Mis-Management Costing Millions of Taxpayer Dollars, Yet Again

This man is leading this province to its financial ruin and no one seems to see this as a problem

With all the hoopla that has been ongoing about how poorly the Ontario Government has been managing the provincial purse strings, I felt it was time to delve into an area where Mc-Liar has refused to acknowledge even has any issues at all; health care for the developmentally challenged. Dalton has continued to ignore where he spends his health care funding which is just another demonstration of his stupidity.  Since 1987, when then-Premier Dave Peterson began the task of closing all the large institutions for people who have intellectual disabilities, the culture of de-regulation has allowed for non-profit organizations to attempt to fill the void, with varying degrees of success and allowed for the creation of massive loopholes where millions of our tax dollars are disappearing without any trace of accountability.

 Adults and children with disabilities have seen their plight receive more and more attention over the years as in the past, specifically adults with intellectual disabilities which would be locked up in institutions up until 1987 when the Ontario Government began to close them one by one. Many of these individuals suffered unimaginable cruelty at the hands of people who had been entrusted with their care. This was one of the many reasons (the primary reason of course being to save money instead of paying for these facilities as well as potential lawsuits) that the Ontario Government shifted their focus from spending on these large scale facilities to funding non-profit organizations. It took them 22 years before they finally closed the last large scale facility on March 31^st, 2009, allowing the last 6000 residents to move into homes back within the community. (Policy Changes)

 Photo ops are great but when you don't know how the money they raised is being used....

The problem that developed with this massive shift in policy was that these new non-profits that were created knew that all 3 levels of Government would turn a blind eye to them with regards to both how the use taxpayer dollars and how they treat their staff since. This was part of the original deal to close these facilities back in 1987. Part of the problem is that there was (and still is in many cases around the province unfortunately) a stigma attached to these individuals by able bodied people who (by no fault of their own) have had incredibly unfair afflictions foisted upon them and have continued to be both unwanted and/or pushed to the fringes of our “evolved” society.

Over the last 25 years, since we began to change these care programs, they themselves have evolved. Many of these individuals are now in day/week long programs and weekend programs designed to assist parents by giving them respite from the daily issues that arise when caring for developmentally challenged individuals. This massive systemic change in the province (from what was once a system that was entirely governed and adjudicated and provincially funded programs dealing mostly with 24 hour 7 day a week institutionalization) has been now mostly placed in the hands of non-profit organizations across the province with no auditing and monitoring of how tax payer funds are spent by these groups. The only thing they check at the end of the year is if these groups used all of their allotted funds. If they did then clearly, by the Provincial Government’s standard, the funds were appropriate and requires the same amount the following year.

My biggest issue with the changes that have been made in this system, and that Mc-Liar has continued with since he took office, has to do with the de-regulation of this field. The province continues to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars a year into these programs and yet there is no auditory process in place to see how these non-profit organizations use their funds. The only thing the want to know is at the end of the year if all the funds are spent. If not then clearly the following year they can make cuts accordingly. If all the funds are used, which mysteriously they ALWAYS are, then the same levels of funding are recommended for the following year. From the inside sources I have, what is happening because of this failure to have any kind of oversight is leading to millions of dollars that should be used to help these individuals being misapproriatated by the people in charge of these non-profit organizations.

From the conversations I have had and the stories i have heard about what goes on in these non-profit facilities, some of the more apparent problem areas are as follows; Poorly trained managers, misuse of resources (i.e. staff), failing to have sufficient staff allocated at the proper times to save money, managers having 2 sets of books to help them funnel cash into their own pockets, staff being fired incorrectly (not according to provincial standards) resulting in many 5 and 6 figure grievance payouts and a systemic problem within these organizations which rewards managers and directors (with bonuses) but not their frontline staff. All of these issues are contributing to frontline staff shortages, burnout, injuries, sick leave, some weekend programs being shortened, cancelled altogether, or even, in some cases, having to turn away individuals who had been scheduled to take part in one of these programs.

