No new funding for municipalities to cover Liberals’ SAMS blunder

QUEEN’S PARK – It shouldn’t take a lawsuit for the Liberal government to reimburse municipalities and service providers for their Social Assistance Management System (SAMS) costs, says Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece.

Pettapiece, who serves as the PC Critic for Community and Social Services, called on Helena Jaczek, Minister of Community and Social Services, to reimburse social assistance service providers for the costs they incurred as a result of the government’s flawed implementation of SAMS. These costs include significant overtime pay for caseworkers, extra staff to handle the problems with SAMS, and in some cases, even new equipment to run SAMS.

“Municipalities are not responsible for paying for this government’s mistakes,” said Pettapiece during Question Period. “Will this minister finally take responsibility for the SAMS disaster, and reimburse municipalities for their expenses?”

A number of municipalities have contacted the government to request payments for their unexpected costs associated with SAMS. Service providers including the City of Ottawa and Waterloo Region estimate their costs are in the millions.

“It has come to the point where legal action is being considered to recoup these costs,” said Pettapiece. His comments referenced municipalities including Brantford, Brant County and Hamilton, where councils have discussed possible legal options to deal with the outstanding requests for compensation.

“Will the Minister do the right thing and reimburse municipalities and their taxpayers?” asked Pettapiece. “Or is she going to add millions in legal fees to the massive SAMS bill?”

The Minister stated only that she is open to discussing these concerns with municipalities. She did not commit to any additional funding for municipalities’ costs attributed to her government’s mismanagement of the SAMS implementation.

SAMS was launched in November 2014, and wreaked havoc on the social assistance system. According to a report issued by the Auditor General of Ontario, SAMS had 2,400 serious system defects and led to $140 million in benefit calculation errors.

Video of Question:http://pettapiece.ca/?p=3912