The Committee met at 9:00 a.m in the House of Assembly.

MADAM CHAIR (Kelly): (Inaudible) we will get things started here this morning. The first item, I guess, is that we are to be reminded that we always introduce ourselves for the record. It was the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, Fabian Manning, who conducted the election of the Chair. My name is Sandra Kelly, the newly elected Chair of the Social Services Estimates Committee.

We will start by introducing the committee members and then we will move into the regular proceedings. After we introduce the committee members we will talk about a few procedural matters before we start this morning.

If I could ask each of you, starting with Fabian, to introduce yourselves as committee members.

MR. MANNING: Good morning, Fabian Manning, MHA for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. HEDDERSON: Tom Hedderson, MHA for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: John Ottenheimer, MHA for St. John's East. I am not on this committee but I am here as critic in this department.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Ross Wiseman, MHA for Trinity North.

MS M. HODDER: Mary Hodder, MHA for Burin-Placentia West.

MR. BUTLER: Roland Butler, MHA for Port de Grave District.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Kevin Alyward, MHA for St. George's-Stephenville East.

MADAM CHAIR: This morning we are welcoming the Department of Education for their estimates, and after we do these few procedural things we will start right in with the minister's opening remarks and the introduction of his staff.

I am told that we should settle procedural matters, such as the length of the meeting. I think the length is standard three hours and we would agree this morning that we will sit up until noon if necessary. Is that agreeable?

The matter of allocating speaking time, traditionally the minister has fifteen minutes to introduce his estimates and the person responding has the same amount. All other members have ten minutes to speak. Do we wish to follow that as usual, that we will each take ten minutes in our turn?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: Okay. Ten minutes, if necessary, I think is the way to do it. Many times that length is not there.

I am also told that members may be addressed and referred to by name rather than by district in committee. I am also told that as you speak you are to introduce yourselves for the record.

So, without further ado we will move right to the Minister of Education.

MR. REID: Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

I am going to be brief. I would just like to introduce the individuals who are here with me. To my left is Harold Press, the Deputy Minister of Education; then we have Garry Hatcher, who is Director of School Services; Bob Young, ADM of Finance and Administration; Gerald Galway, ADM of Programs; and David Pike, Manager of Finance.

The department is still relatively new to me, even though I came out of the classroom some years ago. So I am going to be relying on the officials in the department to help me get through some of the questions you might have today. With that, I will just turn it over to the floor.

MADAM CHAIR: That is pretty concise, isn't it?

CLERK: 1.1.01.

MADAM CHAIR: 1.1.01 has been called. Fabian, would you like to -

MR. MANNING: Just for clarification, Madam Chair. We are calling one head. Can we flow through on the other heads or do you want us to go one head at a time; the next one and the next one? If I have a question on 1.01, one question on that in my ten minutes, and then I may have a question on 1.03, can I just move ahead to that (inaudible)?

MADAM CHAIR: Okay. I think that is quite acceptable actually, and that usually helps us time wise. If the minister can agree that we would start there and then whatever questions you would like to ask in your ten minutes through the documents is perfectly alright, and that would apply to everyone this morning.

MR. REID: Can I ask a question of whoever is down in the control room, if Kevin is down there, if the speakers to the headphones are connected this morning because I cannot get my mine to work?

MR. MANNING: I cannot get my to work either. I was trying to hear when you were introducing people that time.

MR. REID: So wake up down there, Kevin.

MR. MANNING: Okay, they are on now.

MR. REID: Okay, got it.

MADAM CHAIR: It's working now?

MR. REID: Yes, thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, good. Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am just going to follow through a few line items first, if we could. On 1.1.01, Minister's Office, under Salaries there seems to be a drop. The budgeted amount last year was $304,000, it was revised up to $318,000, and requesting of $289,000 for this year. Can he tell us why that change is there?

MR. REID: Gone down, you mean?

MR. MANNING: Yes.

MR. REID: Some of the staff that I have are paid at a lower scale. They are newer employees.

MR. MANNING: Pardon?

MR. REID: Some of the staff who work in the Minister's Office are newer employees than the ones who were there previously.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

Executive Support; Salaries last year went from $562,000 budgeted to $593,000, and then this year we are looking for $638,000. Again, it is an increase.

MR. REID: Most of that would be as a result of the 5 per cent salary increase and step progressions. You will find that in most of the headings, that it a 5 per cent salary increase.

MR. MANNING: Okay. Is there anybody within the department itself on contract service?

MR. PRESS: We have an assistant to the director of communications who is on contract.

MR. MANNING: Can you give us a salary on that contract?

MR. PRESS: What is the salary of it?

MR. MANNING: Yes.

MR. YOUNG: It is $40,000.

MR. MANNING: Is that the only person on contract in the department?

MR. PRESS: That I am aware of. We have a number that are seconded personnel, who are effectively seconded from the teaching system in order to provide consultative services to things like the division of curriculum, testing, evaluation, research and so on.

MR. MANNING: These people are taken out of the -

MR. PRESS: They are taken out of the teaching units. They are not contract per se.

MR. REID: They have been replaced in the school though, I think, for the most part.

MR. MANNING: Pardon?

MR. REID: They have been replaced by a teacher in the school. It is not a case of just taking a unit out of the system and putting them into the department. They have been replaced.

I know when my wife came in here in 1989 with me, she went substituting for the first year. Then she got a contractual position for the next eight years replacing an individual who went to the department. For all intents and purposes, she never had a full-time job up until 1999.

MR. MANNING: There has not been any loss in the classroom because of these people coming into the department?

MR. REID: No.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MR. YOUNG: There is one other contractual person in the department. That person is paid for by funds from the federal government and has to do with Adult Basic Education. There is a specific project that we are doing right now and that person is in our literacy branch and hired under the auspices of federal funding.

MR. MANNING: Okay, that is 100 per cent federal funding?

MR. YOUNG: That is correct.

MR. MANNING: Again, Planning and Research, 1.2.04. We have a salary jump which is a little bit more than the 5 per cent that the minister referred to. Maybe somebody could explain it? On the budget amount last year it was $454,000, it dropped to $420,000, but now this year we have a budgeted amount of $559,500.

MR. GALWAY: This amount includes some youth positions that we have been able to get through a contract with the federal government, and that is a new program.

MR. MANNING: Is this entirely funded from the federal government or is this partially - is it a cost-share?

MR. PRESS: The biggest reason for that change in salary was achieving our salary plan for last year we delayed the recruitment of two school improvement specialists. So there was a savings for last year over the initial budget.

For next year we will be bringing those people in. So as of September, we will have two new school improvement specialists who will come, and you will notice the same thing under Transportation and Communications. If we did not have them, there was no need for these people to be travelling, and next year it will go back to its initial (inaudible).

MR. MANNING: Under the same heading, .05 Professional Services, can you give us an explanation on the expenditures of $70,000 there?

MR. GALWAY: That expenditure is for research projects that have been done in the department. For example, a couple of the ones that have been done this year, we have done a study of semesterization, and the merits of moving to a semesterized system.

Another contract that has been awarded through this subhead is for a study of individual school reporting in the wake of the AIMS report that has been done. We have been looking at how we can improve accountability at the school level, and we have a fairly significant project there that is aimed at individual school level reporting. Those are individual contracts for research projects that have been done over the last year.

MR. MANNING: Moving ahead to 2.1.01.10, Grants and Subsidies: School Boards, there is $345 million here. Is that teachers' salaries? What else would be involved with that?

MR. YOUNG: That number is strictly the salaries for the teachers who are in the system, regular teachers.

MR. MANNING: So the increase from $316 million to $345 million is based on the 5 per cent.

MR. YOUNG: That is based mostly on salary increases, that is correct, and other collective bargaining issues.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MR. PRESS: It also includes step increases in general, cost increases in addition to the 5 per cent.

MR. MANNING: Substitutes would be another allotment, wouldn't it?

MR. PRESS: That is correct.

MR. YOUNG: The other issue on that is the extra pay period. There is an extra pay period in the year 2003-2004 versus 2002-2003.

MR. REID: That accounts for how much (inaudible) million dollars?

MR. YOUNG: Fifteen million dollars is the size of the teachers' payroll per pay period.

MR. MANNING: Okay, so one extra pay period.

On the grants to school boards, apart from the teachers' and the substitute teachers' employment benefits, I guess we come down to 2.1.02.10 School Board Operations, Regular Operating Grant, can you tell me what the regular operating grant for the Avalon West School Board is?

MR. YOUNG: I could give you an approximation. It would be approximately $15 million. I can certainly clarify that through the course of the morning for you.

MR. MANNING: Okay, I would appreciate that.

Also, when you are doing that, a breakdown of the school board, would I be correct in saying that a school board decides - I am talking about the staff at the school board office, not necessarily those out in the schools - the staff at the school board office, the functioning of the expenses at the school board office, that is all controlled - I do not know if controlled would be the proper word but I will use that for now until someone comes up with a better one for me - is that all controlled by the school boards themselves? Or when this grant is passed over to the school boards, the $15 million, what jurisdiction does the department have in relation to - I know in the expenditures of that fund, or is it at the discretion of the school board how that money is expended?

MR. REID: It is at the discretion of the school board. Back when we did the consolidation or the reform, Fabian, the school boards were permitted to have a director or a superintendent and three assistant directors, and that was pretty well it for the boards. They made a deal of some kind with the NLTA which allowed them to have, I think, eight program co-ordinators -

WITNESS: Six.

MR. REID: - six program co-ordinators, which brought total personnel at the office to ten. Since then, the board here in St. John's has seconded teachers from the classroom. I think they have eight additional staff at that board. These are teachers that are assigned to the board to do with as they wish, I guess, is the answer Fabian.

MR. MANNING: Could I get a breakdown of the positions at the Avalon West School Board?

MR. YOUNG: Just by way of clarification on that, do you want a breakdown of the full staff out there, like secretaries and janitors and maintenance workers?

MR. MANNING: Right from the director down. In the school board office is what I am talking about, not out in the schools.

MR. YOUNG: It is not a problem to get it. We do not have that level at the department but we certainly can get it for you from the Avalon West School Board.

The minister is quite correct. When we do the allocation to the boards for all of their funding, we allocate to the board. How they distribute that amongst their individual staffs and organizations out there is a board decision.

MR. MANNING: I am just wondering, there is no set - there are ten school boards in the Province, okay, and we have ten directors of education. We have, as the minister just touched on, three assistants. That is not uniform across the Province. Each school board can create its own list or whatever.

MR. REID: (Inaudible). It is not just a case of what happens at the board level as well, but in each individual school. In some schools, for example, in the board in here, neither the principal, the vice-principal, the guidance counselor, nor the librarian teach a student. It varies from board to board, school to school.

MR. MANNING: I would like to get into that a little bit further, but I think the Chair is nodding her head at me now.

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, I am saying that the ten minutes is up, but also that I either have to recognize you every time you speak or you have to identify yourself when you start speaking.

WITNESS: Sorry.

MADAM CHAIR: We will start trying to do that now.

Mr. Press.

MR. PRESS: If I could, there are really three sources of human resources that each of the boards would have. One is that what we allocate directly - a director and assistant director and so on - would be allocated directly as part of the Administration Grant, if you go down a bit further.

The second one would be any flexibility in their operating grant. That is where they would hire everything from bus drivers to secretarial support and so on.

The third would be the only other flexibility they would have, or source of human resource, would be if they allocate or reallocate regular teachers from their schools to the board office. In many cases, and this is why I want to wade in on this a little bit, but you have to be really careful when you interpret the numbers at board office because in many cases you will find itinerant teachers for the hearing impaired, you might find speech language pathologists located at board offices, and so on. In many cases, they are very legitimate resources to have there because they serve on an itinerant basis in a number of schools. The board office is really only a seat in order to meet with your colleagues, debrief and so on, but effectively you are school-based personnel. You just happen to be located physically at a board office.

MR. MANNING: In some cases, these people are taken out of the schools and brought to school board offices; would that be correct?

MR. PRESS: Yes.

MR. MANNING: That is what I was trying to get at.

I guess I will come back later.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay.

Mr. Hedderson, would you like to start?

MR. HEDDERSON: (Inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just have a few questions.

MADAM CHAIR: Would you identify yourself, please?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: John Ottenheimer, MHA, St. John's East.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just have a few questions for the minister and his officials. I guess to carry on, in some respects, from questions by Mr. Manning, I would like to return if I may to 1.2.02 Administrative Support.

