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October 29, 2020

The Business of Charity

Data Collection


From Dartmouth's Regional Residential Services Society outdated website.  Last updated October 17, 2018
  • RRSS presently supports approximately 165 persons and employs over 500 staff
From Public AccountsVolume 3 — Supplementary Information For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 the Department of Community Services paid:

  • Regional Residential Services Society ....... $24,273,278.58 

From the Canada Revenue Agency search page on RRSS

  • Registered charity
  • Reporting period ending: 2019-03-31
  • Programs and activities:
    • Regional Residential Services Society is funded by the Province of Nova Scotia to operate supported living homes for individuals who are intellectually challenged.
  • Total revenue: $25,537,332.00
    • Receipted donations $11,180.00 (0.04%)
    • Non-receipted donations $0.00 (0.00%)
    • Gifts from other registered charities $100.00 (0.00%)
    • Government funding $24,696,807.00 (96.71%)
    • All other revenue $829,245.00 (3.25%)
  • Total expenses: $25,538,466.00
    • Charitable programs $23,781,873.00 (93.12%)
    • Management and administration $1,756,593.00 (6.88%)
    • Fundraising $0.00 (0.00%)
    • Political activities $0.00 (0.00%)
    • Gifts to other registered charities and qualified donees $0.00 (0.00%)
    • Other $0.00 (0.00%)
  • Total compensation for all positions
    • $19,822,354.00
  • Full-time employees     147
  • Part-time employees     291
  • Professional and consulting fees
  • $33,857.00
  • Compensated full-time positions:
  • $40,000 to $79,999     5
  • $80,000 to $119,999     5

Just by the way from a Human Rights Board of Inquiry decision by J. Walter Thompson, QC (HRC decisions only available as images)


Arithmetic 

RRSS cost per supported person = $147,110.78.  Joey Delaney's modest compensation would last 9 months.

500 staff for $19,822,354 = about $40,000 each

Any Questions?

RRSS really isn't a charity, is it?  96.71% funded by DCS.  All expenses relate to Housing and Administration.  Is it an independent arm of government, set up this way to be an arms-length relationship?  See T3010 below.

Is it a business? Is there some kind of bid process and supervision, or does DCS simply pay the bill?    I dunno.  RRSS has assets and cash in the bank,  But they don't pay business taxes, probably not even HST.          

They own $927,618.00 in real estate - some of the group homes?

Is it a volunteer operation? A community effort just doing its best?

This is my estimate of monthly cost for a resident in a 4 person group home:

MonthlyCare workers
48
Mortgage on 4 bedroom $450000 home in Dartmouth$2,000$2,000
$100,000 upgrades loan 10 yr$1,000$1,000
Administrator$2,500$2,500
Care workers @ $36k/yr$12,000$24,000
Food$600$600
TOTAL$18,100$30,100
per person annually$54,300$90,300

About a third to two thirds of what RRSS gets.  I wish someone would explain this to me.

Detailed Financial Statement from Canada Revenue Agency


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you read the history on the website, you can see how the awkward quasi-government/pseudo-charity type organization developed:

http://rrss.ns.ca/RRSSHistory.htm

It seems like a non-profit company that the government pays like a private contractor.

Just like nursing homes and home care, there are both for-profit and not-for-profit operators in the small options industry in NS. RRSS is one of the non-profit companies, but like any non-profit, they may have some administrative bloat. (Halifax does have too many people wanting jobs in non-profit sector,sometimes trying to create and maintain their own jobs even when superfluous.) There's also some administrative duplication when you have multiple companies that each have their own admin staff. But it would be hard to force them to merge, or take them all over by government in the name of efficiency.

Isn't the ultimate goal to phase out these companies, so that it's just a direct relationship between individuals and the government? Ie, funding individualized staffing hours?