

I'm good (inaudible).

CHAIR:

Okay. We'll call that and

then give Ms. Michael her four minutes left on the clock.

Shall

3.2.01 to 3.2.02 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subheads 3.2.01 to 3.2.02 carried.

CHAIR:

Shall 3.3.01 and 3.3.02

carry?

Ms.

Michael, I'll let you finish your time on the clock.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Madam

Chair.

Under

3.3.01, Salaries, last year in the 2016-17 budget there was a decrease of

$146,000. Could we have an explanation?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, it was two vacant

program specialist positions, savings due to vacant positions.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. And are they now

filled?

MR. KIRBY:

It's in the process of being

filled.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, both of them.

Could

we specifically have what those positions are, Minister, please?

MR. KIRBY:

A program development

specialist and I'm not sure if there's go ahead, Ed.

MR. WALSH:

The way our program development specialists work in Student Support Services is

their duties are somewhat fluid. They may change year to year.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. WALSH:

These two individuals will be working in the areas of Safe and Caring Schools,

mental health and data analysis.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Transportation and Communications, last year there was a drop of $36,000 from

the budget to the revision. This year it's going just up to $72,800; just a

brief explanation of why we have that drop.

MR. KIRBY:

The reduction was the result

of a district professional development initiative that didn't proceed.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, so that was sort of

one time ?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

Under

Supplies, major variations here from last year's budget to the revision and now

to this year's estimate. Could we have an explanation of that line?

MR. KIRBY:

The increase was a result of

expenditures being transferred from professional development and more

appropriately classified under here; assisted technology expenditures relating

to ISSPs. Again, yes, transferred from professional development which will be

more appropriately reflected here versus in the professional development line,

and it's all consistent with the recommendations made by the Auditor General; so

moving money around.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you.

Under

Grants and Subsidies, there's a $20,000 estimate in there which seems to be

something new.

MR. KIRBY:

Again, the same answer as

last time, transferred from professional development, more appropriately

situated under here in accordance with the recommendations made by the Auditor

General.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you.

I have

a couple of general questions with regard to 3.3.01. I understand there has been

a restructuring, I think, within the Student Support Services and the position

of director is now gone. Could we have an explanation of what's happening there,

Minister, please?

MR. KIRBY:

The position was converted

into a manager position. I believe the same person holds that position and is

more or less now under the auspices of it's restructured, basically.

MS. MICHAEL:

What would the implications

of that be now having the position manager rather than director when it comes to

representation to the minister around Student Support Services? I know a manager

does not sit in the executive role, for example.

MR. KIRBY:

Directors and managers are

management, and in the event that I or other officials in the department require

information from anyone on the executive team, then they would request it.

MS. MICHAEL:

And in the same way, the

manager would see the responsibility to let you know of any concerns that he or

she may have just as if the position were a director.

MR. KIRBY:

There has been no change in

the way reporting is done in the department.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

For the most part, the

communication with myself is with the deputy minister. They would exercise their

professional judgement as to where in the organization they receive information

from. The whole, I guess, intent of the flatter, leaner exercise was to

streamline management.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Is it

still considered a division within the department?

MR. KIRBY:

I'm not sure. It would be a

section within the division.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

And

what would be the division?

CHAIR:

Ms. Michael, when the

minister answers, then I'm going to move then to Mr. Brazil.

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes.

CHAIR:

I've been a little bit

lenient with the clock again.

MS. MICHAEL:

Yeah.

MR. KIRBY:

It's Programs and Services.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

CHAIR:

Okay?

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Madam

Chair.

CHAIR:

You're welcome.

Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want

to move to 3.3.02, the Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority. Can the

minister just outline, for the record, the relationship there as part of that

partnership, just how that works.

MR. KIRBY:

We provide an annual amount

to APSEA, as government has done for quite a lengthy period of time now. Part of

the service that we receive relates to materials in alternate format for

students to complete required parts of the curriculum, examinations, those sorts

of things, and assistance advice and so on with special education requirements

in the school system.