For example, in the short description at the beginning of the details we see that there appears to be an overlap between the Department of Education and the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education in terms of administrative support. I am just wondering if maybe the minister or one of his officials could comment on that in terms of that overlap. Why is it, I guess, the Department of Education assumes that role as opposed to the other department? Secondly, do we see a similar overlap whereby the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education assumes some responsibility for the Department of Education?

MR. REID: John, one of the reasons - Bob, right here at the end, is ADM. for both departments. I will let you take it from there Bob.

MR. YOUNG: When the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education and Education were split in 2001, it was agreed that there would be a joint or a shared responsibility for finance and administration. As the minister says, I am an ADM. in both departments, so the budget for both departments is retained in the Department of Education for all administrative functions and financial functions. There are no offsets or no additional funding of this nature contained in the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education. It is all budgeted for and accounted for in Education.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Is it only in this area of Administrative Support where we see that overlap take place or are there other divisions within the department where the overlap is also evident?

MR. YOUNG: No. This is, as far as I know, the only overlap area.

MR. PRESS: If I might. Last year another division, the Division of Planning and Research, was located in a branch of Administration and Finance. Since then, both departments have felt the need to have their own sort of dedicated research base. So now you have two separate planning and research functions in both departments.

The only area where there is a functional responsibility for both departments is in the area of Finance and Administration.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Under heading 1.2.03, Assistance to Educational Agencies And Advisory Committees, I wonder if the minister or one of his officials could perhaps elaborate on when it talks about assistance for a number of educational support groups and advisory committees. Exactly what types of support groups and committees are we referring to? Could we have some detail as to exactly the role that is played under this particular heading?

MR. REID: There are a whole bunch of them, John. One is the Women's Institute and another one is the Federation of School Councils, the School Boards Association, the School Councils Association, and a whole bunch of those.

MR. YOUNG: The largest expenditure in that area is for the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation. That is about $129,000 or $130,000 of that total.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Is this a direct grant, Mr. Young, that would be paid by the provincial Department of Education to that council, for example, and other examples that the minister has given? Or is this assistance that is provided from time to time?

MR. YOUNG: This is a direct grant that is paid, but is paid for on behalf of all of the Atlantic provinces towards the operation of the Atlantic Provinces Council. Our contribution in Newfoundland is $129,000, but it is a joint venture of all four Atlantic provinces. So it is grant paid out directly to them.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Would all provinces pay equally? The Atlantic provinces, would they pay equally or on a per capita basis?

MR. YOUNG: Per capita.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I would like to go to the next section there, if I may, Madam Chair, 1.2.04, Planning and Research.

In response to an earlier question it was indicated that the federal government plays a role in this particular area. I believe, Mr. Galway, you may have referred to that, if I am not mistaken. I am just wondering, for example, in a number of other headings when there are revenues from the federal government it is clearly outlined within the Estimates that there are revenues being received from federal government sources. However, I do not see it under Planning and Research. Is there any reason why that is not shown? Maybe if you could just elaborate on that point.

MR. GALWAY: My apologies, Mr. Ottenheimer, when I responded initially I was referring to the Community Access Program. I thought Mr. Manning had moved ahead to a subhead that was a little further along the way.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay. So, there are no federal government revenues in this case?

MR. GALWAY: Not in this case.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay, thank you.

Madam Chair, another question on this particular point under Planning and Research. I wonder if maybe the minister - or again, one of his department officials - could elaborate on the issue of research, because it clearly states, "Appropriations provide for policy formulation, research, evaluation and strategic planning for the Department."

When we say research, exactly what are we referring to? Maybe if we could have some examples of the type of activity that is taking place within the department to meet the definition of research under Planning and Research?

MR. GALWAY: The research that goes on in the department, the planning and research function refers broadly to the types of activities that wind up producing things like the annual report of the Department of Education, for example. We put out, periodically, from time to time, educational indicators reports. You may recall the profile series of documents that have been produced over the years. We also do annual reporting on performance measurement. We put a lot of our performance measurement data on the Web, produce a lot of Web-based systems; school improvement research, for example, providing information for schools so they can produce their own annual school reports.

Some of the things I mentioned earlier, for example, the study of semesterization to support some calls that we have had to move to a semesterized system, those kinds of things would be included. Also, of course, the planning and research group supports the minister and supports the executive in the information that they require on a day-to-day basis.

MR. PRESS: If I could just add one point to that. Although that seems like a lot, fundamentally a great deal of what we do is gather information and analyze that information and so on, and we produce and report on that information. It is significant.

The kind of baseline research that you would find here that one might associate with an academic institution and so on, there is not a great amount of money here to do that. When you look at it and sort of deconstruct it, you won't find we have a lot of flexibility to do a lot of significant research in the course of a year. One of the things, in our discussions with our school boards, that we will focus on in the coming year or two is the achievement of boys, or effectively the underachievement of boys, in relation to the overall achievement process.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Press.

I would like to just proceed to the next section under Teaching Services. We touched on it a little while ago. I am interested in the specific reference to Substitute Teachers. Under 2002-2003, in both budgetary and revised figures we see approximately $2 million less being allocated.

I guess my question is really: How is it we see an estimate for 2003-2004 well in excess of $16 million for Substitute Teachers, from the point of view that when we think of substitute teachers we think of teachers who are absent from their duties through illness or compassionate leave or other legitimate reasons? How is it we can forecast an increase for an allocation for a substitute teacher allotment in advance, again approaching some $2 million greater than the previous year?

MR. PRESS: It is up for many of the same reasons that the regular teacher budget is up, salary increases and next year is a longer year, so there are an extra five days on the length of the year. You would find that its projected usage should remain relatively the same. However, the net cost and so on, use of the days, will go up just like the regular teacher salary count will go up.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Press, you are saying that the increase in teacher salary would be the predominant reason for such an increase?

MR. PRESS: And the length of the year. If the year is longer, then there would likely be the need for, or there will likely be sick leave and other kinds of non-discretionary leave during those five days as it would be during the other 180.

MR. REID: They had an extra -

MR. PRESS: Then there is an extra pay period, I should say.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer, your ten minutes -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Pardon me?

MADAM CHAIR: Your ten minutes are up.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay.

MADAM CHAIR: So we will move to the next speaker please.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If I could, there are a couple of points. I guess not so much specifically with respect to the headings, but issues of float from the operation. Before we could, I just want to clarify a point, a question from Mr. Manning, about the board's discretion to allocate funding.

I gather from your comment, Minister, and that from Mr. Young, that the board had some discretion in terms of how they reallocated funding. I understood that there is some - the boards' grants are not block funding. It is line by line budgeting in some categories, so there are some areas where it is directed and the board does not have the discretion. There is, under the grants, particularly the operating grants, only one area where they have some discretion and that is in the area of curriculum. The rest is earmarked, isn't it? Is that correct or has that changed?

MR. REID: For the most part, you are right. When it comes to teacher allocations, Ross, the board can take them. If there is a set amount set aside for teacher allocations, they can do with that what they want.

Also, in the last four or five years, anywhere where schools have been closed, we have allowed boards to retain the savings from their operating costs. For example, if there were three schools closed in a particular area and there was only one remaining open, we would have allowed the boards to keep the savings from the operating costs from the three schools that were closed. They are supposed to used for - correct me if I am wrong, Bob - capital costs aren't they, one-time projects?

MR. YOUNG: Yes, that would not be allocated for operational costs.

MR. REID: Well, I guess it would go in as - no.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

The other question I had was -

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman, could you identify yourself please?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Sorry. Ross Wiseman again.

Under head 1.2.02.06 Purchased Services, the revised budget from last year was from $263,000 up to $755,000. That increase came about as a result of what expenditure?

MR. REID: Under 1.2.02.06?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Yes.

MR. REID: I think that is, for the most part, insurance deductible on public buildings, that was transferred from the Education Investment Corporation to the department, and an increase in advertising and printing costs.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The increase, just to clarify that -

MR. REID: The insurance deductibles used to be carried by the Education Investment Corporation. Am I right, Bob?

MR. YOUNG: That is correct, Minister. For whatever reasons - we do not fully understand ourselves - the insurance deductible for all government buildings, including schools - but schools happen to be the predominant one - is budgeted for in the Education Investment Corporation.

During the course of this year we had to use some of the deductible funding, so that deductible was transferred from the Education Investment Corporation to the Department of Education. That is the reason you see that substantial increase from $263,000 to $755,000. It is the recapturing from the Investment Corporation of the insurance deductible for government buildings.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So the deductible, I assume, came about as a result of claims.

MR. YOUNG: That is correct.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: And you had to pick up the deductible.

MR. YOUNG: We had to pick up the deductible. That is what it is for.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So it is basically a one-time expense as a result of losses last year on building claims.

MR. YOUNG: That is correct. You will notice that it goes back to the $263,000 level. Again, however, if there are any circumstances which require the deductible to be used, it has again been budgeted for and will be transferred to the department if needed.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The issue of school grants: in the Budget itself there was an announcement of an additional $2.5 million to implement the changes in the report called Facing the Challenges. Where would that be reflected in the operating grants? What category would that be lumped in under?

MR. YOUNG: It is reflected under the Grants and Subsidies regular operating grant component. In the budget for 2003-2004, you will see $76 million, $76,366,200; it is included in that.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So, of that increase from $72 million up to $76 million, $2.5 million of it is as a result of that particular study.

MR. YOUNG: That is correct.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If I could, Madam Chair, I said that I would like to talk about some of the issues flowing from the Estimates or coming from other documents. This document that was produced as a result of that work stoppage a couple of years ago, the total price tag on that was something in the order of $9.5 million and in this year's budget there is $2.5 million for that. I am just wondering, Minister, if you could provide some comment for us. In the executive summary of that report, it talks about $9.5 million for a full year, so the increased annual cost to implement the recommendations is $9.5 million annually. You are now injecting $2.5 million in this year, and the report goes on to talk about how it should be distributed in janitorial, secretarial and a gamut of things.

The assumption now is there is only $2.5 million, so there is $7 million short of the recommendations, so the recommendations will not be implemented all at one time - that is just the assumption I am making. The other question flowing from that - maybe you can comment at the same time - what is the implementation strategy for government, and over what period of time, and what would you foresee then doing next year and the following year?

MR. REID: You are right, Ross.

If you remember, we had a work stoppage last year that was directly related to the secretarial and the janitorial staff at the schools. One of the areas that was hardest hit by that was the one in my district (inaudible), so we had a report written and authored by Phil Warren. In that, he looked at a number of issues; janitorial and secretarial. He also looked at severance and things like that for these individuals, which would have made up a fair - what was the exact number that was allocated, that he recommended for that portion, Bob?

MR. YOUNG: There were four elements to Dr. Warren's report. The first one was secretarial, and of the $9.5 million the secretarial component was $2.1 million. The second component was janitorial and maintenance. The component of that in Dr. Warren's report is $2.9 million. The severance and related collective bargaining issues are $2 million. The final $2.5 million was for the implementation, as Dr. Warren saw it, of some IT support in the school system. Those are the breakdowns of the $9.5 million.

What we have been appropriated is to address the key reason that the strike occurred, which was related to secretarial time, janitorial and maintenance time. That is a price tag of $5 million. With the implementation starting in September we will need just a little over $2.5 million to effectively implement that for the balance of the fiscal year - not the school year, but for the fiscal year - starting in September.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Minister, if you do not mind, just so I can clarify that.

If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that the $2.1 million for secretarial and the $2.9 million for janitorial maintenance, that total of $5 million, it is the intent that the $2.5 million be allocated this year to address those two areas specifically. That would take you to the balance of the fiscal year. Now that you have committed - if you put the extra support in place I assume then you are committing now, this year, to follow through with another $2.5 million in next year's budget so you can cover off the balance of the school year. Would that be a fair assumption?

MR. REID: Yes, that will take care of the seven-tenths of the school year between September and when the new budget comes down in April.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Okay.

MR. REID: The other thing on that though is the IT portion, which was good for how many million in recommendations, Bob?

MR. YOUNG: Two point five million.

MR. REID: Two point five. That was not really even part of the mandate of the study when the individuals originally went out to look at it, because the study came about as a result of the strike that we had last fall with the janitorial and secretarial staff. That was sort of an addition that was put in there when they went out to do discussions with those affected. The other thing about it is that we will be talking with NAPE and CUPE in the next few weeks to determine exactly where we are going to put that $2.5 million; how it is going to be best used.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: When you say best used, it is going to be used for those two categories, is that correct?

