A provincial Liberal government commission to evaluate possible budget cuts will cost $3.8 million for the first year of operations, according to documents obtained through an Access to Information request.

Salaries of President Lucienne Robillard, a former Liberal MP, as well as four others will account for $1.03 million of that total.

Robillard will be paid $265,000, which amounts for $1,100 per 240 eight-hour work days. She will also be reimbursed for expenses up to $300 per month.

Experts Claude Montmarquette, Michele Bourget, Mireille Gagné and Robert Filion will be paid $192,500, which works out to $800 per day.

The committee was announced by the Treasury Board President Martin Coiteux Martin on June 11, and aims to achieve savings of $3.2 billion in an effort to balance the 2015 provincial budget.

The opposition Parti Quebecois (PQ) and Coalition Avenir QuEbec (CAQ) both argued that the government should have done the work itself without creating an outside committee.

The rest of the $3.8 million in the committee budget will be spent on $1.2 million in renting offices and other equipment, as well as $640,000 for eight employees, who will be paid $80,000 each.

A similar sum will be given to eight employees of the Treasury Board, whose work will be “affected by the work.”

Another $250,000 will go to creating websites.