All the

provinces are part of this. There are regular meetings involved. This would

include travel for staff to periodic meetings with APSEA would be included

under this line. So we pay it out, pay out travel. Travel would be covered under

here and a variety of other things.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

Can you

just outline the Grants and Subsidies, the process there for someone to avail of

those?

MR. KIRBY:

What do you mean? To APSEA?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

That's the amount paid to

APSEA?

MR. BRAZIL:

Directly to them, yeah.

MR. KIRBY:

We get a variety. Ed has

handed me a list here.

We have

131 students who are blind or visually impaired that are being provided service

by an itinerant teacher for the blind or visually impaired. There are nine

itinerant teachers who meet with students who are sorry, where is the APSEA

explanation? Here it is.

They

have short-term programming from APSEA; like I said, assessment materials,

alternate-format materials, library services, assistive technology for some of

those blind and visually impaired students. There are two students who receive

direct assessment from APSEA; two who receive consultative assessments; 10

students who've travelled to Halifax where APSEA's headquartered for short-term

programs. Like I said, alternate format materials, assistive technology,

assistance they've hosted the student database with respect to blind and

visually impaired students.

There's

professional development that's provided for itinerants. The itinerants attend

professional development every year in Halifax. There were two students who

attended a summer camp for blind and visually impaired students. There are a

whole variety of services that are provided by virtue of that arrangement with

APSEA. Much in the same way that we pay a block amount out to the Council of

Ministers of Education, Canada or to the Atlantic Ministers of Education and

Training; that's the amount that we paid for APSEA and we receive a variety of

other things that I just listed.

There

are also services for students who are deaf and hard of hearing. The database

that I mentioned for blind and visually impaired students there, maintained a

student database; there's an APSEA-sponsored summer camp for students who are

deaf and hard of hearing. There were five students from this province who went

last year.

There's

a trust fund from APSEA that students can avail of. They are basically done on

an individual basis that supports not just academic needs, but social and

recreational activities as well. Imagine with students who have particular

disabilities of that nature, for them to participate in certain extracurricular

recreational activities, there would be some additional needs.

2015-16, is the most recent data we have available, there were 37 awards of less

than $500, four awards of more than $500 for students who are blind and visually

impaired and one award of more than $500 for students who was deaf and hard of

hearing. So the whole variety of different services that are provided to support

instruction, curriculum, assessment and then a variety of other grants and

supports that we receive for teacher professional development and then

individually for students.

we're getting quite a lot from APSEA for what we provide. And it's really sort

of a capacity issue because by having all the Atlantic provinces come together

and sort of pool our resources, we're able to have greater capacity to support

schooling and students than we would otherwise.

MR. BRAZIL:

How is this amount reached?

Is it based on the number of students who have those particular needs? It is a

formula on general population? Is it a percentage of what's allocated in

inclusive education?

MR. KIRBY:

This amount has not changed

from some time. I'm not sure what the exact criteria are. We can go back and

look at that, but it's the same as it was when the previous administration was

in power.

MR. BRAZIL:

So if we have an influx of

students who have these particular challenges and need additional services, do

we have the ability to adjust that accordingly to provide those services?

MR. KIRBY:

I assume it would fluctuate

from year to year. The nature of the student population is always changing.

There's no reason to assume that we wouldn't be able to accommodate students,

though.

MR. BRAZIL:

Decisions then on which

students avail of it, that would come at the board level and integration between

MR. KIRBY:

They have a board, yes,

which our deputy minister it is the deputy, right?

OFFICIAL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

participates in board

meetings on a regular basis.

MR. BRAZIL:

So there'd be a multitude of

partners who would be engaged in this to identify particular needs.

MR. KIRBY:

Basically all the Atlantic

deputies would be involved in it.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, fair enough.

And

just so I know, we do have the ability if fortunate or unfortunate there was

a big demand for it to be able to adjust accordingly the supports that would be

necessary?

MR. KIRBY:

I would expect, yeah.

There's no reason to believe there wouldn't be.

MR. BRAZIL:

And again the determination

is based on so they're the professionals in the field because they specify

particularly in those areas.

