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October 26, 2020

Community Services Disability Support Program


Choice, Equality and Good Lives in Inclusive Communities:  A Roadmap for Transforming the Nova Scotia Services to Persons withDisabilities Program is a visionary 2013 document that makes the moral and ethical case for a complete reassessment of the situation of people with disabilities.  It doesn't explore an economic case.  After some initial enthusiasm, implementation of the roadmap ground to a halt.  The last newsletter is December, 2017.

The Roadshow, as they called it, was the plan unveiled in 2016.  It gave some hard-to-find numbers:

ProgramNumbersWaitlisted
Flex13000
Independent living745271
Alternative family Support17238
Small Option Home589491
Group Home592287
Residential Care Facility45019
Adult Residential Centres37532
Regional Rehabilitation Centres8542
TOTAL43081180

I can't find any later breakdown like this, so we're stuck looking at 2016.

Community Services Disability Support Program is responsible for 4,308 people at varying levels of support.  It was budgeted $303 million in 2016.  The total expenditures in DCS were $929 million, so about a third of the total.  It's almost entirely in the form of direct grants to community groups or individuals.  That's $70,000 for each person, a ridiculous amount of money (no DCS staff included).  

In volume 3 of Public Accounts 2016, which lists every provincial expenditure,  Independent Care Management clients were paid $244,464,233.40.  That's probably Flex and Independent Living clients - 2,045 total, making an average of $119,542.

The maximum basic rate (room+board+-expenses) is set by DCS at $2487/month or $29,844/yr.

How you get from a reasonable $30k to $119k is a bafflement, and taxpayers deserve an explanation.

In 2010, the Auditor General did a report focused on procedures.  Expenses were not mentioned

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