 Our taxpayer dollars should be used to help both the frontline staff and the individuals 

they care for, not to make the managers of these locations rich

While Dalton was not the one who started this process, he has been in charge for 9 years and has continued the culture of de-regulation in this industry. Mc-Liar was the one who completed the process which took away the checks and balances of the industry, or rather he took away their teeth when rather than take a closer look at the situation, he allowed the deregulation to continue, turning over the keys to this system over to non-profit organizations without continuing to have someone with a firm hand overseeing what they do with tax payer dollars. Instead of trying to save $400 million by pissing off teachers in illegal one sided actions through the legislature, why wouldn’t he have an audit sanctioned to look into this area?

The Canadian Mental Health Association estimated that in 2010, $14.3 billion was spent in Canada on Mental Health services and support. The largest portion of that $14.3 Billion is spent on the pharmaceutical industry with hospitalization being the second largest. To put that $14.3 figure into perspective, that number represented 7.2% of the total amount of funds that goes into our entire health care system. In Ontario alone, non-profit mental health organizations received $907.2 million in funding ($847.9 million from the province, $41 million from the Federal Government directly and $18.3 from municipal governments across the province).  Those figures don’t even include all of the private sector amounts that also go into some of these non-profits, estimated to total between $315 and $435 million in both short and long term care disability benefits in 2010.(2010 Costs, Refer to Page 5) 

With all of this money being channeled into non-profit developmental health organizations (the biggest in Ontario the Community Living Ontario Association which has 117 affiliated member facilities which assists over 12000 individuals), (Community Living Ontario Figures) it is shocking that there isn’t any auditing done of how these funds are spent. Instead what we have is a series of facilities that are, according to my sources, “being managed into the ground”. We have people installed as middle managers whose sole purpose it is to cut overhead costs and keep to a strict, lowest possible weekly, monthly, yearly salary pay out for their front line staff. The results have been scary.

  

From what I have heard what is happening is some of the weekend day respite programs are understaffed to the point where it borders on becoming an unsafe work environment for the frontline staff as well as the individuals. Concurrently, the weekday staff are constantly facing similar issues (understaffing, poor people management skills by their managers) that some of them are so incredibly overworked that they have to take disability leave themselves as a result of the burnout they feel. 

This lack of understanding shown by these middle managers (as well as their manaers and the directors of these facilities) is just the tip of the iceberg. The staff shortage issue is more than likely a directive being given to these managers to help save money.  These managers actually have many more issues that need to be discussed. The 2 most critical problems with some of these managers are so severe that they are destroying the programs themselves by diverting taxpayer funds from where they need to be used; to help the individuals. They are as follows;

#1. The first major issue surrounding some of these managers is actually quite simple to solve. Many of them have no idea how to be people managers and are constantly violating basic labour laws with how they interact with existing staff.  Over the last few years, despite the fact that their frontline staff is unionized, these improperly trained managers have made such bone head mistakes that they have actually cost the program hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance and grievance pay without actually being held accountable for their actions. I have heard stories from frontline staff who have told me that they know of at least 5 cases in the last 3 years where fellow staff members were fired improperly or had issues that needed to be grieved through their union reps to the point that each of these cases resulted in payouts in excess of $30000.

#2. The 2nd issue is more shocking and sadly, criminal. I have it on good authority that there is, in all likelihood (or at least was at one point) at least one of these middle managers (or facility directors) who copied the practice of what mobsters would do with legitimate business to help hide their illicit business deals; by having 2 sets of financial “books” in order to pocket thousands of dollars themselves. Why is someone able to get away with (or even have this suggested of them by staff members) this type of behaviour? No oversight. No one double checks where or how these provincial funds are being spent or used. The only thing that the provincial government cares about with regards to their funding is to check to see that the entire amount of their allotment was used. 

 Unfortunately, due to the nature of the condition of many of these individuals,

going on strike is not an option, but work to rule is...not that Mc-Liar would stand for that anyway...

Which brings me to another issue. The way that our government doles out money to these non-profit organizations is so brutally out of date that when there is money left over at the end of the year (if any) how would they know? Each of the 117 Community Living facilities gets their own budget. With the way in which the middle managers are programmed to cut corners and save money, clearly it does happen. After the managers and directors allot themselves bonuses (without giving any to the frontline staff), the remaining surplus, as I have been told, is spent entirely on unnecessary supplies in many cases or in further increases to the bonuses of these same poorly trained middle managers and directors.  