MR. KIRBY:

Well, they would really be

supporting our professionals and the APSEA office and the APSEA board would be

making recommendations for service provision based on what we see in, sort of,

our combined student populations.

MR. BRAZIL:

What would be the ratios in

comparison with the other Atlantic provinces, the number of students who have to

avail of it, the money we put into it is there a comparable?

MR. KIRBY:

I'm not sure if the data is

available. We can look into it.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, I appreciate that. I'm

curious to see where we are. Particularly, if we could have a list of who avails

of what type of programs?

What

you've outlined there sounds very engaging. I'd like to know if it's three

students, 200, and more particularly what regions they come from. Is there a

particular need in a particular area that we're missing here as part of that

whole process.

I'd

like to now also, if I could, move over to 3.4.01 under Salaries, and the

difference of $125,000 from what was spent

CHAIR:

We have to call that, Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Oh, sorry, I apologize. Oh

yes, sorry, I thought that was a part of that one.

CHAIR:

Ms. Michael, you're just

about out on the clock, but did you have more questions up to 3.3.02?

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes, I have two more.

CHAIR:

Are you okay if we

OFFICIAL:

(Inaudible.)

CHAIR:

Okay.

All

right, Ms. Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Again,

under 3.3.01, Minister, I know you talked about the move in general of certain

expenses from other areas into this area. Is 3.3.01 now where we would find, for

example, the supports for deaf and hard-of-hearing students?

Last

year, there was a budget of $292,000 for the supports for deaf and

hard-of-hearing students, but that line item is no longer in the budget. Would

that be part of that general move that was made in services, well especially in

Supplies, but also somewhere else?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, so those amounts are

there's $243,000 that's in these particular lines that are associated with the

deaf and hard of hearing.

MS. MICHAEL:

So that's a small drop from

last year?

MR. KIRBY:

$243,000. Yeah, that's one

position, is it?

There

was one position that was eliminated due to the attrition management plan:

$49,000.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, and that's what the

supports for deaf and hard of hearing is related to.

With

regard to Supplies, again, with regard to the deaf and hard-of-hearing students,

as we know, there are some things they require to help them in the classroom.

The Supplies previously, in the

section previously, 3.3.03 which is not this

year, there was $145,000 for the Supplies. Is that included now under that new

Supplies line?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, it's still the same.

MS. MICHAEL:

It's still the same amount?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, still the same,

$145,000.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Thank

you very much. That's good news.

The one

last thing is the PASS program, Positive Action for Student Success. Is that

still in place?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, it's still being

offered at schools. Some of it is I guess it's largely district driven. They

will provide allocations for continuation of the program where it exists. I

visited a number of schools where they have it, yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

Is it still being

categorized as a pilot project, or do you ?

MR. KIRBY:

No.

MS. MICHAEL:

No?

MR. KIRBY:

No.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you.

MR. KIRBY:

Now the other thing, you'd

be surprised when you go to schools, the extent to which they have PASS-like

programs that are not really wouldn't necessarily be on my radar because they

are oftentimes you think about teachers going above and beyond the call of

duty, oftentimes they are using their existing resources to provide that sort of

academic remediation. I've just seen some really, really amazing things going

on.

It's

not been an easy time in terms of resources for schools, if you think about the

expenditure reductions we've had. Just there are some really, really impressive

things going on around credit rescue sorts of activities, helping kids avoid

that level 4 situation that a lot of them end up in.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

Minister, could we have an up-to-date list of the schools that do come under the

budget line for PASS?

MR. KIRBY:

We can get that for you.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you very much.

That's

it, Madam Chair.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Shall

3.3.01 to 3.3.02 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, 3.3.01 to 3.3.02 carried.

CLERK:

3.4.01.

CHAIR:

Shall 3.4.01 carry?

So I

guess we'll go back, and Ms. Michael you can finish out the clock.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you very much.

I don't

have a lot here. Under Salaries, there was a jump last year from $1.3 million to

$1.4 million, approximately. Can you explain that, Minister, please?

