Alberta's "False" Promise: Government implements drastic cuts to adults with
developmental disabilities
With
The Department was aware of the fiscal challenges it faced early in the year yet it waited until the last quarter to demand a rush of cuts, thereby quadrupling the impact and negating any decent planning that might minimize harm. To add insult to injury this Department reallocated its limited resources to assess the needs of 9200 individuals, rather than meet those very same needs. A caring and thoughtful government would have reallocated its limited resources to ensure continuing supports in a time of economic constraints.
Wendy McDonald, AACL President and the parent of a child with developmental disabilities, stated, "Families who have sons and daughters with developmental disabilities did not realize, when Premier Stelmach claimed to abide by the principles of "transparency", "decency, the importance of family and community" (
On behalf of the almost 10,000 individuals with developmental disabilities and their families whose lives are being jeopardized, we call upon the Premier to simply keep his word. We should be celebrating the holidays and enjoying family rather than living in fear of the New Year.
Stop the Cuts: Remove the Fear
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Alberta's "False" Promise:
Government implements drastic cuts to adults with developmental
disabilities
BACKGROUND
1) Within the last two weeks most Alberta Seniors and Community Supports
Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) regional boards, of which
there are six, have quietly communicated that they will be requiring 4th
quarter cuts to be made in order to balance their budgets at year-end.
These cuts were "announced" literally at the same time Minister Jablonski
was touring the Province to promote her priorities for PDD. Neither the
Ministry nor the Minister announced the cuts. The Minister has
acknowledged the cuts but done no more than that.
No departmental announcement on the cuts is planned and no departmental
communication strategy for advising families and individuals with
developmental disabilities is planned. Regions are choosing how to inform
agencies of the cuts and not all are involving families or involving
families to the degree they should be. No region has a plan to
communicate with all affected individuals or families. Government is
relying on agencies to communicate that cuts are going to be made.
2) The cuts vary from region to region, with some possibly being absorbed
with little impact and others having substantive impact. Some cuts will
come from PDD operations itself and where possible, from some under
utilization of some services, however the most of the cuts will have to
come from the services provided to individuals with developmental
disabilities. As the Department has made no announcement on the cuts we
can only estimate the total to be cut from the cuts being made by each
region. We estimate these cuts to total approximately $10 million but we
cannot be absolutely certain of the actual figure.
3) As the cuts are being imposed in the fourth quarter, there is little
opportunity to plan well and in a way that would best minimize the
anticipated negative impacts. In addition as the 'claw back' of funds is
occurring in the fourth quarter, a 2% annual cut can result in close to
an 8% cut in the final quarter, resulting in far more significant impacts
then would be true if the cuts had been managed earlier in the year,
which would have allowed for sufficient time to plan and make
adjustments. The largest impact to-date might be in Northeast Alberta
where they announced the cuts earlier in the year although this was not
considered an official announcement and no action was taken at that time.
NE PDD advised service providers in their region that the cut would be
just over 4% for the year, while some other regions have now announced
between 2 -2.5%.
4) While the Ministry will claim these reductions are necessary either
because of the global recession and/or excessive spending on PDD's part,
neither comment is accurate. These cuts would have been unnecessary if
the Department had better managed its resources and made more prudent
decisions.
PDD knew it had a budgetary shortfall at the beginning of the fiscal year
as it was not provided with sufficient funds to address annualized costs
or sufficient funds to address either new individuals applying for PDD
supports or others whose progressive conditions would require additional
support. Other cost pressures included the increase in minimum wage that
affected primarily PDD funded staff who provide overnight supervision, as
well, as the pressure of government wage increases.
Literally almost all of the increase awarded to PDD for this fiscal year
was allocated to salaries for community (non-government staff), with the
continuing intent of narrowing the gap between government and community
salaries and reducing high staff turnover rates.
In effect knowing this shortfall early in the year, PDD could have made
adjustments at that time thereby lessening any negative impacts to the
degree possible as cuts could possibly be absorbed somewhat or at least
there would be time for planning so as to minimize risk. PDD could have
made other decisions such as reducing government staff or transferring
existing government services to community, which would have eliminated
potential deficits for years to come.
The Department could have reallocated the funds allotted for wage
adjustments. Instead, PDD chose, of the $24 million it received for wage
increases, to allocate one-time only funds of $14 million and return the
unused $10 million to Treasury. If PDD had kept the $10 million it could
have used these funds to offset the projected deficit and no cuts would
be needed. Now PDD wants to add another $10 million to the PDD designated
funds it returned to Treasury, in effect removing $20 million from
services individuals with developmental disabilities require.
As staff turnover rates had dramatically reduced because of the overall
economic downturn, PDD could have considered allocating the $14 million
it had on supports and services rather than providing one time only
dollars only to community employees. As government staff received an
annual and ongoing increase for doing the same work as community staff,
the gap between government and community employees has now grown larger.
Put another way, given the cuts, some community staff may have gotten a
small one time only increase only to be told now, they no longer have a
job or a job with the same hours. And in turn individuals with
developmental disabilities will have less support.
5) PDD did reallocate approximately 20 existing positions to implement a
new assessment tool (Supports Intensity Scale - SIS) to be eventually
administered to all of the approximately 9200 individuals served by PDD.
The purpose of SIS is to determine the support needs of individuals and
thus corresponding costs in an attempt to ensure better allocation of
resources. However, when this Tool was tested it essentially verified
that the existing system was very accurate in its current allotment of
resources.
Now there will be 20 plus government staff implementing a tool (one of
the Minister's priorities) to advise people on the supports they need
only to tell them these same supports are unavailable due to the cuts.
Government funds exist to pay these 20 plus government employees for
unneeded assessments of individual needs that then cannot be met.
Further, PDD's waiting lists are growing and while many new individuals
only get some minimal assistance, few are getting what they really
require. It would be far wiser to postpone this reassessment plan and
reallocate those resources to actually help people rather than conduct
meaningless assessments.
6) It appears individuals and their families are to absorb the pain of
these funding cuts without any meaningful consultation or even
information and incur risks that increase with rushed and inadequate
planning as a consequence of poor government decisions and planning.
For further information: Bruce Uditsky, Chief Executive Officer, Phone: (780) 940-4269, Email: [email protected]
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