Youth mental health money spat

Youth mental health money spat

Sharp criticism has been levelled at a regional community health organisation for including a $180k corporate levy charge in its bid for part of the Baillieu Government’s $4 million funding package for mental health and suicide prevention services to assist rural same-sex attracted and gender questioning young people (SSAGQ).

The corporate levy fee is charged at a rate of 30 percent of the overall $600k funding bid put in by Cobaw Community Health Service which auspices SSAGQ support group, the WayOut Project.

SSAGQ youth mental health advocate Rob Mitchell said the corporate levy proposal is a “waste of money” that should go into frontline services.

“We’ve got to make every dollar count,” Mitchell told the Star Observer.

“Unless we get this right … we will end up with a result that is worse than not doing anything, because what will happen is this money will be chewed up, it won’t get a result on the ground and people will be running around wanting to take credit for no results.”

The corporate fee charges proposed by Cobaw Community Health include IT, administration, finance and payroll, and office costs.

“I believe Cobaw has the infrastructure set up,” Mitchell said.

“What I’m profoundly unhappy about is, at the end of the day, a fairly frugal amount of money we have to make go a long way. It’s not fair on us as a community to pay for the sins of the organisation because it’s not properly funded.”

Cowbaw Community Health CEO Anne McLennan defended the proposed fee, saying the amount is standard practice for health services delivering additional services and all programs were charged at the 30 percent rate.

“Any organisation does that. You can’t run an organisation unless you can cover those costs,” McLennan told the Star Observer.

“Most of us in the health sector are running either break-even or deficit budgets, so if we didn’t recoup some of those from every program we’d operate, we’d all be closing our doors.”

McLennan said Cowbaw Community Health was running “close to the bone” and had posted budget deficits on and off for the last five years.

“All community health services are in the same boat,” she said.

“It’s just very tight from year to year. We’re always chasing new funding and any new funding that then doesn’t contribute to corporate costs will just make the situation worse, we can’t carry a new piece of funding, it creates new costs.”

Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge is yet to announce where the $4 million will go.

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13 responses to “Youth mental health money spat”

  1. (the following is me from me as an individual and not connected to any organisation with which I am involved, either as an employee or voluntarily)

    Having just caught up on this discussion (following illness), I would add the following comments, based on my “day jobs” as an accountant specialising in the not-for-profit (nfp) sector for the last 13 years:

    I support Jason, Georgie, Anne Mitchell’s and Anne McLennan’s comments. The alternative to a corporate levy is to allocate every phone bill, stationary bill etc across multiple cost centres – obviously a time-consuming and imprecise practice.

    To go a little deeper, I think there are 3 further issues at play:
    1) I have noticed in my 13 years in the nfp sector very few people from outside it understand its unique nature, including its unique accounting needs.
    2) given so few organisations in the GLBTI sector have received funding at any time, accounting for that funding is a new area for our community
    3) society in general has an “idelogical prejudice” of “private enterprise must be better” that attacks any other sector. There is competent and incompetent management in all sectors, let’s just treat everyone on their merits and move on.

  2. Anne,

    Thanks for writing in.

    I think you need to take people with you a bit more. I see frustration in these post by good people with a stake in Cobaw. A bit of empathy might not hurt. Your job is also one of communication and leadership. Your post did not show me your true capabilities, and the good things I have heard about you.

    Clearly there is a communication problem within Cobaw and people are not on your journey, and perhaps are not aware of the implications of speaking to the media, and the devastation that can have on funding. I would humbly suggest all parties try and sit down and nut the issues out, out of the glare of the media.

    The last thing we want is all of the good work you do, and others, having the chair kicked from under you by some Ministerial minder. And for what it is worth, even a $180 thousand sounds reasonable to me, but I do not know all the facts of what services of your type charge, and the many cost they have, and it sounds like others do not either. It can be very expensive running services in country areas, and in particular the cost of recruitment can be massive.

    Cheers,

    Dave

  3. To clarify the misinformation the overheads are NOT $180,000 per year but $60,000 and cover all costs associated with:
    Phones
    Power/gas/water/rates/rent
    Cars and insurance
    Petrol
    Insurance
    Payroll
    OHS, Quality, risk
    IR and HR costs
    Advertising/recruitment
    IT hardware, software and connections
    IT support
    Photocopying, printing, stationary
    Professional development
    Professional memberships
    Administration
    Staff amenities
    Equipment
    Maintenance of work places
    Desks/chairs etc

  4. Budgets are tight everywhere. Sometimes that’s due to government funding not keeping up with the cost of service delivery. Other times that’s due to poor budgeting and money management, or hiring your mates for unfunded ‘strategic’ positions. Treating projects as a profit centre to make your books look better is unsustainable: for a pilot project in an area of desperate need, that money should be invested in achieving and demonstrating effectiveness.

  5. …I might also suggest first, going to the board with evidence of charges of other Health Services of a similar size in the country. This would indicate if the service is very inefficient and so charges a higher than usual levy, and would place massive pressure on the CEO to change the position, or simply show this is the standard practice, and it is time to look at separating and setting up your own corporate structures etc.

