Peggy Revell
Faced with million-dollar deficits, Children’s Aid Societies across the province have welcomed the Ontario government’s one-time mitigation funding of $26.9 million—but now are left wondering about the state of their budget next year.
“We were quite pleased,” Debbie Leonard, director of administration for Weechi-it-te-win Family Services here, said about the province’s allocation of $942,000 in one-time funding to their agency, meaning their expected deficit of just over $1 million has been reduced and now will be “minimal.”
But despite the province’s funding announcement, the upcoming year is still up in the air.
“That’s the issue, right?” Leonard remarked when asked about how the agency is looking to avoid this same funding shortfall in the upcoming financial year.
“We’re back to square one. We have to start all over again,” she stressed.
If the agency was short by a million dollars this past year, it “probably always will be a million short” because of the province’s cut to core funding, she explained, which saw Weechi-it-te-win lose $940,00 in funding last June.
This something every agency across the province is facing, she noted.
“Although we welcome [the funding], it really does nothing for our deficit in future years,” Leonard warned, noting they will be meeting very shortly to plan how to keep costs down.
When originally faced with this funding shortfall, Leonard said Weechi-it-te-win implemented “quite a few cutbacks,” including layoffs, a five percent wage cut, and cuts to the pension plan.
“All in all, about $1 million [in] cutbacks [occurred] to try to reduce our costs,” she said, adding that even after this, the agency still was forecasting a $1-million deficit.
Prior to receiving the phone call from the ministry, Weechi-it-te-win was ready to take advantage of the political strengths—such as through the Treaty #3 grand chief—to pressure the ministry to get funding back, Leonard noted.
Of the $29.7 million announced by the province of one-time mitigation funding, $2.1 million has been earmarked for aboriginal agencies.
Meanwhile, as first reported last week, Family & Children’s Services of the Rainy River District—which had predicted at $600,000 deficit—received $430,000 from the province.
“The province either had to provide this funding or you literally would have seen dozens of CAS across the province close their doors, lay off their staff, and cease to provide services to children and families in need,” said Kenora-Rainy River MPP Howard Hampton.
“I think the McGuinty Liberals have been forced to admit that they have been underfunding Children’s Aid Societies.
“That’s really what’s happened here.”
Hampton also warned the mitigation funding “is not going to do anything wonderful.”
“It will merely allow the Children’s Aid Societies across Ontario to continue operating until the end of their fiscal year, which is March 31,” he argued. “But they’re still under the gun, they’re still in a position where they’re having to reduce services.
“They’re still in a position where, for the next fiscal year, they’re going to be in the same situation,” he stressed.
By the time the end of November or December rolls around, many of them will be out of money again, Hampton warned.
“I’ve talked with the CASs, both with Tikinagan, with Weechi-it-te-win, I’ve talked with FACS, I’ve talked with Kenora-Patricia CAS, I’ve talked to all of them over the past six months and all of them are facing these budget pressures in one way or another, they’re all being pushed over the edge,” Hampton said.
“And not because they’ve done anything wrong.
“If anything, they’ve done everything right,” he noted. “They’ve done everything according to the law of Ontario, and they shouldn’t be treated this way.”
Despite this one-time mitigation funding, Children’s Aid Societies from around the province still are predicting deficits.
The CAS of London and Middlesex is expecting a $3.5 million shortfall after receiving $1.1 million. The Children’s Aid Society of Simcoe County’s crisis was allocated $2.9 million from the province, but still expects a $1.8 million deficit by April.
Facing a deficit of $1 million, the Children’s Aid Society of Oxford received $111,941 from the province.
With a predicted deficit of $2.5 million, Algoma’s CAS received $1.4 million in mitigation funding, according to a press release from Canadian Union of Public Employees.
“That’s not enough to sustain programs,” charged CUPE 1880 Group VP Melissa Guild, noting that [Algoma’s] programs, such as the Family Preservation Program and the Diversion from Care Program, which keep children with families and avoid “costly institutional care,” still are facing closure.
“Until funding is fixed in a way that includes long-term base funding for these programs, it will be the same scenario next year-end,” she warned.
“With the current funding formula, there will never be adequate dollars for these critical programs that keep children safely with their families whenever possible rather than coming unnecessarily into care of the agency.
“And that’s a shame because it’s these types of programs that are good for children, and also actually save money in the long-run by keeping children out of institutional care.
“Ultimately these cuts hurt children,” Guild argued.
When it comes to the funding of CASs in the province, the Ministry of Youth and Children’s Services has established a “commission to promote sustainability in the child protection sector.”
“Hopefully, through this process, they’ll be able to come up with an equitable funding formula for all agencies,” said Leonard.
But she added the process itself will take three years, with reform taking possibly taking even four or five years.
“The ministry really needs to examine the existing funding formula,” she agreed. “In my opinion, it don’t think it needs to take that long.”
“This review isn’t going to do anything for two years,” echoed Hampton. “Let’s be clear. This review is a political creation to get them past the next election.
“This review won’t even report until after the next election.
“It’s a shell game to cover up the fact that Children’s Aid Societies are simply not getting enough funding to enable them to do their job in many places across the province,” he charged.
“[What] needs to be recognized is this: the funding formula that the McGuinty Liberals are using doesn’t address the real needs,” Hampton said, arguing that both past Liberal and Conservative governments have “loaded up” CASs with new obligations, responsibilities, and processes while not increasing the funding to pay for these initiatives.
CASs haven’t just suddenly “ratcheted up” their spending, Hampton noted.
“[CASs] don’t have control over who comes through the door,” he stressed. “So the fact that a CAS [such as FACS] has a balanced budget for three years, and everything is working along in a reasonable way, the next year that CAS might be hit with five, six, seven children who have very complex mental health, social, and psychological issues.
“The budget process the province has established has to address those realities.”
As well, the downturn of the economy has meant there “more children in need than ever,” Hampton added—something the province hasn’t addressed with CASs’ budgets.
This increasing demand for service also has been noted by the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies in its submission to the Ontario government’s pre-budget consultation.
“As of the end of fiscal year 2008-09, CASs reported increases of three percent for child protection referrals and two percent for investigations,” the submission noted.
“While these increases appear to be modest, they reflect the growth in caseloads before the full impact of the economic downturn.
“Research clearly indicates that child protection growth lags behind unemployment and social assistance increases,” the submission added.
“There is no doubt that CAS caseloads for referrals and investigations will rise in 2009-11.”
Hampton said the province also has implemented rules and regulations for CASs which need to be removed, some of which mean that the agencies now are being “forced to deal with what are, in effect, really problems of low income and poverty.”
“The way the rules are now, I think a lot of children are being taken into care not because their parents are bad parents, not because their parents are negligent parents, only because their parents are poor,” he noted.
“That’s wrong. You should not be using the Children’s Aid Societies to address poverty issues,” he argued.
“Those should be addressed in other ways, through Employment Insurance federally and through a more realistic social assistance process provincially.”