MR. KIRBY:

Retirement costs associated

with a person retiring in the department.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, and then that's why

it's back down to more or less the same this year

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

$1.3 million, yes.

Thank

you very much.

There

is nothing else really outstanding there. Just under 09, Allowances and

Assistance, can you just explain what that line is? Not so much in terms of

money because that's constant, but what it actually is.

MR. KIRBY:

Allowances and Assistance;

so we've got the secondary school scholarships that are in there and there are a

variety of them. You'll hear about these from time to time in Ministerial

Statements and the news media.

There's

the Junior Jubilee Scholarship, the Electoral District Scholarships, the

Centenary of Responsible Government Scholarships in there, Constable W. C. Moss

Scholarship, the Pearson Scholarships.

MS. MICHAEL:

Could we have that list,

Minister, please?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Great. Thank you.

Under

Property, Furnishings and Equipment, going back up to 01, Salaries, there was an

expenditure that wasn't expected, $17,000 last year.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. There were no expenses

anticipated, but we had one of those optical scanners that scan public exams and

criterion reference tests that broke.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

We had to fix it.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Down

under federal revenue, nothing was anticipated but there was a $25,000 piece of

money coming in. What was that about?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah. That was the National

Autism Surveillance System that we announced last year.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Could

you just talk about that a bit?

MR. KIRBY:

Well, we hear oftentimes

about autism and its prevalence, but you notice that they're always using,

almost inevitably, American statistics. So you hear people talking about it and

they'll say the incidence of autism is up by a certain amount. By and large,

they're using American data that's from the US statistics agency.

The

national Public Health Agency of Canada, there was a decision made to have

bilateral agreements with all the provinces to institute this National Autism

Surveillance System so that we would share whatever data we have available with

them, with Health Canada, in order to get a better sense of this. The data we

would have through the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development,

whatever we have, we would have arrangement for sharing. Likewise, the

Department of Health, Dr. Haggie, they would also be participating in this as

well.

MS. MICHAEL:

That's good news actually.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Is that in operation now?

The data has been

MR. KIRBY:

Yes, we signed the

arrangement last September with them. I think we made an announcement at the

time but you know the way things are the beginning of the school year

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes, easy to lose.

MR. KIRBY:

it sort of gets lost in

lots of other news.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

The process is underway now.

Now we'll have to wait and see what the end result is, but that $25,000 was

provided in recognition of whatever sort of labour and whatever costs we would

be incurring to co-operate in the data collection sharing.

MS. MICHAEL:

So we can be confident now

that if we ask for data for Canada, data for our province, we'd get relevant

data?

MR. KIRBY:

I'm not sure where they are

in the process yet.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

If you think about how this

works, provinces are different in the way that they collect information, so they

would have a pretty significant piece of work ahead of them trying to line

everything up apples and oranges, pears and tomatoes.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right, okay. Thank you very

much.

That's

all I have for that section, Madam Chair.

CHAIR:

Okay.

Mr.

Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes, I just want to go

through 3.4.01 there and have a little discussion where it talks about student

testing and that. I'm glad the minister had outlined about some of the other

partnerships that are being developed, some of the new approaches that are a

part of it.

The

process that we have now in play for students with exceptionalities,

particularly around testing, assessment and all this, where would that best fit

here? Is it broken down into different sections or does it fit under one clean,

neat one, or is it all part of a different inclusive process when we do that?

I know

you talked about the data being collected, which is ideal to have that, to have

an understanding of exactly what students fit under which categories and what

supports we may need for those. The testing under this

section here, is that

solely for the mainstream school system, or is it for those with some

exceptionalities also?

MR. KIRBY:

Student Support Services

wouldn't be captured under here I don't think, would it?

OFFICIAL:

No.

MR. KIRBY:

No. Any service that would

be provided for students with special education needs wouldn't necessarily be

captured here, no.

MR. BRAZIL:

It still would be captured

under the

MR. KIRBY:

I guess part of it would be

under Student Support Services and then anything provided by the district, you'd

have to have their budget ahead of them in front of you to break out what the

district is doing, or the districts

MR. BRAZIL:

Fair enough.

