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May 15, 2013                 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION                No. 41


The Management Commission met at approximately 9:00 a.m. in the House of Assembly Chamber.

MR. SPEAKER (Wiseman): Good morning.

Welcome to the House of Assembly Management Commission meeting.

Before we start, I want to have members introduce themselves. I will start with my immediate left.

MR. VERGE: Wade Verge, MHA Lewisporte district.

MR. BALL: Dwight Ball, MHA Humber Valley.

MR. GRANTER: Vaughn Granter, MHA Humber West district.

MR. KING: Darin King, Government House Leader and MHA for Grand Bank.

MS SHEA: Joan Shea, St. George's – Stephenville East.

MS MICHAEL: Lorraine Michael, Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.

MR. SPEAKER: Joining me at the Table….

CLERK: Sandra Barnes, Clerk.

MS KEEFE: Marie Keefe, Clerk's Office.

MR. SPEAKER: I am Ross Wiseman, Speaker of the House of Assembly and Chair of the Management Commission.

Today we have four items on the agenda that members would have in their binders. Tab 1 was an in-camera session just completed by the Commission. The Commission deferred any decisions, with respect to the agenda item, pending further information becoming available. We will reconvene at that time and consider the issue before us.

Under new business, Tab 2, we will deal with the minutes of the last Management Commission meeting on April 23, 2013. Members have had an opportunity to see the minutes of that meeting. I will entertain a motion for their adoption.

Moved by Ms Michael; seconded by Mr. King.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

Motion carried.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. SPEAKER: The next item, Tab 3, is the financial reports for the Legislature and all the expenditures of Members of the House of Assembly. These reports cover the period from April 1, 2012, up to and including December 31, 2012.

Members would recognize that it is broken down by various sections within the House of Assembly, and various expenditure units and cost centres. In addition to that, there is a summary here of each of the Members of the House of Assembly and their expenditures, relative to their budget, for that same period of time. This is for information purposes.

Are there any questions with respect to them?

Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Under 1.1.04 of the Legislature, the tab that is covering Members' Resources, 05. Professional Services, there was an overrun of $15,500. The footnote says, "Projected overrun as expenditures for Members' Compensation and Review Committee are higher than budgeted." Could we just have an explanation of why we had the $15,500 overrun for the Committee's work?

MR. SPEAKER: I do not have that detail with me. I do not know if Ms Barnes would have that available to us right now.

CLERK: I do not have the exact detail. We had budgeted $80,000 for the resources for the Committee, prior to any decision of who was hired. The decision was to hire a Provincial Court judge to conduct the review and we had to compensate the court. We had to transfer the money to court to cover her salary. Her salary costs plus the cost of the assistant she had with her exceeded the budget that was anticipated at the time.

MR. SPEAKER: Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: For clarification, was it her salary that was probably underestimated, or the costs?

CLERK: There was an estimate of $80,000, but when that estimate was put there we had no idea of who would actually be conducting the review.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MR. SPEAKER: Just to be certain for your benefit, though, at the next Commission meeting we will bring a summary of the total cost of that review process and what the actual expenditures are. We just do not have it with us at this moment. We will provide the detailed breakdown of that for you.

MS MICHAEL: That would be helpful for future planning, too. The next time we have to have a committee in place, it would be good to know where the overruns came from so that we could not have overruns in the future, if possible.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Any further questions?

The next item is, again, for information purposes. Throughout the fiscal year, every now and then the Commission has been asked to approve a transfer of money from one budgeted item to another budgeted item because of the change in operational requirements or new issues that arise. Then there are a number of transfers that are considered to be routine in nature and that are handled by the administrative staff. There is flexibility within certain cost centres to transfer money from one budget allocation to another.

There was a requirement policy decision made by the Commission some time ago that those would be reported for information purposes to the Commission. What you see here now is a summary of all of the transfers that were made for fiscal 2012-2013.

I do not know if there are any questions with respect to any of those you might see there?

There being none, that is the final item on the agenda for the House Management Commission for today. The next meeting will be at the call of the Chair, as soon as the information becomes available for us in the next week or two with respect to the issue we dealt with earlier.

There being no further business for today's meeting, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

MR. GRANTER: So moved.

MR. SPEAKER: Mr. Granter; seconded by Ms Michael.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: The meeting stands adjourned until the call of the Chair.

Thank you very much for your time.

On motion, meeting adjourned.