The reason for this is that each facility, despite having sizable budgets, still has to show that every single dollar was spent or else they face funding cuts the following year from the provincial government. This is the ONLY check that the government has in place and even so it is being abused. Instead of worrying about if all the funds are being spent, the government should be more concerned and should be auditing HOW the funds are used. On top of that, there is proof from at least one of these facilities that the manager spent lavishly and unnecessarily on her own office to the tune of close to $1000 just for a custom chair. Where else would the funds come from for such an unnecessary expenditure other than from the facility budget?

While it can be agreed that the status of these individuals in our society has vastly improved over the last 60 years, as back in the early part of the 20^th century up until the late 1980’s they were subjugated, ostracized, and subjected to cruel and unusual treatments including shock therapy in misguided attempts to “cure” them of their mental handicaps. The fact that we are still allowing some people to take advantage of these people by profiting through lies and manipulation is sad. What’s worse is the fact that we could easily have this stopped if we had a government in place in this province that actually tracked how our tax dollars are spent. To me, this makes our provincial government complicit in all of these alleged elicit behaviors.

We have a massive provincial deficit on our hands because of the piss poor managing of Ontario’s purse strings by Dalton and his ministers. As I have mentioned before, we went from having years and years of surpluses to Mc-Liar essentially spending us into this massive deficit without any real legacy for him or for us to look at and say “THAT was what we got from his years in office.”  Had he spent billions on a subway system expansion that alleviated the environmental impact of so many cars on the road, or maybe kept tuition fees for our universities at an affordable rate, or even improved our economy with a full employment plan, something along those lines, then both the people of this province could look back on his time and say that in spite of being in debt, we are solidly placed as a society moving forward. Sadly, we are not. 

We are further in debt than ever before (double what we were at before Dalton took power), we have crumbling infrastructure (The Gardiner Expressway has chunks of concrete falling off of it every month),  we have city governments unwilling to take the leap necessary to create subway lines that are badly needed to push this province further into the future because of a lack of leadership from the Premier’s office (as he prefers to watch political opponents twist in the wind instead of working with them for the betterment of the province as a whole) and, in general, things are worse off for the vast majority of people in this province then they were 9 years ago when Dalton took office.

Instead of picking a fight with allies like doctors and teachers, Mc-Liar should be looking at creating more efficient and streamlined departments like healthcare. He should be looking at cutting his own bloated salary, and those of his ministers and other MPP’s. Speaking of which, another factoid that should be distressing to both the Government and the public at large is the fact that most of the managers within the 117 Community Living facilities voted themselves a 15% increase in salary while they forced their frontline staff to accept a 2 year pay freeze. (Pay Scale 2010-11) 

As the official Opposition Party, Why haven't the Conservatives attacked Mc-Liar on this issue?

So while Teachers and these frontline staff members services are fighting to protect their pay cheques, barely earning $51,000 a year after 20 years of service(Frontline Staff Pay Scale), management staff is earning twice that amount for nearly ¼ of the work without any of the issues that they have to deal with. The problem is that If Dalton had had a watchdog with teeth monitoring how provincial funds were being used by these non-profit organizations for the last 9 years, who knows how much money he could have saved the province.

 It is this kind of failure of leadership that continues to dog our Premier. It is exactly because of his lack of leadership that we are in the financial mess we are in today. The lack of vision, the lack of holding people accountable, the lack of personal accountability are all traits of Mc-Liar and his time in office. All of these reasons are why I have never voted for him and why I didn’t trust him coming in as Premier in the first place. He just always looked like a politician, and that’s not a compliment. He always looked like the kind of person who would tell you anything to get your vote and I always saw through him. The problem is that the people who didn’t trust him were far outnumbered as you can see by the fact he has been in power for 9 years.

We have had nine years of watching our debt balloon to record numbers. Nine years of watching our Premier approve salary increases to him and his buddies while deregulating industries that needed regulation and watching the average citizen loose more and more rights in the process. What we need is what we don’t have; a leader who leads us into the future. We need someone in charge who has everyone’s best interest in mind instead of just his own and that of his party. Someone who wouldn’t just give out hundreds of millions of dollars a year to ANYONE or any kind of group without having some kind of oversight to ensure the funds are being used properly. 

Sadly, that is exactly what we have had.