MR. KIRBY:

in terms of accommodation.

I think that's what you're asking about, right?

MR. BRAZIL:

What are our time frames on

students who have exceptionalities coming into the system to be able to adjust

your needs for the following school year? I know there are some parents who have

come to me that they've applied for a student assistant and they won't know

until June or later whether or not they'll have that service in September and if

they don't, what impact (inaudible).

MR. KIRBY:

The final allocations for

teachers and student assistants and other services are not made by the school

districts until sometime in August. People would have to wait until the district

does its final determinations. Even then, they're not necessarily final because

if you think about students transferring in from other countries, other

provinces, other towns within the province, the composition of classes is a very

fluid thing.

You

wouldn't get that information right now in terms of finality of it. You would

have to be waiting. I know it's frustrating but, practically, the districts have

to wait until the latter part of August to really make all their final decisions

around resourcing so they have a better sense because if you think about it if

you're trying to make those determinations now based on what we think the

classes are going to look like, all kinds of things can happen between now and

September.

that's really why there's a delay in getting that solid information. Then, as

the year goes on, there's an appeals process that principals participate in, if

there needs to be other adjustments beyond that. So it is arduous, it's time

consuming and it's frustrating. All those things are certainly true.

MR. BRAZIL:

No, and I agree because I've

had a number of parents and, as I got more familiar with the process, realizing

that there's a gap there between when they know whether or not they have the

service and if they don't get that service, how they adjust their family life

and their child's education as part of it.

What's

the working relationship from the and it's perfect that it's under the one

department early childhood development process and resources versus

identifying for those kids who may move into the kindergarten school system and

beyond?

MR. KIRBY:

Well, I think one of the

good things we have going for us now is that with full-day kindergarten there's

a better opportunity to do assessment, to observe a child in a full day rather

than that really compressed portion of the day. So we have that.

There

are real differences in the system when it comes to providing documentation of

children with special needs when they are in regulated child care spaces. Some

children are not in regulated child care; others are. I don't know, Mary, if you

want to comment on that at all?

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

You have to remember that

it's not 100 per cent take up in regulated child care for a variety of reasons,

and we're seeing actually many spaces open right now in regulated child care

because of a number of factors, like not all parents are working the way they

were; we've got a lower birth rate. There are a number of things happening. In

certain pockets of the province we still have a need for child care, but in

other spots it may not be quite as high.

We do

have an Inclusion Supports Program in the early childhood piece, in regulated

child care. That basically assesses when a child is seen as needing some extra

support to partake in the child care program.

The

issue with evaluating it to a point where we could identify what the school

system might need is a bigger piece of work, because many of the things that

we're looking at, at a later point, are not identifiable 100 per cent or

diagnosable in those very early years. It's a bit of a balancing act to figure

that piece out.

We do

some work in the KinderStart program related to the KinderStart program but

really, other than that, we don't see all of the children in regulated child

care. Where we can make links, we're making them, but it's not always 100 per

cent.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

there discrepancy between rural and urban? Have you noticed the uptake on the

spaces?

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

In terms of the child care

services side?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yes.

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

No, it's actually occurring

in most regions now. We found that licensees are becoming more creative in how

they license their homeroom so that they can maximize their enrolment.

In the

St. John's region, there are a number of centres that are reporting no

wait-lists anymore and, in fact, some of them have had to close a homeroom or

close an entire centre where they had multiple licences. We had one on the West

Coast that had to close one of her centres and combine them all into one because

of lower numbers of children looking for child care.

MR. BRAZIL:

(Inaudible.)

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

But for a number of other

reasons, we've had some that have looked to open them up. If we look at our

Operating Grant Program, one of the people that came on to that program,

actually her enrolment increased to the point where she could reopen a centre

that she had closed.

Again,

where it's a private system and it's not a publicly managed system as the school

system is, you're talking about private business, so as with the merchandising

system and all others, there's some fluctuation when you deal with a private

system.

