The first thing I want to do, in response to that, is to make sure that we are looking at numbers that are comparable. The problem with all of these numbers is that there are adjustments and those types of things. I want to make sure that we're dealing with an apples-to-apples comparison.
For 2015-16 the main estimates amount is $78.3 million, as you mentioned. The comparable number in 2013-14 in the main estimates was the $84.3 million. That's the $6 million reduction. If you compare the $78 million to the $88.3 million, that's not an apples-to-apples comparison. It would take a while to go through and make that...but the relevant number is the $84.3 million to $78.3 million.
I will also use this opportunity to address your question and what the chair indicated at the beginning of the meeting, which is the question about whether we have enough to do our mandate. I think it's important to remember what it is we are asked to do. We have a statutory responsibility to do financial audits. We have a statutory responsibility to do special exams. In both cases, it's not just that we have a statutory responsibility to do those, but the organizations that we have to do them on are identified in statute as well. When we're putting together our budget, we have to dedicate the first part of our budget towards those things. Everything else that is left over is what we have to put toward performance audits. We have a statutory responsibility to do performance audit, but there's nothing in that statutory mandate that says how many.
My answer to those types of questions is that we're now still at a level where we are able to produce within that historical range of the number of performance audits that we have produced. I think any reduction from here, and any requirement to absorb any additional costs, will start to get us below that traditional amount of performance audits. We can continue to do performance audits, as our mandate requires, but we're at the point where any reduction will cause us to produce fewer performance audits than we historically have.