January 12, 2022
House of Assembly Management Commission
No. 84
The
Management Commission met at 9:30 a.m. via video conference.
SPEAKER (Bennett):
Thank you.
I
welcome everyone to the Management Commission meeting this morning. Before we
get started, I'll introduce all of our Members and also staff members that are
present here this morning.
First
of all: the hon. Steve Crocker, Government House Leader; Barry Petten,
Opposition House Leader; Helen Conway Ottenheimer, Member for Harbour Main; the
hon. Lisa Dempster, Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair; MHA Jim Dinn,
Member for St. John's Centre; Paul Pike, Member for Burin - Grand Bank; staff
member Sandra Barnes, Clerk and Secretary to the Commission; Deputy Speaker
Brian Warr is having technical issues and hopefully he'll be able to sign on
very shortly; Kim Hawley George, Law Clerk and Acting Clerk Assistant; Bobbi
Russell, Policy and Communications Officer; and last but not least, Robert
Hillier, Manager of Human Resources, Services and Payroll Administration.
I am
Derek Bennett, Speaker and Chair of the Committee and Member for the District of
Lewisporte - Twillingate.
The
first item on the agenda today is the approval of minutes. Draft minutes were
circulated to the Commission for the meeting held on December 1. I'll ask if any
Member has any questions or comments on that.
Minister Dempster.
L. DEMPSTER:
Sorry, I'm a little bit too
quick this morning. I read through the minutes last night. I was just going to
move them, Speaker, my apologies.
SPEAKER:
Thank you.
Does
anybody have any questions to the minutes of December 1 before Minister Dempster
moves it?
Seeing
no questions or comments, we call for the motion.
Moved
by Minister Dempster that we approve the minutes of December 1, 2021. Do I have
a seconder for that motion?
Seconded by MHA Dinn.
All
those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
SPEAKER:
All those against, 'nay.'
Motion
carried.
On
motion, minutes adopted as circulated.
SPEAKER:
The second item on the
agenda is the Speaker's reports with regard to rulings on allowance use. The
process for rulings on allowance use is outlined in section 24 of the
House of Assembly Accountability,
Integrity and Administration Act. The act gives authority for me, the
Speaker, to make rulings when expenditures of Members have been rejected for
payment, provided that the rulings are distributed to the Members and that we
receive concurrence from the Management Commission.
The
report detailing all such rulings for the period up to January 10, 2022, was
included in your briefing package for today's meeting. This is only a reporting
item, as we already had approval through concurrence. But before we make it
official, I was just wondering if there were any comments or any questions from
the Management Commission Members.
Seeing
none, we'll move on to our third agenda item, and that is the compensation for
constituency assistants. As Members of the Commission know, each MHA is entitled
to the service of one constituency assistant to support and assist the Members
in their constituency-related business. Currently, I think, there are 28 of the
40 constituency assistants working out within the districts and the remaining 12
are supporting their MHAs in the Confederation Building.
In
December 2018, when considering the extinguishment of severance entitlements and
implementation of termination benefits for political support staff, the
Management Commission directed that a review of salaries and other benefits of
political staff employed by the Legislature be undertaken.
Subsequently, in February 2020, the Commission directed a review of the
classification for constituency assistants be undertaken and brought to a future
meeting. The requested reviews were undertaken concurrently in the spring and
summer of 2020, a summary of which is provided in the briefing package.
Today's
submission focuses on constituency assistants only, and a summary of the
historical information and an analysis of consideration respecting compensation
for constituency assistants are included in the briefing package.
So I'll
open up the floor for any Members that would like to comment on this particular
item.
MHA
Dinn.
J. DINN:
A question or two. So if
this is approved – and just to make absolutely sure of this – would it be
correct in assuming that any increases that are negotiated for those who are
unionized, those increases would be reflected here? The constituency assistant,
their salary scale would go up automatically. There would be no need to come
back and to review this again. Correct?
SPEAKER:
Clerk.
CLERK (Barnes):
MHA Dinn, when our
collective agreements are finalized then, usually, the increase that's afforded
to the unions is applied to the other pay scales as a general economic increase.