MR. REID: Yes, but we will be talking to them about what they actually want to do with it, whether they want to lengthen the number of hours that these individuals work or increase their pay, I guess, of (inaudible).

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you.

Just to continue on in that vein of discussion. The other $2 million - and I understood from the comments in the report that you are right, minister, the technical support part was not a part of the original engagement. But, there is a recommendation that $2.5 million is necessary for technical support within the system. I guess my question is very specifically to that particular point and what your plan might be, because in your budget you are announcing also $5 million over two years to go into the Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation and $2.5 million in this particular year. That has been a major thrust.

In your Budget and the Speech from the Throne, there is a very clear message about your commitment to technology in the system. You are talking about making broadband access to all schools, talking about having computers in every classroom, and talking about investing large amounts of money into technology. The last time I saw an inventory of computer equipment in the school system in the Province, most of it was quite old, quite dated. As I understand, most school boards are in desperate need of more technical support to support that kind of technology. What we have out in a lot of systems now is relying on classroom teachers to do the troubleshooting on computers.

Minister, I ask for your comments about how you reconcile that kind of an administrative and budget decision when you pour out hundreds of millions of dollars into technology and then not be prepared to put a couple of million or a couple of hundred thousand dollars into technical support to maintain the stuff when it is out there.

MR. REID: I guess it is a couple of million dollars here and a couple of million dollars there that gives us the deficit we are currently operating under this year. I guess on any given day you either get criticized for spending too much or spending too little, but you are right. Right now it is board personnel and teachers in the schools who keep that equipment up and running. Under an ideal situation you would go out and spend an additional $2.5 million or $5 million to hire technicians. We would certainly like to do that and we will move in that direction in the future, but right now we just do not have the money to do it.

With regard to the computer equipment that you were saying in some cases is old and obsolete, that is not the case in all schools. I just opened a new school in Old Perlican on the weekend, a beautiful facility. The equipment that they have in there is relatively new. So, most of it is in the high to mid-range in terms of technology.

You mentioned the broadband. With the money we have for broadband this year we are hoping to be able to go into some of the remote and rural areas of the Province and bring these individual communities, and the people in them, up to par with the technology that we have on the Avalon Peninsula and St. John's with regard to the speed of the Internet which will help them for sure, as well as us in terms of distance education.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: One other question with respect to the report. Two million dollars for severance, sick leave and other collective bargaining leaves. I go back to some of the questions that my colleague was asking about the issue about budgeting for relief. I am looking at the annual report for the Avalon East School Board. They comment that: Again this year a change was made against the district's operating expenditures for overruns attributed to the use of substitute teachers. This expenditure is non-discretionary given the nature of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association collective agreement.

I understand, from looking at some of the other annual reports of boards, that the issue of funding sick leave is a significant challenge, because in that category of operating grants that there is some discretion around, all of the extra sick leave costs, whether it is under the teachers' contract or under the NAPE support or CUPE support collective agreements, that is where that money comes from and that is the area for instructional material. So, every time there is an increased cost associated with sick leave it comes out of the instructional material budget at the board level. It appears that boards are caught in a situation where they have a collective agreement that binds them to cover that cost and they are pulling it out of the classroom resources to over it, because it is not being funded for, which is the reason for this recommendation of $2.2 million. The $2 million, I guess, is in recognition of that dilemma the boards have.

MR. REID: What, with regard to substitute paying?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Yes.

MR. REID: Obviously, Ross -

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: The sick leave pay.

MR. REID: The sick leave pay. Obviously, if you are spending $16 million a year on substitute pay for sick leave, that appears to be a problem. When you think that our payroll is - what, Bob?

MR. YOUNG: Four hundred and nine million.

MR. REID: You have $409 million a year in teacher payroll. That is a sizeable chunk of change. Obviously, we would like to see sick leave reduced, but it is my understanding that teachers get 1.5 days per month for sick leave. Am I right? Obviously, not all teachers use those, but for various reasons substitute pay is high.

Some of the comments you just made, I think Bob wants to clarify for you.

MR. YOUNG: It is not a matter of clearing up, but just for amplification. The teachers' payroll, the sick leave and so on for teachers' payroll, is budgeted with the teachers' payroll system. We budget discretionary and non-discretionary leave to boards on the basis of prior years experience, so we don't have any magical formula for it. We work with the boards to try to put in wellness programs, back to work programs and so on, so that we can get the teachers back into the classrooms. That is budgeted for specifically under teachers' payroll. It is not budgeted as part of the operations of various boards. The boards do have to fund the sick leave requirements for janitors and secretaries but not for teachers or substitutes. That is covered under a different allocation provided by the department. So, the $2 million that you referred to in Dr. Warren's report is not a charge against the teachers, it is a charge against sick leave requirements for other support staff at the board levels.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Are you telling me that at no time does the board's operating grants get charged with any costs associated with substitute teachers?

MR. YOUNG: That is correct. All substitute teachers are handled at the departmental level. We provide each of the boards with an allocation for substitute teachers, both discretionary and non-discretionary. In point of fact, if the boards do not spend that allocation then we have, from the department's perspective, allowed them to manage that within their budget.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: If they overspend, it is charged back to the department and not to the board's grants?

MR. YOUNG: What we do is we provide them with an allocation for their substitute teachers, for both discretionary and non-discretionary, and it is within the board's responsibility to manage that. Beyond that, we don't play a role, except that if they do have an overrun we can look with the board to look at offsets. They may have a surplus in discretionary and a budget deficit in non-discretionary. We can work with the board to see what is going on there. If necessary, we can provide - we have very limited funds to do so - some additions to meet with the boards concerns.

The note that you have from the St. John's Board is one where they are saying they have a deficit in their non-discretionary. I would probably suspect they have a surplus in discretionary and we can offset.

MADAM CHAIR: Could I interrupt here, please?

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Sure.

MADAM CHAIR: We are well past our ten minute time limit here. Mr. Aylward, do you have any questions at this time?

MR. K. AYLWARD: If Mr. Wiseman wants to finish I can go a few more minutes.

MADAM CHAIR: Then we will start the circle around again, I guess.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I don't want to take up (inaudible) your time. I can come back later. I have a few other points I want to cover off.

MR. K. AYLWARD: It will only take a couple of minutes.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay.

Mr. Aylward.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Madam Chair, congratulations on your election, by the way. I thought it was a very wise choice of the committee, better than one I know of anyway over here, sitting in this chair.

Mr. Minister, congratulations on your new post.

MR. REID: Okay.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Your previous minister, you have very big shoes to fill. She did a very good job, I thought. I am sure you are up to the task, of course.

I want to just express my appreciation to the Department of Education for funding for renovations for Belanger Memorial. We just recently saw completion, I think it was almost $4 million at the end. That was one of the worse off schools of the Province in the Codroy Valley. I believe that renovation has really increased the level of education for the children of the Codroy Valley. The parents are very supportive. The parents' committee worked very hard to make that happen and because of the investment fund that we have, the capital fund, that is one big positive that has come out for my district. They are very pleased with the outcome, and I must say, we collectively are.

Also, in St. Joseph's and St. George's, the school there has also been renovated. We just did a ceremony there; another $3.5 million. I very much appreciate the fact that it came out of the educational fund, the investment fund, for capital construction and for schools. Again, we saw the closing of a high school in Stephenville Crossing. It allowed an amalgamation of schools there. The benefits are clearly now for the youth of the St. George's and Stephenville Crossing areas who now benefit from a much better and improved system.

Also, I am pleased to see that the CAP Program, more funding for that has been found for Internet use in our schools. In my district that means a lot. As a matter of fact, it is a big rural district. Besides Stephenville, it includes right down to the end of Codroy Valley, in that area. That CAP Program provides free Internet access to residents also, which is very important. In five different locations now the CAP Program is in my district. So I am very pleased with that.

On the overall, I would also like to ask just one question, as to - I noticed the recent figures on dropout rates for young people in the school system have receded in the last few years, that they seem to be going in the right direction for us when it comes to dropout for youth in high schools. It seems as if some of the programs are working, or having an influence over people staying in school. I just wondered what your thoughts were on - what you plan to do to continue that in the coming period of time.

MR. REID: Thank you.

I would like to be able to clarify something, Kevin, because there are a number of people out there who are thinking that we are not reinvesting the money we have saved since reform back into the system. In actual fact, since 1997-98 we have spent $175 million in new construction and redevelopment of schools. We have built twenty-three brand new schools and we have redeveloped forty-nine others. When you look at some of the redevelopments, basically, all that is left of the existing old school are the outer walls.

Most people think that this is money we have saved from consolidation since reform. In actual fact, we have given back to the boards the money that we have saved from consolidation. We are not charging the new schools against that fund. For example, we are building a new school in my district, on New World Island, for a cost of around $8.5 million. We are going to be closing four schools. Most people would assume that we are taking the money from the closure of those four schools to pay for the new one; we are not. We are leaving the operating costs of those four schools with the board for the next three years, which will come to roughly around $500,000. Even when the three years are up, that money will be then taken back and redistributed amongst boards for capital improvements to other schools around the Province. So we are not taking any money out as a result of reform or consolidation. In fact, that $175 million is new dollars that is put into the system.

These schools - like the one I seen on the weekend and the three that we seen up on the Northern Peninsula a month ago - are excellent facilities. The kids are really happy to be in them. First when you talk about closing two or three schools in an area you hear some rumbling amongst parents, but in the case of the school down in Old Perlican the kids are delighted. They are coming down from Winterton and from Northern Bay in the other direction. The kids are absolutely delighted to be in the school. They have new friends. As a result, they are able to offer far better programs in each of these schools.

To get back to what you said about graduates, I suppose less than a generation ago we had roughly 50 per cent of our school population who were graduating with a high school education. Today we are up over 90 per cent. Eighty-odd per cent - I think it is 84 per cent, I am not sure - 84 per cent of those graduates are going on to post-secondary education. Whereas back when we were graduating 50 per cent or 54 per cent of our students - only 50 per cent of them were going on to post-secondary education. So, in actual fact, twenty or twenty-five years ago only 25 per cent of the kids who entered school in kindergarten were going on to post-secondary when they graduated. Today that is more like 70 per cent because you have 80 per cent of ninety who are graduating. I even notice it since when I started teaching in 1982 on New World Island. Our dropout rate was fairly significant but that is not happening anymore. I think it is a result of not only better facilities but also better curriculum and better teaching staff and things like that, that are certainly helping. We have reinvested everything that we had back into the education system and we are committed to continuing to do so, along with putting extra money in, because this year even though we could have taken out 378 teachers we are investing 212 back into that system at a cost of $12 million or $14 million. It certainly helps and we are happy to be able to do it. We are going to continue to make strides in that direction, and we are committed to doing it.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you.

MR. REID: Those cap sites you are talking about as well are great because, like you said, it gives not only Internet access to individuals using those sites, the students, but it also gives the community access. I know the one in my district, the one on New World Island, that went in there a few years ago, is being used by the whole town. When we get this broadband up and running, that will also help some of these sites and it can be used for purposes other than educational ones. It could be used for tourism or anything else.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Just to say that the Internet and all that, that is providing, that was not there when I was in school years ago but now the access to that also. I know you are doing some courses, some distance learning. I am interested in hearing a little bit more about that because, to me, that really is - I have heard from a number of students in my district, some of them are using it and they just take it as - we kind of take it as something that is new and different, but a number of them have been on the Internet for ten years or eight years or seven years. Some of these children are youth and they are growing into it and they just see this as a way of learning. I find that we are pretty innovative from what I see of the programming that we can offer to the rural centres. Where you have smaller class sizes and you might not have the teachers on the staff, this is an excellent way to be able to provide that education. Just a thought from you, hon. minister, as to where you see that?

MR. REID: Ideally, you would rather have a teacher in each classroom who is qualified to teach the subject that he or she is teaching, but that is not possible in a lot of places in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and neither is it possible in other places across the country, in rural areas across the country. I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to log on with the students, some of the students around the Province who were doing these courses through the Internet, and I was very surprised at the comments that some of the students were making about how they enjoyed it and it gave them the opportunity to do courses that they would not otherwise be able to do.

It is not so much not being able to provide teachers in certain instances, because I think I said to John Ottenheimer last week when we talked about student-teacher ratios, we have somewhere around fifty or less than fifty students on Change Islands. We have eight teachers. That is a considerable number of teachers for so few students, but even with that number of teachers they are still doing some courses through distance education because the teachers who are on the distance education are far more qualified to teach that particular subject than maybe some of the ones who currently exist in the schools. So, in that light, it is certainly a good move.