MR. BRAZIL:

Have you noticed the cuts to

the transportation grants? Has that had any impact on some areas or some

providers?

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

We haven't seen a direct

link. I know the bulk of our transportation piece was in Central, in fact. That

seems to have been taken up by the taxi services in Central. They seem to have

offered a program that and we haven't had any complaints directly.

We did

put in place a disability-related supports supplement for parents or children

who have physical disabilities that prevent them from using regular

transportation to get back and forth. So far, we've only had one person apply

for that under the subsidy program.

MR. BRAZIL:

Is there a partnership with

AES for Income Support clients whose kids may avail of a daycare or an

educational program in one of them for transportation? I've had some inquiries

around that. I'm trying to get my head around is it a hindrance, is it something

new, is it something lost? That's what I need to figure out.

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

Frankly, we haven't heard a

lot of anyone coming directly to us. Now whether they're going to AES

MR. KIRBY:

It's probably better to

direct that to AES.

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah. No doubt I will, but I

didn't know if there was a discussion, if there had been some complaints or some

inquiries as to the impact it was having on numbers in some daycares.

MR. KIRBY:

We had some concerns

expressed by one operator about the elimination of the transportation subsidy

and its impact on children with special education needs. So we created a new

program, if you will, a policy, that was really directed towards that segment of

the population and we've only had one application to date.

MR. BRAZIL:

Does the application come

from the provider or from the parent in these cases?

MR. KIRBY:

From the parent.

MR. BRAZIL:

From the parent itself

looking for transportation supports?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

Often it would be. It's

possible that

MR. BRAZIL:

Is there somewhere easy I

can look up what the criteria are on those?

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah, we can provide it to

you.

MR. BRAZIL:

If you can provide it, I

appreciate that. Perfect.

Madam

Chair, I think I'm out of time there now on this section.

CHAIR:

Are you good?

MR. BRAZIL:

Yeah.

CHAIR:

Are both parties okay with

do you want me to come back to 3.4.01?

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes, I'd just like to

CHAIR:

Okay.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

just follow up a bit further on that point that the minister was just making

with Mr. Brazil. I want to do it in a general way, although it's based on a

particular situation that's been brought to me by a constituent.

Where

would the department come in, with regard to student evaluation, when a decision

is being made saying that a child can't go on the bus because of the child's

behaviour it's a child on the autism spectrum yet the parent can't afford to

pay for a taxi, is trying to do it, but does not have the resources to do it?

Where's the responsibility there for that? Is it with the department, with the

MR. KIRBY:

There's an application

process for alternate transportation.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

I don't know if somebody has

the figure there, but it's a significant amount of funding that we're providing

on alternate transportation.

Do you

want to comment on that?

MR. SMITH:

I don't have the particular figure, we can get that for you, but the board does

avail of the department's policy around alternate transportation.

MS. MICHAEL:

And the application is made

directly to the department, or through the board?

MR. SMITH:

It would be via the board, that process. We fund it and that's our policy.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. SMITH:

But it would certainly be administered directly by the board.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

That's

all, Chair.

CHAIR:

That's good? Okay.

Shall

3.4.01 carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subhead 3.4.01 carried.

CLERK:

3.5.01 to 3.5.04 inclusive.

CHAIR:

Shall 3.5.01 to 3.5.04

inclusive carry?

Will we

continue with Ms. Michael on the clock?

Thank

you.

Ms.

Michael.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much.

Okay, I

really don't have many questions here. Under Professional Services, that would

be my first key one, it was $360,000 last year and going down by almost $128,000

this year. Could we have an explanation of that line?

MR. KIRBY:

The professional learning

resources that were anticipated to be created under there weren't, so we're

trying to find a way to do that in-house now. It's going to be done

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, and can you describe

what those services are, Minister, please?

MR. KIRBY:

Professional learning

resources for early childhood educators for

MR. WALSH:

I can answer that.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. WALSH:

Last year, it has been intended that we were going to develop a video series to

help support early learning. After analysis of the proposals that we had, it was

decided that we wouldn't go in that direction and that we would look in-house in

a similar process to what we do on the K to 12 side, where we developed our own

video productions, to look at doing it in that manner because it's more

efficient.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you very much.

