What do and don’t we know about the Ontario government’s new autism funding model?

Earlier this week, I attempted to cost out the new autism funding program, to see how much it would cost the government when fully implemented (I didn’t attempt to model the transition between the old program and the new, since there are even more unknowns there. That would be a good topic for my next post).

In my attempt to cost the program, I was left with a number of questions for the government. Yesterday we received some answers! Here’s a breakdown of what we know and what we don’t (order of questions changed slightly from yesterday).

1. Can the government tell us how the funding works? Is it on a per-year basis? What is the maximum that kids can get at each age? What happens if a child is diagnosed at age 3.5? How much do they get for that year?

We got some answers to this yesterday. Here’s what we know.

The maximum funding is $20,000/yr for kids aged 2–5 (4 years) and $5,000 for kids 6–17 (12 years).

We still don’t know what happens the first year a child is diagnosed. If a child is diagnosed at age 3.5, do they have to wait until their next birthday to receive funding? Do they get the full amount for a 3-year-old? Is the funding pro-rated? (So they’d receive half the amount they would for a full year?)

2. Can the government tell us how the means-testing formula works? At what income level does the clawback begin? Are there different formulas for couples vs. single-parents?

We received some answers to this yesterday, though many questions remain.

We had it confirmed that the clawbacks kick in at $55,000/yr, and at an income level of $250,000/yr, funding is eliminated entirely.

Some context to these numbers:

• The cost of ABA is the ballpark of $80,000/yr.
• A family of two earners, both earning minimum wage, could have a combined income of above $55,000 and see their funding clawed back.

It has been confirmed that the government is defining income as Line 236 on your tax return (which is standard for these types of programs), which is income after Line 207 through 235 deductions (including child care expenses and RSP contributions) have been applied. So this is “pre-tax” income, but net of some deductions.

We still don’t know how this “sliding scale” clawback works. So if you’re a family with a combined income of $80,000 and you have a 7 year old, we still don’t know how much funding you’d be eligible for.

We also still don’t know if the funding works differently for single-earner vs. dual-earner families, or if the program has some built in “marriage penalty”.

3. Can the government tell us if they’ve forecasted utlization rates? If so, what are they projecting?

We still don’t know this.

4. Can the government tell us if they’ve forecasted how many kids will use the program, along with their ages?

We still don’t know this.

5. Can the government tell us the counterfactual? Without these changes, what was the expected cost of the OAP for fiscal years 2019 – 20, 2020 – 21 and 2021 – 22?

We still don’t know this.

We’re making some headway getting answers, but there’s still a long way to go!