I had the opportunity as well to visit Burgeo. I do not know if many of you have heard of it, the BBS, the Burgeo Broadcasting System. Boy, they have the state-of-the-art. Not only do you get the audio, but you get the visual. They had a class in Ramea hooked up to a teacher in Burgeo and it is two-way. You can see the students and they can see you. You can zoom in on the board; you can do anything. It is just like being in the classroom. You can even turn around and take a yap out of one of the students who is not paying attention in Ramea, from Burgeo. It is simply amazing technology, and I would like to be able to see the technology that they have spread around the Province because it is even better than what we have in distance education.

On that South Coast, not only have they gone to Ramea but they have gone to a number of communities up and down the coast, and we have to try and move more in that direction. They had some help from the federal government some years ago to set that up, but it is simply amazing what they have there.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Thank you, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: We can have a brief coffee break if we like now, or we can individually go out and have a cup of coffee, whichever you prefer. A ten-minute coffee break is in order, though, unless you prefer to do it individually.

MR. REID: I cannot do it individually, unless you don't mind if I leave for a cigarette.

MADAM CHAIR: We will take a ten-minute coffee break in deference to the minister. Shall we agree, Committee members?

Okay. We will reconvene at 10:20 a.m.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Moved and seconded.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

We will get back at it again.

Ms Hodder, as we are going through, do you have any questions at this time or we will we go on to Mr. Manning?

MS M. HODDER: I certainly do not have any questions this morning, but I would certainly take just a second to commend the minister and the department, and to thank them sincerely for all of the co-operation that I have received from them over the years. I will say to the minster, I know you are new in this department but if you do as good a job with this one as you have done with Fisheries there will nobody have any complaints, I am certain.

We just have one issue that is facing my district at this particular time, and I think we are going to have a meeting later today, and that is concerning teacher allocation. I think that just stems from the fact that we have a couple of schools in my district, like Petit Forte and South East Bight, where we have like three teachers for twenty-two or twenty-three students in South East Bight and there is one teacher for four students in Petit Forte. That, of course, cuts into the larger schools. I guess it is the problem that we are experiencing in a lot of places across the Province, and is something that we can hopefully address.

Again, I want to sincerely thank all of you and I will pass it along to the next person.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Hodder.

I am told that the recording people are concerned that they can only have one mike on at a time and that I have to start recognizing people back and forth so they are able to anticipate which

mike to turn on.

Mr. Manning, if you would like to start your questioning again.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will get back to a few of the earlier questions I was asking before, quickly, if I could, on the contract to service. Mr. Young, I think you told me there is an assistant to the Director of Communications for $40,000. Could you tell me who that is?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: The name is Nora Daley.

MR. REID: From your district? It almost sounds like she might be from his district.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: We will have to check that out.

I just want to get back, if I could, just to follow up on what Ms Hodder just mentioned that time, and that is the allocation of teachers to the schools. The minister says it is the decision of the school board itself. The flexibility of the school board to in some cases take people, I think the deputy mentioned earlier, out of the classroom, bring them to the school board office and spread them out over a certain amount of schools, such different programs or whatever the case may be. That flexibility to understaff a school in that case, or to overstaff another school, or to take staff into the school board office, whose decision is that?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Minister.

MR. REID: That is the school board. Not necessarily, Fabian, when taken from the classroom and put at the board office, are they distributed out amongst all the schools. There are some instances where these people just remain at the board office and have little or nothing to do with any of the schools. They are just doing administrative work at the board office.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MR. REID: We allocate based on a formula to each individual school board. It is up to the school board how many teachers they put in each of the schools underneath their jurisdiction. If they want to pull a teacher, for example, out of one the schools in your district and put into the board office that is completely within their discretion to do so.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: I just have to ask these questions for clarification, because questions are being asked to me. If there is a student-teacher ratio that is ordered - I will use the word ordered - by the Department of Education, the minister says one teacher per thirteen students or fifteen students or whatever the case may be. If that is supposed to be the case and the school board then decides that they are going to take a teacher out of a school, or the principal, vice-principal, resource teacher is not going to teach in that school, what happens to the law that says one teacher per thirteen students?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Minister.

MR. REID: There is no law. All we are saying is that the student-teacher ratio in the Province is this, where you take the number of teaching units, wherever they are, and divide it into the number of students. There is no law that says, for example - is it Mobile High school you have?

MR. MANNING: No, Laval (inaudible).

MR. REID: There is no law that says there cannot be seventy students in a class in Laval. It is entirely up to the board how they allocate these students. What we are saying is that, across the Province, the average per teacher ratio, student-teacher ratio, is 13.5.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: That is for your teaching units, Mr. Minister, but if you have four teachers in a school -

MR. REID: That is right.

MR. MANNING: - who are not teaching, and you have a possibility of one or one-and-a-half units taken out of that school and brought to the school board office, that ratio does not jive.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Minister.

MR. REID: You are right, it does not, but that is a decision that is made by the school board and in some cases the administration at a particular school.

I taught, for example, in New World Island at Coaker Academy. The principal in that school taught part time; the vice-principal taught half time.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: I will probably try this way to clarify it a little bit.

From the teaching services there is a bulk number of units allocated to a district. Within that block, there are three or four types of units allocated to board offices. There is a director of education, two assistant directors from the teacher allocations - there is usually another one hired from the board operating grants - there are six program specialists. These are all teaching base units. The program specialists are program people. The next group are the itinerants, as the deputy referred to, educational psychologists and these kinds of people who work throughout the district.

In addition to that, the minister referred to units that are put in the board office from this other allocation, the 700 or 800 units that are allocated. The board has the freedom to do that. Many boards have put in categories which they call associate assistant directors. These associate assistant directors are teaching units that would otherwise have been in the classrooms. Some boards also put in additional program specialists, other than the six. They may put an extra one or two in there, and that is the eight that the minister referred to earlier.

The ones that would normally be allocated are the directors, assistant directors, program specialists and the itinerants like Ed. Psych. and those. The others who come in are additional Ed. Psych., additional program specialists, or these associate assistant directors of education. That is the group that would come from the teaching block. It is not always easy to identify which school they would have been in, but they would come from the total number that would be allocated to the district.

I do not know if that helps clarify it.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: It clarifies it to an extent, Mr. Hatcher.

The problem I am having is that it seems to be that the allocation of, or the perception, I should say, of how many students per teacher is convoluted for the fact that it is not exactly - to say a uniform policy or uniform comment would be 13.5 per teacher, but then in the situation in my district, as an example, you take what is in the school board plus what is not teaching in the schools and that number is way out of whack.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Minister.

MR. REID: You are probably right.

I can tell you something else that complicates it as well, Fabian, and that is the number of courses that a particular board or a particular school wants to offer.

For example, AP classes, Advanced Placement classes - and your colleague sitting next to you would probably know this - are usually very small. If you are doing Advanced Placement Math in Level III, or Advanced Placement English in Level III, you probably might be in a class with less than ten students. Obviously, if you are teaching in a class with less than ten students then somebody in that school has to pick up the slack and they are going to have larger classes. That is only one example.

Another example for you is, while French is taught in most schools in the Province, we have courses in Russian and courses in Spanish being taught in schools in St. John's. So if you are going to teach French and you are going to teach Spanish, I would assume there are going to be fewer students in that class, then that throws the student-teacher ratio out of whack as well.

It is up to the board and to the principal - and your colleague was a principal - whether or not they want to offer that particular course. If you are going to offer Spanish, then you have to find a Spanish teacher in your class. You have to find someone on your staff to be teaching that Spanish. When you are doing that, are you placing a heavier burden on the language teacher or the geography teacher by offering Spanish or Russian? That is a decision that is made at the board level and at the school level.

As a government, we could have put an additional 500 teachers in the system this year and it could not have even affected the size of classes around the Province because it would be up to the boards and the schools how they were deployed. You might want to offer a course in something that only three or four students want to take. So, even if you had another teacher in your school, it would not drop the student-teacher ratio in a particular class.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Press.

MR. PRESS: I just wanted to make a short comment on the difference between - I think this is where you are going - the PTR and class size, because there is a disconnect. There is definitely a disconnect, but they are used for different purposes.

The PTR is one that is really used as a measure of a province's commitment to teaching. What it measures is really the ratio between the number of students that you have in your province and the number of classroom-related or school-related personnel. This is done and calculated out of British Columbia. It is one which all provinces and territories participate in, including Statistics Canada, in order that we can ensure that what you quote in Newfoundland and Labrador is the same relative (inaudible) what has been quoted in P.E.I. and Ontario and Alberta. What is shows clearly is that we have not only the lowest, but the lowest by far, of any province or territory in Canada, a PTR of 13.4, and it will remain that way next year. Whereas in Canada as a total, which includes Newfoundland, it is 16 per cent and getting higher. Even that clearly shows, when you deconstruct it, is that a school board in Labrador or the Northern Peninsula and so on, its PTR is significantly lower than 13.4 per cent. In fact, it is probably pretty close to ten - ten to one - and in St. John's it is a little bit higher. St. John's, if you compare it with urban boards, is significantly lower than any urban board in the rest of Canada.

If you look at class size, no, it does not. In our educational staff record, which is one we do every three years, and we are doing it this year so we should have some good information for next fall on the class size, the class sizes range from twenty to twenty-two, which again is very, very low when you look at comparable class size data across the nation. But there is definitely a disconnect between the PTR, which is a measure of basically school personnel, which would include principals, guidance counselors, itinerant staff and so on, and actual class sizes, because in many cases you will see in urban areas significantly higher class sizes in subjects like music. In choral music, it may be desirable to have a fairly large class size. In other areas, such as Russian, it is not desirable to have a large class size.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Press.

Mr. Manning, do you have other questions?

MR. MANNING: Yes, I do.

For the Avalon West School Board, would I be correct in saying there is an allotment of teachers? An allotment of teaching units, I should say.

MR. REID: Yes. I will give you what they were last year, Fabian.

In Avalon West we have full-time student equivalence of 9,291; full-time teacher equivalence of 690, which gave a ratio of 13.5 to 1. That is right on the average for the Province. Now, in Labrador, for example, the pupil-teacher ratio was 12.5.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: These teaching positions, does the department know how many of those are located at the school board office?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: Yes, we can determine how many of those teachers are at the board office.

MR. MANNING: Is that information available?

MR. PRESS: We can get it. We will get it for you, but, rest assured, what we have found out in the past is that it ranges from zero - some boards have none; they have reallocated none to the board office - to one, sometimes two, so whatever we find - with the exception of Avalon East. The likely response is very, very few.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Is the information available about how many teaching units are not teaching within the school?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: I guess if we had to find out, we could; but, Fabian, that would be up to the principal, I would assume.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: I am not saying about the decision. Is the information available per school in the Avalon West School District, of how many teaching units -

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: Do we have that information? Yes.

MR. MANNING: Okay. Is that available? Can that be made available?

MR. REID: There might be some problem with that as well. I know one school, for example, where the librarian is full time, but the librarian does not teach.

MR. MANNING: Yes, that is the way I understand it.

MR. REID: Therefore, if I were teaching English in that particular school, or math, and I sent some kids to the library, I would have to accompany those kids.

MR. PRESS: Mr. Manning, that level of detail is very difficult to get unless you have a very detailed kind of question here that goes out to not just the school but the individual teacher, and that is the forum - the Educational Staff Record, it is called - that we are doing in this school year, that the last time we did it was three years ago. We recognize that is probably a bit dated, fairly accurate but a bit dated. We have that information out, that the analysis, or the information back to you - I am guessing now - would probably be late May or maybe early to mid-June, before we will have the information for you on that, but we will be able to give it to you on a school basis.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: Fabian, probably the best place where that information could come from would be the school, if the school council were to request that information of the school and the board. You mean to tell me that the principal of a school would not give that information to the school council?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: The board will not release the information; that is why I am asking for it here.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: That surprises me, when you consider that it is an elected school board and that the individuals who are elected from your community are actually the boss of the people who work at that administrative office. It is the first I have heard of that and I find that to be very strange, that they will not release the information to the board or to the school council.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Galway.

MR. GALWAY: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Manning, as the deputy points out, we have just about completed our Educational Staff Record. I think we have a participation rate there of about 90 per cent. We would like to have 100 per cent and we are working on just cluing that up.

As the deputy quite rightfully points out, that information on an individual basis could be available from that survey. I suspect it will, however, be a month or so, probably towards the end of May, that the information will be available and we certainly would be able to provide it at that time.