And you

feel confident that the competence is there to do that, obviously?

MR. KIRBY:

Yes, I do.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

Under

Grants and Subsidies and this may be related it was $535,500 and a decrease

of $215,000, and then this year it's back up just about par, a little bit extra

money. What would that be?

MR. KIRBY:

Yes, so there was a revision

on $215,000.

MS. MICHAEL:

Yes.

MR. KIRBY:

There was some savings

related to professional learning travel and travel and early literacy. Some of

the professional learning was done primarily through virtual training, so less

need for travel for face-to-face interaction.

The

early literacy programming with the Family Resource Centres was for three months

instead of the projected 12 months. What happened then it didn't get started

until the final quarter, so that accounts for some of it. There's some deferred

funding available from previous years.

Oh yes,

one of the challenges that we've had is around recruitment and retention of

early learning facilitators for Family Resource Centres, just getting people who

are qualified to do the work. In part, it probably has a little bit to do with

the sort of geographic dispersion of Family Resource Centres across the

province. There are a number of them all over the place.

Savings

due to what's ITA?

OFFICIAL:

That's the early years

assessment.

MR. KIRBY:

Early years assessment pilot

schools being less than anticipated. So some savings due to the pilot schools

for the early years evaluation being less than anticipated, and then that

reduced the overall cost for professional development there.

there are a number of different activities that either occurred virtual versus

face-to-face, or didn't get started, weren't distributed over the full 12

months, or that they were able to access deferred funds that they were holding.

In some instances, agencies like the Public Libraries Board or the school

districts might have some accumulated deferred funding that they could access,

and that's what happened under here

So really those are the and I guess

the scope of the early years evaluation project being less than anticipated. So

those are really the four things that make up the $215,000.

MS. MICHAEL:

Is the Every Child Ready to

Read program funded under this, or has that been moved too?

MR. KIRBY:

No, that would be under the

Public Libraries Board budget.

MS. MICHAEL:

So that's been moved to the

provincial libraries board.

MR. KIRBY:

Yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you.

And you

don't know how much is allocated to that, or do you?

MR. KIRBY:

No, you'd have to inquire

with them directly about that, yeah.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay. Thank you very much.

That's

all I have under that section.

Moving

to 3.5.02, could we have an explanation of the salary line, please? It looks

like there have been major cuts here.

MR. KIRBY:

Okay. The first reduction

there would be due to two vacant positions. Those savings are basically from two

vacant positions. Then there was the director of Child and Family Development,

that function was, I guess that position was eliminated and the

responsibilities under that combined with Mary's position as director.

There

was elimination of one program and policy development specialist position and

then there was a planned removal of two positions in there, and that's basically

the extent of it. There was a previous plan to remove two positions and then the

elimination of a director and program policy development specialist under the

flatter, leaner.

MS. MICHAEL:

Are there still specialists

in that area on staff?

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

So just one was how many

are still there?

MR. KIRBY:

I think it's

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

(Inaudible.)

MS. MICHAEL:

I can't hear you.

MS. GOSS-PROWSE:

We went from four to three.

MS. MICHAEL:

From four to three, okay.

Thank

you very much.

So all

positions that are to be filled are now filled in that area, or are they?

MR. KIRBY:

The flatter, leaner process,

all those competitions and all of that, that's all done.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

MR. KIRBY:

I don't think we have any

vacancies in this area but there would be, in any given time, vacant positions

in the department at various levels, though, where people are moving on or

retiring, or shift into different departments or what have you.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

We always have some staffing

action ongoing. Monthly, there seems to me that we always have some request for

staffing action that are, what I would call, routine.

MS. MICHAEL:

Right.

MR. KIRBY:

But everything associated

with the flatter, leaner changes, those are all complete now.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay, thank you very much.

Just

some general questions with regard to the Child Care Strategy, the 2012-2022

10-year strategy; the strategy goal was a 35 per cent increase in spaces by year

five. We've reached year five, but spaces have only increased by 27 per cent. So

it's an 8 per cent difference.

