Public Accounts committee  On the issue of the proposed legislative amendments, we continue to provide input as to the impact on the correctional service, as do other government departments that may experience some impacts. In our calculations, we look at what the projected population growth would be based on our normal flow in and out of the system.

Public Accounts committee  At this point in time, we're not involved in any financial discussion with Newfoundland, but we are talking with them about their needs.

Public Accounts committee  For the most part, yes, it is. If everything were equal—all our positions were fully staffed, all our rosters properly balanced, our post deployment scenarios in place—we have the ability through our substitute officers to cover a certain level of leave, which not only includes sick leave but annual leave and family related leave.

Public Accounts committee  Not any more, no.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's $800.

Public Accounts committee  At this point I think we've purchased.... I'd have to get back to you with the exact number. We've equipped our maximum security institutions, so there are probably about 1,500 there, and our medium security institutions.... We're probably getting up to about 3,000 or 4,000 vests that we're buying, and we'll probably be equipping all the others over subsequent years.

Public Accounts committee  The cost of the rations is around $4.75, or in that $4 range—just under $5. The issue that was pointed out by the Auditor General is that it's not a true cost, because then you have to look at the preparation and so on. When we start to add in the cost for prep, we add in another $11, $12, or $15, depending on the mode of delivery in certain institutions.

Public Accounts committee  Very much so. The automated scheduling system that will be available in September will make it much easier, so that when an officer phones in and books, the correctional manager will push a button in the system, it will be recorded, and then the follow-up will be recorded and will occur as soon as the staff member is back.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. As mentioned earlier, we've noticed over the last several years that the average number of sick leave days taken by correctional officers has increased. Currently the average is about 17 days. That's almost the maxed-out number of sick leave days that a correctional officer can take in a given year: 15, plus these additional two, if they've already used up their 15.

Public Accounts committee  That's very much so. This is a growing concern, probably more in the last few years than in the past. If I go back to my own situation, when I started 31 years ago as a front-line correctional officer, if an incident occurred, it didn't matter how serious it was, you dealt with the incident.

Public Accounts committee  It has been since June 27 last year.

Public Accounts committee  In my management team I have a strong chief financial officer who has had many years of experience within the public service and who previously worked in the Auditor General's office. I have a human resources team now that is much stronger than it was a couple of years ago. So for issues around managing things such as, for example, overtime and the human resource components of it—the schedules—I have a much stronger team than we had several years ago.

Public Accounts committee  No.

Public Accounts committee  Oh, most definitely. Yes, there's no question about that.

Public Accounts committee  The short answer is yes, it has. As a result of the review done by the Auditor General's office, once they brought it to our attention, we initiated an approach to review specifically the sites that were audited. As well, we initiated a review of all the institutions across the country to assure ourselves that the leave records were up to date.