MR. MANNING: Okay.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: There is another thing, too, Fabian that figures into that. It is that when you are talking class size, some schools give a certain number of preparation periods per cycle to their teachers, and that varies among schools. I know when I taught on New World Island we had one a day and we had a six-day cycle at that time. At any given time in the day there were five or six of us in the staff room because we all got a period off a day. That also has an impact on the number of students that are in a particular class at a particular period during the day, whereas other schools have a lower number of prep periods.

I am very surprised to hear that information is not readily available to an elected school board and to an elected school council. That was certainly not the intent of the legislation.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: The questions that I have been asked by some members of the school councils in my district certainly leave me to believe that is not the case, Mr. Minister, so I will leave that with you.

Back to Mr. Young, I believe. When you give me a breakdown of the personnel at the school board office, and include the positions they hold, their names and their salaries, and the conditions of their contracts, would that information be made available? The breakdown of the personnel at the school board office?

MR. YOUNG: The answer is yes. We can certainly get that information but I am not so sure that we can release the salary levels of the individuals. I would have to check that against the Freedom of Information Act, but we certainly can release to you the names of the persons at the board office, and their positions.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning, have you completed your questioning?

MR. MANNING: No, not yet. Is my time up now?

MR. REID: May I comment on that?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: I have a question to ask on that as well, Bob, if you do not mind.

If a teacher is seconded from the school to the school board office, I would assume that the salary scale that they left at the school, for example, if you had a fifth grade, you get paid at a certain level. If you go to the school board and there is an additional salary paid, or an additional amount paid, where does that money come from, Bob? Does it come from the board office or does the government pick up the tab for the additional salary you would be paid at the board?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: Thank you.

If the seconded teacher is put into one of the areas, Mr. Hatcher referred to it earlier, as an associate assistant, any differential between the salary that is recorded on the teachers' payroll and what may be paid to that individual is the responsibility of the school board. They would have to find that money within their own operations, not from within the teachers' payroll system. So, if there is a differential paid to a program specialist or a differential paid to one of the assistant associates, because of the fact they may be doing work with the boards and it requires them to be paid higher than, for example, principals, then the board has to pay that tab.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Manning.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Young, if I could get back for a second to the salaries, I could sit down here today and tell what your salary is.

MR. YOUNG: I beg your pardon?

MR. MANNING: I said, if I could get back to the salaries of the people at the school board office, I can sit down here today and tell what your salary is, and each one of you guys over there. Wouldn't that be made available to me, what the salaries are the school board office? Wouldn't that be public domain?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: The answer is, I would have to check it out. I thing you are correct but I would have to ask the question first, but I have no difficulty. It is readily available; I am sure it is. It is just a question on salaries, whether or not that falls into the domain of personal information if we release it, but I have no difficulty in checking it out and getting back to you on that.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: With regard to that point, Fabian, I think it was laid down in the legislation or the regulations exactly how much each of the directors would be paid. Am I correct?

MR. YOUNG: There are different pots of money we are talking about here now. When it comes to teachers and Directors of Education and two of the Assistant Directors of Education, they are paid from the teachers' payroll, teachers services.

With respect to the operating grant, however, that is a different category, a completely different category. The operating grant would provide for the staff at the board office, the secretaries, the janitors and so on. There are no teachers included in the operating grant except for any differentials that are paid to a teacher who comes to the board office and is given a differential. That comes from board operating grants, but the salary of the teacher coming in is continued to be paid for under teaching services, not under the operating grant of the board.

MR. REID: You did not really answer my question, Bob. When we established the new boards in 1997, did we lay down what a director should be paid based on the population in the schools?

MR. YOUNG: Each of the Directors and Assistant Directors of Education has a contract with their board and they negotiate with their board the contracts. All contracts must be returned to the Department of Education and approved by the minister. The level of salary in those contracts should be the same as the executive compensation plan of government, and that is what they are to be paid. If they are paid anything over and above that, then that is obviously an issue for the board. We pay point on scale in relationship to the scales provided by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. The act provides for the provision of four people, a director and three assistant directors. As I said earlier, the director and two of the assistant directors are paid for under teaching services. The third assistant director is the Assistant Director of Finance and Administration in each of the board offices. They are paid for out of the administration grant of the board.

MR. MANNING: Is it a possibility that the ten Directors of Education in the Province are receiving ten different salaries?

MR. YOUNG: That is correct, because each one of the directors is on a contract and are also on pay scales that are different, depending on the size of their boards. For example, the size of Avalon West is different from the Vista Board in Clarenville. So, the director would be classified different, as I am classified different from other ADMs of government and so on. There is a classification process that is engaged in with each one of the directors and assistant directors and they are paid based on the classification.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: Now they are (inaudible) it is just as well to continue. Some boards have even gone beyond that and taken money from the board to pay the directors even more than is prescribed under government.

MR. MANNING: So, there is a possibly monies taken out of the operation plan to add on to salaries of not only the director but other people in the staff office, too?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: That is a possibility, yes.

MR. MANNING: Is that information available in regards to the differential in the salaries of the Directors of Education?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: That would have to be obtained from the boards. We do not keep that information at our offices because that is a matter between the board and the trustees, and the individual directors and assistant directors. We do not have that information at our offices. We would have to go to the boards to get it.

MR. MANNING: Can you get it?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: When the new boards were set up, if you look at individual positions directors and assistant director positions were classified using the HAY classification system. The scale that was approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council as required by the act was an HAY classification system, the executive compensation plan of government. Boards were advised of that amount. So different director positions, because of the size of boards and responsibilities, were likely classified at different rates.

For instance, the Director of Avalon East would be classified higher than the Director of the Labrador School Board for District 2. The scales were sent out and the instructions were given by the minister of the day to the boards that these positions were to be paid in accordance with the executive compensation plan. As the minister just indicated, we understand that some boards have exceeded that. Government will pay up to the amount approved by the executive compensation plan and Lieutenant-Governor in Council. If boards choose to pay their director and assistant director more than that, then it would come from the operating grants of boards. It would come from other monies.

If you look at the other positions at the board office, like program specialists, they are teaching positions classified as program specialists. They are paid in accordance with the NLTA collective agreement, and that is not exceeded in any case that we know. If the board adds additional program specialists, then the teaching salary portion of that amount will be paid for from teaching services. So, if somebody came in with a teaching certificate seven and was put in an extra program - specialist position - government would pay the certificate seven. The bonus part that the board must pay for those program specialists, under the terms of the collective agreement, would have to come from the operating grants.

If a board put a new position in which was never contemplated, I guess, at the time, such as an associate assistant director - and a number of boards have done that. What they have done is taken teaching positions and put them in as associate assistant directors. Government would pick up the teaching part, the teacher's salary that is required, because it is a teaching unit. If the board chooses to pay a bonus to that person, which undoubtedly they would, that would come from operating. I do not know if that further answers your question.

MR. MANNING: It certainly gets further into it. It makes it more interesting, the fact that this operating grant which is prescribed to the school board each year to operate the schools in the district, basically. While you say government pays - for example, a director, an assistant director and associate assistant director, the pay scale that is laid out there is paid by government and then a bonus is paid by the operating grant. It is still paid by government, at the end of the day. The taxpayers of the Province are still paying for it one way or the other.

My problem or my issue with that is that there does not seem to be control on the bonuses. There does not seem to be - I will use directors as an example, there are ten directors, does every director receive an extra $10,000 bonus? No, one could get five; one could get thirty. Realizing the size of school boards and the size of the population of the schools taken into consideration. It would be very interesting to know what the bonuses are based on the school boards. I would like to know if the information is available and can be brought to us of the salaries of these people who are prescribed, such as directors and assistant directors, and any bonuses that they receive on top of the prescribed salaries that were laid down by council?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: Just one final point on that. It is quite possible for us to give you the salaries that we pay under the teacher's payroll system or from the administration grant for the assistant directors of finance and administration. I do not believe any of our directors are paid bonuses. They may be paid different rates within the salary scale, but in order for us to obtain that we would have to go to the records at the district office level and examine any T4s and so on that may have been issued for these specifics. We would have to get that back to you, but we do not have that information at the department. It is something that can be obtained but is must be obtained from the boards.

MR. MANNING: I would like to obtain it, if possible, Mr. Young. I would like to go back to do a few things. Is my ten minutes up now?

MADAM CHAIR: I thought what we would do in this session is let everyone finish up their line of questioning so we could be done around noon if possible.

MR. MANNING: I will defer. I am not finished yet but I don't want to -

MADAM CHAIR: Okay.

Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I do not want to come out of turn, but I do not lose the continuity of this particular point. If I could, with the permission of my colleague, just to pose one question. I will ask the minister because it is in response to a comment by his Assistant Deputy, Mr. Young.

I am having some difficulty reconciling the different comments. Firstly, I understand that Mr. Young indicated the information is not readily available to the department. I also understand from Mr. Hatcher's comments that each of those boards had to submit to the department for the minister's approval every single employment contract. So, I am assuming that any kinds of issues with respect to compensation are dealt with in the contract, whether it includes bonuses, salaries, education leave, vehicles, anything like that. The director would be - I give them credit for being half bright - that if any director is entering into an employment contract that employment contract would spell out every specific detail, including the salary scale, bonusing, additional leave, compensation, addition travel, accommodations, or vehicles that might be, all would be in that employment contract.

That being said - now that is the assumption on my part, based on what I understand to be the issues dealt with in employment contracts - and I am assuming Mr. Hatcher's comments about employment contracts being signed off by the minister, that the minister in signing off the ten or eleven employment contracts that exist in the Province today, would have retained a copy of that employment contract for the department's records.

I guess to Mr. Manning's question, is it possible that if the information he has asked for is included in the employment contracts, could the department furnish us today with the copies of the employment contracts with each director in this Province and indicate, to the best of your knowledge, that it is all encompassing and it covers off every single cent being paid out and all benefits being paid out to each director?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: We have never approved an employment contract that was above that which was laid down by the Order-in-Council.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I gather from your answer - and you were careful in how you phrased the comment. Am I to assume from your comment that you have never approved a contract that was above the Order-in-Council, therefore there are employment contracts out there that the minister has not approved?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: To my knowledge there are no contracts out there that have not been approved. Generally speaking, in the employment contracts there is a line which says the level of salary and benefits shall be in accordance with the scales approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. No minister, that I am aware of, has ever signed an employment contract that exceeds the approved scales. Now, you referenced car allowances. There is no employment contract that has car allowances in it. As a matter of fact, at consolidation there was a directive that went out from the minister of the day telling boards they could not provide vehicles to senior executive staff.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: I am going to be very direct with the question then. Does the department today, or has the department in recent days, recent weeks, prepared an analysis of directors' compensation in this Province and submitted to Treasury Board some recommendations for how you are going to reconcile and streamline the differences that currently exist in directors salaries?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: All of the directors of education across the Province themselves came together as a collectivity of directors and assistant directors. We have put together revised position descriptions for all of them right across the Province. They approached the department to have those position descriptions analyzed and reclassified, if that was the intent, and made up, based on the composition of their position descriptions, if in fact it warranted some adjustment to their salary scales.

From the department's perspective, we have simply resubmitted those to Treasury Board for evaluation and analysis. We have no word back on those, but those are re-submission of job descriptions for classifications of the directors and assistant directors. It is not related to any compensation issue such as bonuses, or whatever, it is simply to put on the record changes that have occurred to position descriptions and so on, and whether or not a reclassification is warranted. So these are reclassification positions only.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: During that process of submitting that and submitting the new position descriptions, can you confirm for us now that the department recognized that there are some directors in the Province today who are getting paid salaries that are different than the executive pay plan would dictate they would? Let me rephrase: The salary is one piece, being (inaudible) salary, and the second piece being, receiving benefits well in excess of what people on the executive pay plan within government would ordinarily get.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: First of all, let me go back to about 1998, I think it was, when the Auditor General prepared a report related to executive compensation for some of the directors, well the old superintendents and assistant superintendents of education at consolidation. There was some discussion at that point in time about persons receiving benefits in excess of those laid down by Executive Council. We, at the department level, followed up on that and did make the necessary changes to the compensation from the department's perspective.

