Inclusion Alberta not impressed with budget 2023

Inclusion Alberta says the 2023 budget failed to address the needs of thousands of children and adults with developmental disabilities. Trish Bowman, the CEO of the organization explained why they were not impressed with Travis Toews’ budget.

“Budget 2023 announced $137 million in additional funding to disability services, which is a substantial amount of money. But the vast majority of that money is to sustain the existing increase in staff wages that was announced in December. So what’s left after that increase really won’t go anywhere near close to addressing the thousands of Albertans who are currently waiting for supports and services. Data released in March of 2022 showed upwards of 6,000 children and adults without any supports through the FSCD or PDD program.”

The Alberta government recently unpaused the indexation of AISH.They also said in December of last year that there would be $24 million in wage increases for around 19,500 disability support workers. That includes around a thousand homeless shelter staff and family violence prevention workers.

An additional $2 million will be provided to disability service providers to help with increasing operational costs such as utilities and insurance.