In the News: Agencies serving residents with developmental disabilities push back against province
*The CEO network is a network of non-profit and for-profit organizations that provide support to adults with developmental disabilities and their families. The network comes together to address the day-to-day operational needs of the network members.
Agencies serving B.C. residents with developmental disabilities push back against province
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By Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist June 4, 2011
Front-line agencies that deliver services to people with developmentally disabilities have started pushing back against the B.C. government's aggressive attempts to cut spending.
The CEO Network, which represents 80 agencies across the province, recently obtained a legal opinion suggesting that government is overstepping its authority.
The legal advice states that Community Living B.C., the Crown body that distributes money to contractors, is potentially infringing on agencies' rights by telling them how to manage their employees, the network says.
In some cases, CLBC has been pressuring agencies to alter the job classifications of employees and cut their salaries, the network says.
"Who's the employer?" chairwoman Melinda Heidsma said. "If you hire employees, do you not decide what their work will be, and what there job title will be? Or does government, as the funder?"
CLBC is under pressure to serve growing numbers of clients. It received a one per cent budget boost this year, while its own documents show the number of people eligible for services will climb five per cent.
As a result, CLBC has been trying to cut costs by closing group homes and reducing contracts.
But Ellen Tarshis, who sits on the CEO Network's leadership team, said agencies go through a rigorous process to determine the job classifications of their employees. For CLBC to then come in and demand changes is inappropriate, she said.
"They are under intense pressure budget-wise and as a result of that they are employing a number of strategies, which includes potentially stepping over the line in terms of what the relationship should be between funder and contractor," Tarshis, executive director of Community Living Victoria, said in an interview.
The two sides tried to resolve the issue at a meeting this week, and Heidsma was initially optimistic that CLBC understood the agencies' concerns.
"However, we received a summary from CLBC after the meeting that I don't think is entirely reflective of our conversation," she said.
"It doesn't include the key points, really, that we were concerned about."
CLBC issued a two-sentence statement Friday that confirmed a meeting took place, but offered no response to the network's concerns.
The CEO Network intends to hold a conference call with its leadership team Monday to consider its next move.
Heidsma, executive director of AiMHi Prince George Association for Community Living, said members of the network have their own organizations to run, and are dealing with CLBC in hopes of improving relations.
"We only have so much time to do this, and it's very difficult when we go to a meeting and believe that we've sorted it out and then leave the meeting and think that we have to do it all over again," she said.
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