I think you are right, I think there are directors and assistant directors that the department is aware of who may be receiving benefits in excess of what we have allocated to them. We have pretty much said that that is a decision of the individual school boards, it is not a decision of the Department of Education. We have tried to correct it entirely on all new contracts, as Mr. Hatcher has said. We have stipulated that they must stick to the compensation package. If they don't stick to the compensation package, we have no knowledge of that. Sometimes there are suspicions that are put out but we have no knowledge of it. We have not done an audit, for example, of the payroll of the district offices to ascertain whether or not they are being paid in excess of. The suspicion that we have is that most of them are, in fact, paid exactly as the should be paid in accordance with the executive pay plan, but we have not done an audit to make a determination as to whether or not any of them are paid in excess of that.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Back to my colleague. Thank you for the opportunity to pose those questions.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just to carry on in that light with a couple of things that are coming to me. I just ask the minister: Basically, I know that, first of all, with regard to the director's contracts and so on, I assume they are all on the same - they came up for renewal, I believe, last year. Last year, I believe, was the fifth year? They are in place for another five years. I know when it all came about, I found out in going through it that in actual fact in a number of boards you almost had assistant directors getting a higher pay than directors. Would that be - that is not accurate?

MR. YOUNG: Certainly not that we are aware of because the inversion principle is addressing classification and so on. So, no, there are no assistant directors paid higher than Directors of Education at the board level.

MR. HEDDERSON: None whatsoever?

MR. YOUNG: Not to our knowledge, entirely.

WITNESS: In the same board.

MR. YOUNG: Oh, in the same board, yes. You may have an assistant director in St. John's that is paid higher than the Director of Education in Labrador or in a smaller board. That may very well be the case, but not within the same board.

MR. HEDDERSON: Within the same board throughout the Province then, the directors are getting more with regard to compensation than any of the assistant directors?

MR. YOUNG: That is correct within their own board. That is correct.

MR. HEDDERSON: I will just go on with my line of questioning. I will just go back over some of the things.

Again, it just seems that a lot of the information is not coming through. I was surprised to hear the deputy minister indicate that the staff records have not been done in three years. I just want to question with regard to that because I know they were pretty elaborate. They were done every September and, I guess, it was used for planning for the following year. These staff records, first of all at the school level, why were they discontinued? Was it because you were revamping them or finances?

MR. GALWAY: Mr. Hedderson, actually, in fact, if we trace back I do not believe the staff records were ever done every year. I do not know the exact rotation but as I recall, certainly since I have been associated with the department, we have not done the staff record every year. We have now made a deliberate decision to administer the staff record every three years. There has, in fact, been a different approach taken this year. We are using a Web-based format so that all teachers would log on to the Web and complete the information on the Web. I have to tell you, that has been a bit of a challenge this year for us. Some teachers have been resisting moving to that format. I think it will be good in the long run because when we go and do the staff records now, the next time we do it, we will be able to access the record and just make any changes to the record that may have occurred over the ensuing year since the last time it was done.

So there has been a different approach. We are trying to do it on the Web. That will avoid data entry which theoretically should be able to get the information more readily and it should be accessible with fewer errors in data entry and that kind of thing. So, yes, there has been a change and the decision is that we will do it every year because it is somewhat of an onerous task for teachers to complete that long form.

MR. HEDDERSON: I am a bit surprised because I know it was a pain every September going around and getting them all, those long sheets and so on. We used to threaten and say: You wouldn't get paid and that kind of thing. Even that did not work sometimes, but just the history of it, Gerald. Just to think, it has not been done in three years?

MR. PRESS: Are you referring now to the annual general return which is done in September?

MR. HEDDERSON: No, every September we used to go through the whole list of things: what we were teaching; how many hours; and so on and so forth.

MR. PRESS: The only thing I am aware of that was on a regular basis goes back probably in the 1980s when Stats Canada had a form that it discontinued, probably in the mid-1980s, which was an individual teacher-based form that they did and preprinted and sent out, and teachers updated it. That has not been done since - I am pretty sure - well into the mid-1980s. We had done it and recognize that it takes a fair bit of work on the part of each teacher, and there is a significant cost. That is one of the reasons why Stats Canada withdrew itself from it. We felt the need to collect information through the transition from one year to the next, about class sizes and so on, but it was never done on an annual basis that I can recall.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, it gave important information and it showed up in our stats book every year. How many teachers are teaching a particular class, or how many classes are in this class size, and all this information. I think it is quite important. Just on staff records because, obviously, you are going to do the teachers. Are the board offices being done as well?

MR. PRESS: The staff record is -

MR. HEDDERSON: I am just looking at Gerald up there, too. You are saying that this is going into the schools and every teacher is going to do it. Correct? Is it every teaching position, which would include the boards obviously? Our 6,000 teachers will all fill these out, wherever they are working.

MR. GALWAY: The education staff record is expected to be done by every school based educator in the system. That would be anyone who would have any responsibilities at the school level.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, what you are saying is that this is only going to be looking at actual teachers who are in the classroom or in the school? It is going to be school based?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Galway.

MR. GALWAY: That is correct. You will recall, Mr. Hedderson, that the majority of the information in the educational staff record relates to teaching assignments, relates to the amount of preparation time, relates to educational training, experience, the assignment in relation to the training. So the vast majority of the items on the staff record really are only relevant to teachers who would be in classroom settings or in school based settings.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: My understanding, if you are going to audit the system you are looking at where teachers are - and this goes back to my colleagues questions earlier. We have 6,000 teachers out there. We are supposedly establishing a good teacher-pupil relation. You are telling us that the department does not know where the teachers are. Wouldn't this be a way of making sure - and if you are revamping, it has not been done in a couple of years. Don't you think that it would be to your advantage, as a department, to know where everyone is and what they are doing?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Galway.

MR. GALWAY: Certainly, we will take that advice under advisement and look at in future administrations addressing the units that are in the school board office.

To repeat myself, most of the information really on the staff record relates to teaching assignments and that kind of thing. I guess it would be useful for us to survey the people working in school board offices. Most, again, would be - program coordinators would not have any direct teaching responsibilities as such but from the perspective of looking at their qualifications, it may well be something worth considering in the future.

MADAM CHAIR: Who would like to be next in the line of questioning? Are you finished, Mr. Hedderson?

MR. HEDDERSON: Am I finished? No, not by any means.

MADAM CHAIR: Oh, I am sorry. Carry on.

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you very much.

Just to say on that theme, if I could, Minister - allocations. We know a couple of years ago the allocation formulas were changed. We have small, medium and large schools. I was just listening to the exchange between two of my colleagues on teacher allocations. Again, I get the feeling it is the board that determines the number of teachers who go into a particular school. Now I would assume that if the allocation formula is put into play that you would not accept, as a department, anything less than that. Am I correct in saying that the board literally could go below the level of what should be allocated and you cannot do anything about it? Would that be a fair statement?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Press.

MR. PRESS: I am not sure if I would word it completely in that direction, what we would do about it. We tend to come at it from the school board's perspective, and that is, if we are going to be so prescriptive as to have a formula - and I am not judging the formula. This was done by a couple of prominent educators a couple of years ago - to prescribe what must go on within each school, then the boards would say to you: Well, first of all, you are taking away any flexibility that we would have to do other kinds of things, whether it is right or whether it is wrong, to offer AP, Russian or Spanish in the school, or music in the school, closer to home or whatever. The boards would say: Well, if you are going to be that prescriptive why do you need us? Then you have to ask the fundamental question: Do we want duly elected school boards in order to make the kinds of educational and pedagogical decisions around what kinds of programs, and so on, or services are offered within individual schools?

It may come down to: Well, we want to offer a local program or we want to offer a local course, and so on. Boards would say: Well, we would like to have that flexibility to be able to do that. We want them to be used in a block. In fact, we have asked this question on a number of occasions to our school boards and so on: Do you want it to be more prescriptive? In other words, do you want certain allocations to be very much detailed and boards to fit within those allocations on a school-by-school or even a program-by-program basis? The school boards will tell us, and have told us on every occasion, that: no, we want them as a block. We want to be able to make local decisions and to add programs or expand programs in certain areas and so on. So, it really boils down to a fundamental decision about, you know, where do we want the local decision-making to take place? Do we want it to be in the local area or the local region, or do we want the Province to make those kinds of decisions on a school-by-school basis?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, just looking at it, let's take it from this tact, that, obviously, the allocation formulas are applied to every school in the Province in allocating teachers?

MR. PRESS: Yes, the formula is used as a method of really defining how many resources we need for a Province, and broken down for a school board. It was never intended that it be used as a mechanism to allocate by school. It was used as a means by which to determine the number of resources. Here is a block, then the board has that block, and it is up to the board then to decide how it wants to manage that block.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: So we could take any school board, for example - and say there are fifty schools there - the board comes in and says: Look, according to the allocation formulas and what we have done and the needs that we have, we need 100 teachers. So, when you look at that number, my question is that with all the school boards in this Province and the number of teachers now who are in there, is it just purely based on the allocation formulas for every individual school combined? How far along are you, as a department, in going over and beyond that allocation? Is it spot on, or do we now have fifty more teachers, 100 more teachers than is allocated by the formulas?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: We have 218 more than the formula would say we needed.

MR. HEDDERSON: So, there are 218 teachers now that are over and beyond what is required. Out of those 218 teachers, how many goes to Avalon West? How many goes to Avalon East? What is the determination there?

MR. REID: It would have been based on the formula from whence they came, I would assume. It is prorated according to what the student population would have been. For example, if, according to the formula, you were supposed to take out twenty teachers - if you eliminated the 378. Well, because we are only taking out a percentage of those teachers rather than the whole 378, we would take out a percentage of the number in each board. Do you get where I am coming from?

MR. HEDDERSON: Yes, it is based on numbers then. So, the 218 teachers, you do some type of a formula to decide how many goes to Avalon East, how many goes to Avalon West and so on and so forth.

MR. REID: That is right.

MR. HEDDERSON: So it is just based on what could have been and what you have done and so on, but you make the decision on that?

MR. REID: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay.

The allocation formulas; one of the biggest problems with the allocation formulas as it came in a couple of years ago is that it put at a disadvantage our larger schools, especially our large urban areas whereby the smaller schools seem to have gotten - that problem was addressed. The mid-size schools, but I have had complaints galore. Just about every large school that I go into, they talk about - initially they got hit probably - and I am talking about larger schools, probably 500-plus for sure, 600, 700, 800, the larger schools. They have indicated both at the elementary, junior high and high school level, in particular, that they got done in probably four or five units. That has followed them through right up until this present day.

Right on the heels of the Budget Brian Shortall indicated that he was going to have great difficulties in addressing the large class sizes in the larger schools. Has there been any thought in your prorating - do you take that into account and look at boards that are particularly hard hit with these larger schools to try and compensate for that inequity in the allocation formulas?

MR. REID: Obviously, Tom, we have to put teachers in smaller schools; smaller populations.

MR. HEDDERSON: Oh, absolutely, I never said that.

MR. REID: That is going to somehow have it such that in larger schools the class size might be somewhat larger; but, having said that, you are still left with a situation whereby the larger the school the more programs you can offer.

MR. HEDDERSON: Not necessarily. We thought that, but that is not necessarily true.

MR. REID: It certainly appears to be true, and I would say that it is true, because in St. John's right now they are offering Russian, Spanish and I think even an aquaculture course in one of the schools. We are certainly not afforded that opportunity on Change Islands or Fogo Island or even in parts of your own district.

I don't place an emphasis on Russian or Spanish, but having done a masters in linguistics, I think we should be offering as many language courses as we possibly can. It would be great for my sons and your kids to be able to speak four or five different languages, but sometimes we have to make choices, and the same holds through for boards.

I know that you continue to talk about large classes, and there are large classes in some schools, but then again that is a decision, to some degree, that the board and the particular school makes. You are talking about urban areas, and it is the same across the country. In urban areas the class sizes are usually larger, but we still have the best student-teacher ratio in our urban centers than anywhere in the country. In fact, the ratio in Avalon East, which is the largest urban area in our Province, is fifteen point six to one, which doesn't appear on paper to be very large. I allow there are going to be large classes in that, but we discussed that earlier, why there would be large classes and why there would be small classes.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: There are all kinds of examples one way or the other and I don't want to get into that, but I do want to get into the difficulty that large schools - I must qualify, as well, that it is not necessarily large urban schools, I just used that as an example. I consider my area a rural area. Ascention Collegiate serves my area; Blaketown, Crescent Collegiate, and Amalgamated Academy down in Bay Roberts on the junior high level. So, these are not considered to be urban schools, but they find themselves placed at a disadvantage because they are large. They are not getting the same type of teacher allocation for their programing as some of the mid-size or smaller schools. There is a gap there.