Could

we have just some sense of your thinking on this, and will there be a progress

report?

CHAIR:

After the minister answers,

I'll come back to Mr. Brazil and start the clock again.

MS. MICHAEL:

Okay.

Thank

you.

MR. KIRBY:

We are required to do a

review in year five.

MS. MICHAEL:

Yeah.

MR. KIRBY:

So that will be done. We

have reviewed some pieces of it already. For example, we did do a review of the

Operating Grant Program in the winter, in January or February, and I have

recommendations ahead of me now on where we should be going with that.

There

have been concerns, complaints about the Operating Grant Program, particularly

in metro, based on anecdotal information, discussions with providers. A lot of

it has to do really with economies of scale. It's more expensive for rent in

metro and lots of other things that you would have to provide versus smaller

communities and so on. So there's that element of it.

We're

just about to start, I believe next week, a review of this supplement program.

That's the increase in the supplement for ECEs. The subsidy change was announced

in the budget. We are going to be signing a bilateral agreement soon, I hope,

with the federal government that will allow us to access funds. There's a per

capita amount available and also there's a fund that's going to be available for

innovation that we could also potentially access.

We need

to find ways to incent further creation of regulated spaces in areas outside of

metro. For example, in Labrador City-Wabush there is a well-known wait-list of

over 100 kids for child care there. There's a similar challenge in Happy

Valley-Goose Bay; but as Mary had indicated, in some instances operators have

closed down operations due to changes in demand.

smaller, rural communities, like, say, where I'm originally from, you will

inevitably encounter child care being provided in an unregulated setting. So

onus is on us to find ways to incent the development of regulated spaces in

those instances, and we're going to be having those conversations internally as

we move ahead.

What's

the other thing I wanted to tell you about that oh, yes, full-day kindergarten

was never part of the 10-Year Child Care Strategy. So I could make a very good

argument in Question Period for you that we created a whole bunch of regulated

spaces in the form of full-day kindergarten spaces. That wasn't part of the

previous administration's plan. So we created all these spaces that weren't part

of that plan.

The

family child care has also been very, very successful for a variety of reasons,

if you talk to family child care providers about why they're doing it. That's

been incredibly successful. We've had a lot of regulated spaces created over

there, but I would make an argument that we have exceeded that 35 per cent in

the form of the full-day kindergarten spaces.

Those

things about the wait-lists in larger centres in Labrador and the need to move

from unregulated babysitting to regulated family day homes or whatever in

smaller rural communities, those are ways going forward with the monies we have

existing in the provincial budget and what's coming to us from the federal

government. Those are going to be ways that we will try to come up with creative

ideas to incent those things.

anybody over there has any ideas on going forward with that, if you hear

anything from people, whether it's people want to have centres, people who want

to start family child cares, all of that, we'd really appreciate any help.

Because the further we get along with creating regulated spaces, the better off

the system will be.

A lot

of what we've done to date has really been exhausted. Sorry for eating into your

time there, but a lot of what we've been doing is we're sort of getting to the

end of the effectiveness of those things. So I think we need innovations or new

things to move things along, right. Does that make sense?

MS. MICHAEL:

The next time I speak I want

to push a little bit further on that.

MR. KIRBY:

Yes.

MS. MICHAEL:

But I'll wait for my turn.

CHAIR:

Yes, I'm going to move to

Mr. Brazil, who's been waiting five minutes.

All

right, Mr. Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL:

Okay, yes.

I'm

going to move to 3.5.03. I'm going to go right down to Grants and Subsidies,

line 10, and the difference from $20 million to $12.5 million last year, now to

$14.3 million. Can the minister outline the discrepancy there and what that

entails? The number of applicants we have, the number of positions that are

being engaged there, if there have been agencies that have been turned down and

based on what criteria. If you could answer those I'd appreciate it.

MR. KIRBY:

So the reduction there is

entirely because of less than anticipated uptake on the operating grant program.

The previous administration had assumed this program was going to be