    But remember, the Minister employs people to interpret the media clippings that people in parliament collect all day long. If you are in their shoes, and read all this, think of the keywords that comes to mind, and how much of 4 million would you be giving these people? A tiny line in an obscure Fairfax free newspaper can result in a policy change. These discussions in public are highly sensitive.

    The last thing I would like to see is all this implode before funding is granted, and at all possible cost, these things are always best kept out of the glare of the media, although sometimes, just sometimes, there is no way around that.

    Good luck, you all do a fatalistic job, and are saving lives!

  6. As the CEO of Cobaw volunteers :

    ” had posted budget deficits on and off for the last five years.”

    Indeed, and so the temptation to cream off some $180,000 per annum from a pot of money allocated for GLBTI youth mental health has proved irresistable. I mean its much easier to just put a lump sum in the budget proposal and call it “corporate overhead recovery” than it is to have to detail to the community how they are spending public money. Exhortations from other NGO’s that 30% is “standard practice” and we should be glad it’s not higher are self serving bullshit – To paraphrase Mandy Rice Davies “Well they would say that wouldn’t they?”

    The suggestion of spinning out the Wayout project on its own is the way to go. The 2 main people actually involved in the project, Sue Hackney and Kat Ettwell are just fantastic and are beyond reproach. In fact if there is anything more odious than Cobaw’s parasitic grab for cash, it is the contempt with which they have treated these 2 people.

    As for the Christian Brethren case, please, give me a break. The success of that case so far can be squarely attributed to the pro-bono work of Debbie Mortimer SC and her junior counsel, along with their instructing solicitors. The amount of time provided gratis is now well into six figures, and still climbing. And of course the mentoring work that Sue Hackney has done to keep the young people going has been invaluable.

    The reality here is that Cobaw management have been caught out. As Doug Pollard has succinctly and accurately observed : If the amount is so reasonable, let them justify it.

    Don’t hold your breath.

  7. I endorse Georgie’s comments on this issue. It distresses me to see a community health service which has been a long term champion of the rights of same sex attracted young people vilified in this way. The risks they took in pressing on with the court case against the Christian Brethren showed the calibre of the staff and the board and their commitment to the issue. They have hosted the Way Out project for many years and put resources such as cars and other equipment into it in the past so their track record needs to be applauded not called into disrepute. All community organisations now have little fat in their budget and need to charge government for the full cost of running a project. This is certainly the case at Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria

  8. A 30% administration fee is standard practice in all NGOs, an organisation can only charge a smaller levy if some or all of its efforts are achieved on a volunteer basis. It’s worth noting that many institutions, including universities, charge more than this, sometimes up to 45%.

    Cobaw Community Health have done a fantastic job supporting WayOut over many years, including in the recent VCAT case, which we all applauded. Wayout got most of the recognition for that, and rightly so, but it was with Cobaw’s support (and resources) that that case was taken!

  9. Thank you Daniel, you put it better than I did, after recent debacles more money was spent to pay salaries and maintain offices instead of actually delivering any benefits on the ground, it’s important that we have full transparency in all future programs. If it really costs 30% then let them prove it chapter and verse.

  10. The charge of laziness is offensive, and another example of a highly capable organization doing outstanding work being attacked by those with little or no understanding of the real cost of funding or delivering these types of services.

    This is not greediness or an organizational attempt to divert funds away from doing ‘real’ work. If the funds are inadequate, and they are, it’s because the problem to be resolved is huge, and the government’s commitment, while welcome, doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

    The suggestion that Wayout should separated from Cobaw is a reasonable one and ways to support this should (and may well be) investigated.

    But the mental health programs being funded are not simply about social get-togethers. They are complex programs that require qualified staff, quality assurance, good referrals, and other cost-generating infrastructure.

    Without adequate organizational resourcing, the programs risk causing the same damage that some detractors on this list have rightly raised regarding the school chaplaincy program – just without the religious overlay.

  11. It’s legit to include actual costs of supporting the project in a funding proposal – where I would start to be concerned is when a manager sees project funding as an opportunity to cover budget deficits incurred in other projects or service delivery. Including a single lump sump with a laundry list of costs and no itemised breakdown is sloppy accounting and invites criticism like this.

  12. Business services are not free, and there is an administration cost to any services, in country areas the costs are often higher than in city areas.

    I think Wayout should be separating from the Cobaw Health Service and run their own group, if they are of the belief they can do a better job. They are, a very successful group of highly talented people.

    My concern is that this sort of public discussion at this point, may mean that Wayout, and Cobow get reduced funding, as a public spat could get the Health Minister to leave both and go with people like Jeff Kennett’s Beyond Blue, who said employing gay man is like employing a child sex offender, and I think the community, straight and gay will lose if that happens, especially the users of the Wayout Service.

  13. 30% may be ‘standard practice’ but that doesn’t mean it’s GOOD practice. I think it’s more of an ambit claim. Coupled with laziness: surely they have the ability to work out what it would really cost them?