I thought that by looking at the 218 teachers - I guess the point I am trying to get across is: Can we, somehow or another, address that through the extra teachers that you have allocated in there? Is there any way that we can address it?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: We left the additional 218 in. We have asked the school boards to come forward to us with proposals as to how they would see those teachers deployed, and we are waiting to hear what they have to say on that issue.

Having said all that - and I know there are large classes in some areas of the Province - we are still doing better as a Province than any other province in Canada with regard to teacher allocations.

I know, having been a teacher myself, that is sometimes in dispute, but we are comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges across this country and we still have the best student-teacher ratio in the country and it is continuing to get better. If we have large classes in urban areas in Newfoundland and Labrador, then, boy, they must have some awfully large classes in places like Ontario.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, I do not want to get into the discussion or, indeed, the argument, but to make a point, I think we all realize that the numbers game is a thing of the past. What we have to look at, given the geography, given the spread of the student population in this Province, so on and so forth, are the programing needs rather than numbers, and that is where it is coming in. I am sitting back and very hopeful that distance education, or some of the other strategies that we may use to address that - the days of just looking at numbers and dividing the number of students by the number of teachers is not going to adequately address the needs, and programing needs especially, of this particular Province.

Minister, I will stop there, because I am going on another train of thought, and just reserve the right to come back. I would just like to pass along to other members.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: I want to comment on the programing needs. We are aware of the programing needs, especially in our rural small schools, and that is the reason we have allocated more teachers in those smaller schools than we have to the larger ones. As I said earlier, in the larger, more urban schools they have far more programs than those in the rural schools.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: I saying, minister, do not assume that, please, do not assume that. That is not necessarily true, and I can vouch for it.

MADAM CHAIR: Could we move on, please?

MR. REID: No, I want to comment on that.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: If you look at the Avalon East School Board, you cannot tell me that the high schools in the Avalon East School Board are offering fewer programs than any of the schools in rural Newfoundland or Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Mr. Hedderson.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just one last comment on it. Like I said, I, basically, was involved in a school of 300 or less for twenty years. In that programing in the high school, mostly what I was involved in, we offered three sciences. I am just using that as one example in the small school setting. We sacrificed some things for it, as you have mentioned, if you are doing an AP program. Every student who wanted to went through the three sciences and came out. To my mind, that was very, very important, especially in their choices as they went into post-secondary. So, they got their chemistry, they got their physics and they have their biology.

With the reorganization and into a larger school, which Bishop O'Neill gave way to Ascension Collegiate, at Ascension Collegiate it was impossible for my daughter, when she went down there - my first daughter went through with the smaller school, three sciences. My second daughter went through, but the scheduling did not allow for her to go through the three sciences. It was not set up. The only thing that I had her do to make sure she got the three sciences was to challenge the third level physics because there was no prerequisite for it.

What I am saying, minister, is that, you know, you cannot naturally assume that just because you have a large school, that you can offer the same programs even of a small school, because of the makeup of the student population and so on and so forth. In that case, I can tell you, the programming of the smaller school overall was more of a choice of the students.

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: But you already said that when you were the principal of your particular school you offered three sciences and you had to sacrifice some other courses. Maybe that is what they are doing at Ascension. Maybe they are sacrificing a science and in turn picking up a different course. So it is more based on the prerogative of the administration in a particular school in what emphasis they place on a particular subject. To say that larger schools cannot offer the same programs as your school, it is just that they pick the courses they want to offer. Maybe they put more emphasis on music or phys. ed. at Ascension than you did, and therefore they do not have the three sciences.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Press.

MR. PRESS: He is absolutely right.

All I was going to suggest is, the issue of your daughter may be one of scheduling more so than an adequacy of the number of allocations which are in the schools. I mean, what we have as a province to look at is, get an allocation system that is as fair and as equitable as it can be. What it does is makes a "minor" - I say it in quotes - a "minor" adjustment for rural schools, who recognize that it is much more difficult in a very small school in Grey River to offer the kind of programming that one could offer in Blaketown or in St. John's.

We can get, if you wish, a printout of the number of courses that are offered, broken down by high school, right across the Province, and it will show you that, by and large, larger schools have much more diverse programming offered in their schools than smaller schools do. That is just the nature of the number of teachers that you would have in that school and the flexibility, the qualifications that they would have, and the kind of opportunities that you would have in a larger school with many more teacher resources there than you would in a smaller school.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you.

Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a few questions that perhaps relate directly to, I guess, the federal government's role in education. I guess it is fair to say that the more this Province, or indeed any province, can call upon the federal government to assist by way of grant or contribution to the Province to assist in its educational expenses, the better off we are as a Province in terms of, presumably, savings for our provincial Treasury.

I would like to refer specifically to Native's Peoples' Education under the heading 2.1.03., where it indicates that the costs of the operation of schools in designated native communities are recoverable from the federal government. Although the amount is not large, we do see that federal contributions are slightly less than the overall allocated amount.

I am just wondering: Why should there be any deficiency, or why should there be any difference, in amounts that presumably would have to be paid by the provincial department when we consider this area as being one that is funded by the federal government?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: We just signed an agreement with the federal government not to take over. Obviously, under the Land Claims Agreement in Labrador, they are going to run their own schools eventually. We just signed an agreement with the federal government that we will continue to administer those schools on their behalf up until the aboriginal people in Labrador want to take them over themselves. So I think it is on a cost recovery basis, isn't it Bob - total?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: The minister is referring to the school in Natuashish. The federal government agreed to take over 100 per cent of the cost of delivering programs to the students who attend that particular school, and the full operating cost. An agreement was just signed recently with respect to that particular school in anticipation of a reserve being created under the Indian act at Natuashish.

The reference you make to 2.1.03., that is a federal-provincial cost shared agreement which provides additional funding to schools in five designated Inuit communities, Nain, Hopedale, Rigolet, Postville and Makkovik. The agreement has been in place for many years. Each year the federal contribution usually increases by the CPI.

These monies are expected to be used to provide aboriginal specific curriculum over and above the programming that is provided for by the Province. In these particular communities, the provincial programs are offered and paid for by the Province the same as they are in other schools in the Province. The additional federal funds are used to make other programs available through curriculum development, also a variety made up of teacher assistants and so on.

These particular funds here, even though there is $2.1 million this year and it looks like $2.0 is forecasted for next year, that is an anticipated federal revenue. In the past, the history has been that it is always (inaudible) up by the CPI.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Is it restricted just to the Inuit communities?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: This particular funding is, yes. This particular funding comes from a federal-provincial cost shared agreement for native people in Inuit communities. The agreement is beyond education. It is also provincial community infrastructure as well. This is the educational portion of that agreement.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

What is the arrangement with respect to our Innu communities in Labrador? I am thinking specifically of Sheshatshu and Davis Inlet, for example. Is there a similar arrangement or is it restricted just to the Inuit communities that you have identified?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: There was an agreement. There were two agreements in the past. One for Inuit communities and one for the two Innu communities. Several years ago the federal government agreed to a request from the Band Councils in Davis Inlet and Sheshatshiu that the Inuit agreement would - funding would be provided for equipment, and funding would be provided to the Band Councils. There is no longer a federal-provincial cost-shared agreement for that.

In Davis Inlet before the February move and in Sheshatshiu now, the Province pays the same level of funding as it would to other communities in the Province. The Innu Band Councils are receiving contributions from the federal government for education to allow extra programming there. The Davis Inlet school is closed as of February. As the minister referred to a few minutes ago, the new school in Natuashish, in the new community in Sango Bay, is now being paid 100 per cent from federal funds.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: If Davis is closed and Sango Bay is under a new formula, and if the Inuit communities are covered under this arrangement, that would leave, I guess, Sheshatshiu perhaps as - am I correct in saying that would leave just Sheshatshiu as a native community in our Province without the contribution of federal funding?

MR. HATCHER: No, the federal government is still providing funding to the Band Council of Sheshatshiu for supplementary education. The federal government, two years ago, built an extension on the existing school. The Province, the federal government, and the Innu are currently in land claims discussions and self-government discussions, as you would be aware. At this point in time the federal government appears willing - they have indicated to the Sheshatshiu that they are prepared to provide funding for a new school and are prepared to enter into some form of contribution or accept full cost of payment for schooling in Sheshatshiu.

Under the Indian Act, when the reserve is created at Sheshatshiu the federal government will assume all costs for education on the reserve. There is some indication that the federal government is willing to do the same as it did in Natuashish, to assume that before the reserve is created, because a reserve date has not been set yet. These negotiations are ongoing and have not been resolved.

MR. REID: I guess, John, what he is saying is that with regard to Inuit, funding is channeled through us for the programs but with regard to the Innu it is going through the Band Council.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: From federal government sources directed to the Band Council?

MR. REID: Band Council - and if they want to put the extra programs or curriculum in they can do so. Whereas with the Inuit, it is coming through us into the schools. Am I right?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I notice when we look at Native People's Education, under heading 2.1.09, there is an allocation there for teachers' housing in Inuit communities. I am just wondering, has the provincial department approached the federal government to have that particular allocation included in what is part and parcel of the overall commitment by the federal government as it relates to those five communities? Because clearly, teachers have to live somewhere. It is an integral part of the educational program, as I would see it. Why is it, if this is a separately identified allocation and that housing or accommodations for our teachers in our native communities are not part and parcel of the original allocation?

MR. REID: I am going to let you take that Bob, because he just came back from a meeting in Labrador to discuss that very issue. I am just going to step out for a second.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: This particular allocation here was one that was provided just recently to the department to address housing issues in the five native communities that Garry referred to earlier.

We are working with the Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs Department to try to generate the kind of agreement that you are talking about on a go-forward basis. There was some $500,000 - $250,000 in 2002-2003 and $250,000 in 2003-2004 - provided to assist with housing issues in the five communities. We are hoping that in a transition framework for the next year or so, we will be able to negotiate something through Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs for the continuation of a program to address housing in the native communities that remain in the Province. So this is more of a transitional funding type thing until we can negotiation something with the federal government, which will be done through Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Although that arrangement is being pursued with Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs, would that originally be federal resources directed to that department, or are we still talking about provincial dollars?

MR. YOUNG: More than likely it would be federal dollars addressed to the department for use in those communities. That is the nature of the agreement that is contemplated, but it would be done through Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs, if negotiated, in conjunction with the Department of Education because of our interest through the Labrador School Board. Nonetheless, that would be the focus and the funds would wind up - once negotiated, I would assume - in the Department of Education, but the lead role would be the Labrador & Aboriginal Affairs Department.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

So it is conceivable this is an allocation that may be absent, I guess, from next year's Estimates.

MR. YOUNG: For the year 2003-2004 it is here, but for 2004-2005, right now there is nothing forthcoming at the moment until we can see what happens by way of negotiations with the federal government.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Madam Chair, on the same page actually, page 170 of the Estimates, there is a specific allocation that is named Newfoundland and Labrador Education Investment Corporation. I wonder if maybe the minister, or one of his colleagues, could comment on the corporation in terms of a composition of that corporation and perhaps give some indication as to the role that it plays in terms of the frequency of meetings, the types of topics that would be covered on the agenda, and, essentially, the relationship that this particular corporation has with a variety of departments within the provincial government? Because I understand, that by necessity, it must involve more than just Education.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Press.

MR. PRESS: The corporation has four directors, who are the Deputy Ministers of Education; Works, Services and Transportation; Finance and Treasury Board. It meets probably four to six times a year on a needs basis when certain decisions have to be made about projects which are either in the process of starting or on the way. Typically, the four people who are on that committee come at it from four different directions. Typically, when school renovation projects and new school construction projects are underway, then Works, Services is the department that oversees the project from government's perspective. They have, certainly, a role and a perspective in the corporation. Finance and Treasury Board has obvious roles to play in it, because the corporation borrows the money to set aside for various projects and so on.

It is a corporation which has reasonably good dialogue and certainly creates a kind of atmosphere around construction, both new and renewed construction, that provides the kind of guidance that the minister requires.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

So, is all school construction, capital works and renovations to existing facilities in the Province directed through the corporation, or are there some exceptions to that?

MR. PRESS: There are exceptions to that. Only, sort of, the major capital requirements, any projects that are under $20,000, typically go through the school boards themselves. There are some projects that come through the corporation that, in fact, if they are small enough and the board has the kind of skill level and so on, that it might undertake the work itself. Some are done through the incentive program and so on.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Would the corporation have, though, a supervisory role, even in that event? Like, if a school board undertook certain capital works of its own, because of the limited monetary value involved, would the corporation still have a role to play or would it be totally hands-off?

