I'd be happy to.
While you find your way to slide 5, where I'll begin, I'll just reiterate a point I'm going to come back to a little bit later, which is found earlier in the deck. That is, these main estimates include only those items, as the committee would well be aware, that had been approved in previous estimates processes. That fact becomes important when I get you to slide 5, and I'll just point out that while there is, as the minister pointed out, a $284-million rounded increase this year, that excludes the amounts we will bring in through supplementary estimates for the federal infrastructure funding approvals.
On slide 5, you will note the disbursements between our operating and capital expenditures, etc. This is just to give a demonstration of where that $284 million affects us. The primary driver's on our capital side, and I'm going to just highlight a few more points.
While it looks rather large, remember that this is main estimates over main estimates, so what we started with last year and what we started with this year. Where we ended last year is only $26 million short of the 2015-16 main estimates. Said again, we are starting with $1.889 billion in these main estimates, and the 2014-15 ending expenditures for the department will be in the order of $1.86 billion. It's very close. That's a lot of shifting and mostly just timing.
Let's turn to slide 6. As Minister Shea had highlighted, the main story this year for DFO's estimates is asset renewal. While this page won't add up to exactly this figure, it's awfully close. I would just point out that $249 million of the $284 million is about asset renewal for the coast guard fleet—land, air, and marine.
In the first one, approximately $114 million is for the procurement of light-lift helicopters. I'm pleased to state that the organization has taken receipt of its first helicopter. It was delivered at the very end of 2014-15, and the remainder will follow over the course of this year and next.
The next item is $44 million for the offshore fisheries science vessels. Work has been done at the Vancouver shipyard. As the committee is probably well aware from the last few different times of main and supplementary estimates appearances, there are three vessels involved in this build. At this point, these funds are necessary for preparations before construction. We've gone ahead with the purchase of long-lead items: the sophisticated navigation systems, the propulsion systems, those kinds of things that are necessary, as well as the engineering and design work.
There's $41 million for life extensions and modernizations. Just as a point of clarification, the mid-life modernizations are basically an activity we undertake after a vessel has exceeded 50% of its planned useful life, and they don't add to the life. They basically recondition the vessel to continue and meet the full expected life. By contrast, a vessel life extension, which we're using quite extensively right now while we implement our overall vessel renewal program, is an extension to the life of the vessel. If it was meant to be on the water for 25 years, we may get it to 30 years through a VLE, or a vessel life extension. So $41 million is included in these main estimates for that purpose.
Rounding out that approximately $250 million are three more items. There's $40 million for the medium-lift helicopter program. Seven helicopters will be purchased under that initiative. The first is due one year from this summer. As well, though it's not on this list because it's a little bit smaller in aggregate value, there is $6 million towards the polar class icebreaker that gets us going on some very early stages of that program, and some refit money for the CCGS Amundsen vessel.
Then you see the remaining items here. Renewal of the Pacific and Atlantic integrated commercial fisheries programs was announced last year in budget 2014. Last year we supplemented that money, but this year I'm able to book it in through the main estimates, so you see it here. Then the $22 million was also a 2014 item, and we were successful in utilizing close to half of the $40 million announced under 2014. We ramped up quickly. We got $17.8 million into the program and into the field to the harbours that needed it, so the difference, the $22.2 million, is what you see here being put through the main estimates this time around.
Of course, as we report in every main estimates, this is the final reduction for the department under the reviews, and every other department has incurred outside of targeted review. We were one of the few that went through that and we have successfully met all of those objectives.
I did take notice of a line item on page 5 to note where the funding had increased for the department.
I also wanted to point out slide 7, capital vote redefinition. It's a notable item that any department that has capital in its vote structure will be going through this year, and it is a one-time reset.
Basically what happened was that all of government was looking at how capital is codified in its systems and realized that everybody treats capital projects slightly differently when it comes to work on the borderline between maintenance work and minor capital work, so now all departments that have capital launched a major reset. No money has been taken away from the department. It's net neutral. But basically now all activities that should be in the operating vote are going to be in the operating vote, and capital activities are purely defined against the government's accounting standard.
For us, that means $88 million is basically moving between votes. It's so many different little places. I can do the bulk of it for you. If you were ever to ask me to unpack that for you, I can kind of describe it. Basically what it means is, for instance under the coast guard, where they would have been, maybe under our acceptable accounting practices, spending a great deal of money to maintain a vessel, through its capital program that money will now be on its operating side. It's still in the program. It hasn't left the department.
There is one example, and that's the last slide, number 8, regarding capital redefinition. This is the only example in our main estimates where we actually move money from one program to another in our program activity architecture, our program alignment architecture. It's very small. It's $3.8 million shifted between where it used to be spent under operational readiness or fleet readiness. We took the opportunity this time around, because we always, every year, in year, had to transfer this money over to our maintenance dredging program. This time, while we did the capital redefinition, we also aligned it with where the activity actually occurs. I just wanted to point that out for full and transparent disclosure.
I'll pass by the next number of slides. I put them in here every year with the committee to give you somewhat of a better lens, looking by program, of where the organization uses its resources.
I'll draw your attention to slide 13, the last slide. As you're well aware, we won't get the main estimates until they have been voted, through this process and others, but I would point out that interim supply is now in place. It was passed by the Senate on March 31. We're out of the gate for the first three-twelfths of the fiscal year, with all votes' operating authorities of $450 million.
Again, this is just a reminder that we will probably increase, I would say, substantially the operating authorities of the department over the course of this year for three reasons. First is the bringing in of the year-one installment of the organization's allocation of federal infrastructure money. Second, we will bring in the operating budget carry-forward amounts that we will be eligible to carry forward, and third, the capital budget carry-forward amounts, as well.
That was it, Mr. Chair, for a bit of a flavour of what the main estimates entail.
