11-13-2004, 11:13 AM
News story from today-
A special audit shows an Ontario government program for autistic children is in chaos, with millions of dollars in dubious spending and 1,200 children on a waiting list while money goes unspent, the Globe and Mail reported today.
A damning report to be tabled next week by Jim McCarter, Ontario’s acting provincial auditor, has uncovered money hemorrhaging from the $44 million Intensive Early Intervention program.
The audit found records at the Ministry of Children and Youth Services—which is responsible for the program—were inaccurate, including at least two instances where $3 million was incorrectly recorded as spent.
While 1,200 children are stuck on a waiting list for funding (that vanishes once they turn six years old), the investigation found a total of $16.7 million wasn’t spent over the past five years.
At the same time, the 547 children who are getting therapy are being shortchanged on the number of hours of treatment they should receive, by, on average, by four hours a week.
Under the program, children receive an average of $79,000 a year to cover the steep cost of intensive one-on-one therapy—regarded as the most effective treatment for training autistic children to function more normally.
While autistic children were granted funding for an average of 23 hours a week of therapy, at one agency they received no more than 13.
Therapists at agencies would quit abruptly or call in sick, but funding would still flow even if no substitute was found.
While the total budget climbed to $44 million from $4 million over the past five years, the number of children receiving funding has barely budged. In some cases, money was spent on new computers and furniture without the ministry’s knowledge.
The auditor also found that handing money directly to parents to hire therapists was far cheaper than paying the nine government-approved agencies providing the treatment.
It cost one agency $126 an hour to provide treatment while parents managed to hire private therapists for an average of $20 an hour.
Andrew Weir, a spokesman for Children’s Services minister Marie Bountrogianni, said the ministry concurs with the auditor’s finding. It has doubled the budget for autism services to $80 million and started to hire more therapists.
“A lot of what the auditor is talking about is consistent with what we’ve been doing and the changes we’ve made in the program,” he said.
The Ontario government has been hauled into the courts and before a human-rights tribunal in the past two years over its policies for funding services for autistic children.
http://www.fftimes.com/index.php/6/2004-11-12/19084
A lot of money is being handed around here, for the supposedly beneficial ABA type therapies, yet it all looks highly dubious from every angle.
A special audit shows an Ontario government program for autistic children is in chaos, with millions of dollars in dubious spending and 1,200 children on a waiting list while money goes unspent, the Globe and Mail reported today.
A damning report to be tabled next week by Jim McCarter, Ontario’s acting provincial auditor, has uncovered money hemorrhaging from the $44 million Intensive Early Intervention program.
The audit found records at the Ministry of Children and Youth Services—which is responsible for the program—were inaccurate, including at least two instances where $3 million was incorrectly recorded as spent.
While 1,200 children are stuck on a waiting list for funding (that vanishes once they turn six years old), the investigation found a total of $16.7 million wasn’t spent over the past five years.
At the same time, the 547 children who are getting therapy are being shortchanged on the number of hours of treatment they should receive, by, on average, by four hours a week.
Under the program, children receive an average of $79,000 a year to cover the steep cost of intensive one-on-one therapy—regarded as the most effective treatment for training autistic children to function more normally.
While autistic children were granted funding for an average of 23 hours a week of therapy, at one agency they received no more than 13.
Therapists at agencies would quit abruptly or call in sick, but funding would still flow even if no substitute was found.
While the total budget climbed to $44 million from $4 million over the past five years, the number of children receiving funding has barely budged. In some cases, money was spent on new computers and furniture without the ministry’s knowledge.
The auditor also found that handing money directly to parents to hire therapists was far cheaper than paying the nine government-approved agencies providing the treatment.
It cost one agency $126 an hour to provide treatment while parents managed to hire private therapists for an average of $20 an hour.
Andrew Weir, a spokesman for Children’s Services minister Marie Bountrogianni, said the ministry concurs with the auditor’s finding. It has doubled the budget for autism services to $80 million and started to hire more therapists.
“A lot of what the auditor is talking about is consistent with what we’ve been doing and the changes we’ve made in the program,” he said.
The Ontario government has been hauled into the courts and before a human-rights tribunal in the past two years over its policies for funding services for autistic children.
http://www.fftimes.com/index.php/6/2004-11-12/19084
A lot of money is being handed around here, for the supposedly beneficial ABA type therapies, yet it all looks highly dubious from every angle.