MR. PRESS: No, the corporation wouldn't. The corporation is really a decision-making body. It will make the decision about the project and whether or not to set aside the money for that particular project. The supervisory role will take place and depend upon the size and the scope of the project. If it is small enough, it may be one of the engineers within the Department of Education who may go out and be used for both an inspection role or to oversee a smaller project. Typically, the supervision and the overseeing of projects is done by Works, Service and contracted services through the (inaudible) of Works, I guess, they call it; contractual services, anyway.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I notice in the heading just above that, Mr. Press, under School Services, it appears at least that the Department of Education has retained some sort of monitoring of capital works projects in schools, under School Services, in the description of that, where it talks about teacher certification, the administration of the teachers' collective agreement and, furthermore, the monitoring of capital works projects in schools. Although Works, Services may have predominately a supervisory role in terms of construction and renovation in response to what the corporation has, in fact, recommended as a decision making body, it appears that the Department of Education can still very much can have a hands-on role?

Would you, perhaps, just care to explain or describe what the monitoring role of the department would be as it is worded under School Services?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Press.

MR. PRESS: The difference would be, we have a significant role up to the point at which the project starts. We have two engineers on staff and much of what they will do is examine projects. For example, if we have a leak in a roof we might send down an engineer to look at that, to set out the scope of that project, what is involved: Is there something that requires immediate attention, is it something that we would require some type of contingency to go down there and do; where does that project fit within the overall provincial priorities; and what kind of engineering work is required on a provincial basis?

There is a very significant role in terms of looking at the kind of needs we have there now, in making decisions and recommendations as to how you would approach those needs and so on, that this division, this branch of the department, would play a significant role in. Once the projects have finished, the process of scoping, once decisions have been made about whether or not this is a priority and this will be funded, when it goes to tender and so on, that is when our role ends and the role of Works, Services begins. That is when they will take over and they will look at monitoring that capital project and ensuring that it is done on time, on budget and done with significant quality to make sure it gets through all of its inspections and approvals and so on. I guess our role is up to the start of a project and Works, Services will kick in, generally, after the project.

Having said that, it is not always the case, because I did mention earlier that when you have a small project, maybe a $15,000 to $20,000 roof job or maybe replacement of some windows and so on, then we might, at the request of the school board, send our engineers to go out and actually oversee that project to make sure it is done well.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

If I may, I would just like to go back a moment to, I guess, where I started just a few minutes ago in terms of the role of the federal government as it relates to specific programs in the Province. Under Language Programs, for example, under heading 2.2.02, we see that, in terms of the French curriculum and French First Language and Immersion Programs, it says, "All costs are recovered from the Federal Government."

I guess, my question is: Again, we see a slight differential in what is estimated for 2003-2004 and federal government revenues. Am I to assume that any cost overrun, or any expenditure to the Province, is fully recoverable and would be recoverable, if not this year, in a following year?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: The answer is yes. When we do our budget, you will notice that the Federal Revenues are flatlined at $2.3 million for each year. There is an envelope of projects that we can submit to the federal government for consideration. We might want to undertake a review, for example, of the number of persons in a particular area of the Province who might qualify for French language training or might want to introduce new French immersion programs and so on. We can apply to the federal government to have those sorts of scenarios investigated, and it is that kind of project funding that goes on through the course of the year that has our monies go up and down just a little. There will be adjustments to the federal base based on the approval of those projects as the year goes on. So, yes, there is the possibility of some maneuvering with the contribution made by the federal government to language programs.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Chair.

But it is fully 100 per cent recoverable, is that correct?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: Yes, it is.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay, I will ask my colleague to continue, if he has any questions.

Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

In the Budget, there was an allocation of $6.8 million towards capital construction projects and school maintenance and repairs. Minister, I understand that, annually, school boards have to submit an itemized list of the projects that they have in their districts by school, and it is that itemized list that you use to determine allocation of capital money and that helps you get some sense of what is needed in the system. This past year's list that has come in from eleven school districts. What was the total request on those lists?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Minister.

MR. REID: I do not have the exact number here. I know that it is far more than we would ever have for it. Do you have it, Gary?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: Fifty-seven million, one-hundred and ninety thousand.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: So, the $57 million, is that capital repairs and maintenance? That does not include capital projects? If you wanted a new school built, is that new school in that $57 million?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: That is a summary of the applications that we see for all new capital projects over $25,000. That was submitted to us within the last couple of months. That is in addition to the $170 million worth of construction that has been undertaken since 1997. So, these are new requests. It would include new schools, redevelopments, major renovations and these kinds of things.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

That $6.8 million would be all earmarked to start to deal with that $57 million list. The school maintenance and repairs mentioned in the press release for the Budget documents do not deal with the normal day-to-day maintenance that the school boards have, if schools need paint jobs and replace steps and that kind of stuff. That is not in there?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: That sum is set aside, basically, for emergencies.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: Just a point of clarification. For the normal stuff that you talked about, like painting and so on, there is an allocation that is made to school boards in their operating grant. They get an allocation strictly for, not salaries, but for material costs and so on, of fifty-five cents a square foot for every square foot that they have in their school system. That is to cover off paintings, minor repairs to windows, those sorts of things. That is not included in the list that Mr. Hatcher has there.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Minister, the $6.8 million - and I recognize the school boards are a continuous operation, so you just do not finish one year and then the other - of that $6.8 million how much of that will be used to fund or to pay for the completion of work that is already started?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: Three point three million.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Three point three million.

MR. REID: That will bring it to a total this year of probably somewhere in the area of $34 million in construction that is being carried out this year.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Just so I am clear on the math now, back to your earlier question about the $57 million. Just correct me if I am wrong. There is a $57 million list of projects the boards have identified that are over $25,000. That is the list they have said that, as of today, here is what we would like to have done on a go forward basis. I am assuming that they would not have included in that list work in progress. So, to take the $6.8 million that you have announced in the Budget, and you have said that $3.3 million is to be used for projects that are already in the works or in process, am I correct in assuming then that $3.5 million would go towards the $57 million list because the $3.3 million is already working on some list from somewhere in the past? Is that a fair assumption?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: That is right.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I go back again- not that I am picking on them, but I did have a chance to scan a couple of these annual reports that you tabled last week, minister - I go back to Avalon East. I just want to read a piece here because it says, "Avalon East District is committed to an environmental stewardship. However, air quality issues and site re-mediation work remain a financial challenge..." They go on to use an example, "For example, during the school year the District was forced to re-mediate property at the site of the former Park Avenue school as a result of soil contamination by an underground fuel storage tank. This site restoration cost the District approximately $530,000, " that had not been in their budget.

I had an experience in my own district, Minister, with the board having to do remediation on site because of a ruptured oil tank in the ground. A lot of these schools that are out around, especially in some of the older schools that are heated by using furnace oil, a lot of these tanks are in the ground. From an environmental consideration, is the department planning, or does it have a strategy in place to replace all of the in-ground storage tanks that exist in the Province?

MADAM CHAIR: Minister Reid.

MR. REID: Thank you.

Let me get back to the first part of your question on Park Avenue. It is my understanding that that school has been closed and the property is up for sale. As part of the sale it would have to be remediated and thus the cost; but, I guess, we are hoping they can get some, or all of the cost, back from the sale of the property. Now, obviously, in rural Newfoundland and Labrador this is going to create a bigger problem because the land is not going to be valued at that much. We are going to run into problems in the future, there is no doubt about it, since we brought in these new environmental laws. It is happening everywhere, not just with private properties around the Province but it is also happening with public properties. It is something that is going to have to be addressed with regard to the - we are changing the tanks around the Province right now at - what is it, Garry?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: Specifically, to answer your question, we do not have a program to replace all underground oil tanks. A number of school boards have, over the years, replaced some themselves. What we have been doing is responding to critical needs. We have replaced a number of tanks over the years and remediate properties, but as to having a specific program to replace them all, no, we do not.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Would you have some sense of the number of in-ground tanks that would exist on school board properties? I recognize from the minister's comments, some schools have been abandoned for some time, maybe not yet sold but there would be a tank in the ground. So today it is still property of the board, I would assume. Would you have some sense of the number of properties that have in-ground tanks in them in the Province?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: Yes, I think we do have that list.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Do you roughly know how many?

MR. HATCHER: I do not know.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Would you be able to have that list for us?

MR. HATCHER: We can provide the list.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Young.

MR. YOUNG: Yes, the list is available. I think you will find at the moment, in terms of closed properties, that there are approximately fifteen closed properties across the Province that have oil tanks in the ground. The other issue there associated with that is whether or not there is any contamination being caused by these. I think that information is also available.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: To go back to your comment, Mr. Hatcher, in terms of the strategy in your doing them on an as needed basis. The definition of as needed, is that when it ruptures or is that when - how do you define as needed?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Hatcher.

MR. HATCHER: Yes, that is one obvious definition of it. If it ruptures, if it leaks and there is contamination, that is mostly what we have been responding to in the past. We have not had the funding to go out and replace all of them. As I said, the school boards do, in many cases, have programs in place where they are gradually replacing their underground fuel tanks. Specifically, the department has not embarked upon that kind of program, but we have replaced a number of them where there have been spills, leaks, or where there has been contamination found that existed years ago.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Wiseman.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

The reason I posed that question, I understand in the budgetary process people make decisions about funding one program or the other, or reallocate resources, so I fully understand and appreciate that point very much - I use Park Avenue as an example, or any of the fifteen schools, or any schools for that matter; it does not really matter. If you today have a tank in the ground that is twenty-five or thirty years old, you may go in today, if the tank is not ruptured, and be able to remove that tank and not have contaminated any of the soil, and it may cost you $50,000 or $60,000, or maybe even $100,000. If you run into a rupture, and we have had enough of them in the last couple of years in the Province because it made a lot of headline news, and we have had enough of those experiences in the Province to date - we have a tank replacement policy now that reflects that kind of thinking - when you start replacing them because it is ruptured, you have done a fair bit of contamination to your own property but there is a real good chance that you have done a fair bit of damage to a lot of adjacent properties.

So I guess the question becomes, Minister, in setting up provisions for replacement and hence my question for a strategy, if you spend $50,000 today to replace a tank that is thirty years old, it may be a lot cheaper than trying to do a $500,00 or $600,000 claim with damage and remediation to your own property but also run the risk of significant damages to adjacent properties. You have already commented earlier about the deductible on claims you had to pick up in this year. I understand the deductible is pretty high in the schools insurance policies. Many of these tanks, I suspect, that in the ground - because most of the schools that have been built in the last ten years or so have not used oil, so you are talking about - maybe I could even go back further. Fifteen years ago the schools stopped using oil, for the most part, in their construction, so most of these schools that have tanks in the ground are at least fifteen-plus years old, or maybe even thirty years old. I guess, given today's sensitivity around environmental issues and government's own initiative in trying to foster some standards for the protection of the environment, Minister, is that something that you have had some discussion about at the executive level or Cabinet level? What might be some of your thoughts on that?

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: Thank you.

Earlier this morning, I talked about when we built and redeveloped all these schools in the Province and we closed a number of schools, each of the boards who had school closures were allowed to keep the operating funds for that school for a period of three years. They are more aware of where they have a problem with oil tanks. For example, the three schools that are about to close on New World Island, if indeed there is a problem or they perceive a problem with an oil tank that needs to be remediated, then obviously the funding that we are leaving with that board can help, I trust, with those problems. As well, most of the boards in the Province have funding over and above their normal operating grants each year as a result of school closures that they could use to do projects like the one that you were just talking about. In the case of Mount Pearl, I am hoping that with the sale of the property they will be able to recoup any loss that they would have had as a result of the remediation expense.

MADAM CHAIR: Could I interrupt now to say that it is after 12 o'clock and we usually allot three hours. Are there further questions? We will have to make a decision about timing here because we have a situation whereby all of the committees are now put in place for three-hour time periods from now until May1. If we require a significant amount more time to complete these Estimates, we will have to reconvene after May 1. Is there any significant amount of time being left, or can we conclude in the next few minutes.

MR. MANNING: (Inaudible) few minutes.

MADAM CHAIR: I think, then, the Chair will entertain a motion to adjourn now and to reconvene as we discuss a future time after May 1.

MR. MANNING: So moved.

MADAM CHAIR: Is there a seconder?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MADAM CHAIR: All in favour?

WITNESSES: Aye.

MADAM CHAIR: The motion is carried.

The Committee stands adjourned.