October 22, 2024 House of Assembly Management Commission No. 98
The Management Commission met at 1:30 p.m. in the House of Assembly Committee Room/video conference.
SPEAKER (Bennett): Okay, good afternoon, everyone.
I think we're back and everything is running smoothly now.
First of all, I'd just like to call the meeting to order and I'd like to welcome the Members of the Management Commission and officials joining us today.
First of all, we have the hon. John Hogan, Government House Leader; Barry Petten, Opposition House Leader; the hon. Lisa Dempster, MHA for Cartwright – L'Anse au Clair; Jim Dinn, MHA for St. John's Centre. Welcome back, Jim. I know you served on the Management Commission before but good to see you back again.
We have Jamie Korab, MHA for Waterford Valley. Welcome, Jamie. This is your first meeting with the Management Commission, so welcome. We have Craig Pardy, MHA for Bonavista and Kim Hawley George, Clerk of the House of Assembly and secretary to the Commission.
We also have Sherry Gambin-Walsh, Deputy Speaker; Bobbi Russell, Principal Clerk of Committees and Policy; and Gerrie Smith, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel.
So without further ado, the first agenda item – everybody should have a copy of the agenda plus their briefing package – relates to the approval of minutes for the meetings that were held on August 27, 2024, and September 18, 2024, and further to the requirement under the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act,just advising that decisions of the in camera meetings were on those dates also.
I'll open up the floor to any comments or questions you may have on those two meetings of August 27 and September 18.
Seeing or hearing no questions, I ask for a motion that the Commission approve the minutes of the meeting held on August 27 and September 18, 2024.
Moved by MHA Petten; seconded by Minister Dempster.
All those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.
SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'
Motion carried.
On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.
SPEAKER: The next agenda item is a reporting item to the Commission. The House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act requires a Commission must regularly, and at least quarterly, review the financial performance of the House of Assembly as well as the actual spending of Members compared with approved allocations.
The financial reports for Members for the period ending June 30, 2024, are circulated in the briefing package. Again, these are just for reporting purposes and no decision is required, but I will open the floor to see if anybody has any questions on the financial reports.
MHA Pardy.
C. PARDY: Just for curiosity, when we do the Estimates as part of the budget process, we will often have the previous year's figures listed by the side of it for comparison purposes. Is that something that can be done here in this for the Management Commission?
CLERK (Hawley George): I can certainly work with the chief financial officer to see what kind of information we could incorporate, but this is the quarterly reporting in real time.
SPEAKER: Yeah, basically it does give the progress of how Members are spending their resources.
C. PARDY: I think if we look at it in the aggregate, what we've got, each one of those would show, probably 95 per cent of them, that there is an increase over last year in the Salaries alone. Sometimes you lose the context if you are not doing a comparison with the previous year.
I know it's only a quarterly but I just was even wondering as to what '22-'23 would have been in those figures. If you don't have it in front of you, lots of times you are looking at it separately without doing any financial comparison.
SPEAKER: You can correct me if I'm wrong, Kim, but the Salaries would be a regular increase that you would see.
CLERK: They would be general economic increases, but I think what you're looking for is more in the financial information than in this quarterly reporting. So we can talk about that when we get there.
C. PARDY: Yes.
SPEAKER: MHA Dinn.
J. DINN: I have just a question on a line item there, 1.1.03, Committees, Policy and Communications, I am assuming the question is in order.
In regard to Purchased Services and Property, Furnishings and Equipment, in one there's a projected savings of $117,600 and then there are projected overruns.
Are we buying stuff instead of leasing? I'm just trying to get an idea of what those numbers mean.
CLERK: MHA Dinn, with respect to the Committees, Policy and Communications, you may not be aware but there is a refurbishment of our broadcasting system project.
J. DINN: Okay.
CLERK: So that was approved through a pre-commitment process about two years ago. It's in train right now and so we expect the work to start in January. I think what you are referring to relates to that project.
J. DINN: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER: Any further questions?
Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item, which relates to the audited financial statements for the year ending March 31, 2024.
The House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act requires an annual audit of the accounts of the House of Assembly and statutory offices by an auditor appointed by the Commission.
In accordance with the act, the Audit Committee must review the audited financial information, the audit report and any recommendations with the auditor. The recommendations are then approved by the Management Commission.
The Auditor General informed the Audit Committee that no significant matters were identified to report. Further to correspondence received on October 9, 2024, the Audit Committee recommends the Commission to sign and approve the audited financial statements for the House of Assembly and the statutory offices for the year ending March 31, 2024.
Do we have any questions?
Seeing no questions, I ask for a motion that the Commission approve the audited financial statements for the House of Assembly and the statutory offices for the period of April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, as recommended by the Audit Committee.
Moved by Minister Dempster; seconded by MHA Pardy.
All those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.
SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'
Motion carried.
We'll actually get those signed there now while we're all here.
Minister Dempster, do you want to sign as Chair there?
Thank you.
Also, thank you to the Members of the Audit Committee for their work.
The next agenda item relates to an invoice for expenses incurred for the previous fiscal year, which cannot be paid in the current fiscal year without the approval of the Management Commission. Further to the provisions of subsection 7(6) of the Members' Resources and Allowances Rules, the rule allows for payment of the office accommodation expenses related to the establishment of a constituency office in an electoral district.
Further to those provisions, agreement has been entered into the lease for office accommodations for the constituency office for the Baie Verte-Green Bay area in the community of Springdale.
The House of Assembly recently received the invoice from the landlord dated October 3, 2024, for outstanding expenses that were incurred in 2023-2024 related to the office accommodations. Those expenses were related to security monitoring and were incurred from April 2023 until February 2024 but, as I said, no invoice was received until this fiscal year.
In order for us to pay that bill, we would need the approval of the Management Commission. The amount in question is $573.44.
Any questions?
It's just an overlook by the landlord that they forgot to send the invoice.
If it's all good, I'll ask for a motion that the Commission approve payment of expenses for the amount of $573.44 for leased office accommodation expenses for the Baie Verte - Green Bay District for the 2023 fiscal year with the expense to be charged to the applicable allocation for the current fiscal year of 2024-2025.
Can I get a mover of that motion?
MHA Petten; seconded by Minister Hogan.
All those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.
SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'
The motion is carried.
This concludes our television version of the meeting. We'll now take a short recess and move into the in camera portion.
The Speaker recessed the meeting to transition to an in camera session.