J. DINN:
Okay, thank you.
I
noticed there in Attachment 2 it says, in PS-01 to now what was PS-05, that
steps 26 to 33 are not utilized except under rare and exceptional circumstances.
What would they be?
CLERK:
For a number of years the
constituency assistants, the ones who were located with the private Members,
were in the House, and the ones that were attached to ministers were paid in the
Executive Branch. When the HOAIA came in – when the
House of Assembly Accountability,
Integrity and Administration Act came in – one of the directions was that
all of the constituency assistants had to be paid by the Legislature. So the
responsibility had to be transferred back.
But
while they were in the Executive Branch, there was a case in the late '90s,
early 2000s where a constituency assistant, I think, became an executive
assistant and then went back to a constituency assistant and the involuntary
demotion policy was applied, which is generally not done. So it was a one-off
situation and that person is no longer employed in the House.
That's
probably the only time anybody has been paid beyond step 25 of the scale. In the
general public service, for example on the HL Pay Plan, the same thing, it is
very rare for somebody to be beyond step 25. It is usually the result of an
involuntary demotion or an upscale hiring.
J. DINN:
Okay.
And
there is no accounting then for a constituency assistant who also happened to be
a CA for a leader of one of the parties in the House, correct? There is no extra
funding for that and, if not, is it possible to pay, if deemed necessary, that
be taken care of through the caucus funding? Do you know what I'm asking?
CLERK:
You mean the top-up?
J. DINN:
Top-up, yeah.
CLERK:
No, our rules and
legislation doesn't provide for that, or our pay scales.
J. DINN:
Okay.
But
that could be something to handle within each caucus, I take it, could it?
CLERK:
The caucus doesn't have any
authority to top up any salaries. The staff that are assigned within the caucus
are paid in accordance with the caucus budget and the job descriptions and the
pay levels that the caucus assigns to them. So, as an example, the chief of
staff in each of the caucuses are probably paid something quite different, which
is fine.
J. DINN:
Yes.
CLERK:
But the constituency
assistants are all paid on the same pay level, as are the executive assistants
in the Executive Branch. And we have two legislative assistants: we have a
legislative assistant to the Government House Leader and a legislative assistant
to the Opposition House Leader. Those positions were created under the caucus
funding policy and both of them are designated at the PS-05 level.
J. DINN:
Okay, perfect. Thank you
very much.
SPEAKER:
Any further questions? Any
comments there? If not, can we have a motion to consider the increase in the
salary from the PS level 04 to PS level 05?
Moved
by MHA Conway Ottenheimer and seconded by MHA Pike.
I'm
assuming in the motion that this will be taking effect immediately. Is that that
general consensus of the Management Commission?
J. DINN:
Speaker?
SPEAKER:
Yes, go ahead, MHA Dinn.
J. DINN:
Just to make sure – with
your motion, you're saying to consider. So I'm assuming here, in considering,
we're actually voting to approve the increase (inaudible) –
SPEAKER:
Approve, yes. Correct.
J. DINN:
Okay.
And
yes, I would say it should take effect immediately.
SPEAKER:
The staff members will also
stay at the current step level that they are there. They just move directly from
PS-04 to PS-05 in the current step that they are.
Is that
clear there, Bobbi? Is that clear enough for the motion?
B. RUSSELL:
Yes, Speaker, that's good.
SPEAKER:
Okay. So moved by MHA Conway
Ottenheimer, seconded by MHA Pike.
All
those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
SPEAKER:
All those against, 'nay.'
Motion
carried.
So that
concludes the items that we had on the agenda today. I just want to thank
everybody for participating. We do have another scheduled meeting coming up in
the next couple of weeks. So if there are no questions or comments, we will call
for a motion to adjourn.
Minister Dempster; seconded by MHA Dinn.
All
those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
SPEAKER:
All those against, 'nay.'
Carried.
Thank
you again, everyone, have a great day and stay safe.
On
motion, meeting adjourned.