Effective: April 1, 2016

Applicable FAM Policies: 310 - Supplementary Appropriations

Applicability: GNWT Departments

A Supplementary Appropriation Act is required to effect a change in a GNWT Department’s total appropriation for each funding category (referred to as “vote”). Clarification of the terms capital carryover and infrastructure carryover are provided in the context of the provisions in the Financial Administration Act (FAA).

INTERPRETATION

The terms capital carryover or infrastructure carryover have been commonly used to describe the practice of obtaining incremental funding for departmental infrastructure projects in a fiscal year in an amount equivalent to the unspent infrastructure funding from the preceding fiscal year on a project-by-project basis. Funding is not transferred from one year to the next since the FAA does not provide for multi-year appropriations.  Appropriations are specific to each fiscal year. Capital carryovers are accomplished through a supplementary appropriation (infrastructure expenditures) in the year, and a lapse of equivalent infrastructure funding in the preceding year.  The net result is that total funding for the applicable projects has not changed – it is just spread over more fiscal years than was previously appropriated.

Requests for carryovers of infrastructure funding include funding related to any of the following infrastructure funding categories:

• Tangible Capital Assets
• Infrastructure Contributions
• Deferred Maintenance
• Public Private Partnerships

All requests for capital carryover must meet the following criteria:

1. The infrastructure project funding requested to be carried over must have lapsed against the specific project in the previous fiscal year;

2. A contractual obligation must exist, or substantial work has commenced on the project and it could not be completed within the planned time frame; and

3. Must identify all of the following in the request;

• Department and Activity that the project is reported under;
• Which of the four categories of infrastructure funding are applicable to the request;
• Project costing numbers;
• Project descriptions;
• Revised budget amounts;
• Final expenditure amounts (including any accrued liabilities);
• Free balance amounts;
• The amount being requested for carryover; and
• An explanation of why the amount is being requested. The explanation must include a rationale, based on the eligibility criteria for infrastructure carryovers.