Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Two ex-Lyndoch Living senior staff have gone public on astronomical fees being charged for some home care packages used by elderly and infirm people across Warrnambool and the south-west.

The pair recently set up their own small, home care business in response to what they describe as “outrageous” management charges, saying clients can lose up to 44% of their package in admin costs.

Tricia O’Keefe and Meridith McKinnon don’t name an employer on their website (La Bella Life home care), but they indicate that they resigned from their workplace after becoming “increasingly uncomfortable” with the management fees.

“We were recently employed by a local, South West Victorian Home Care Package Service Provider.

​”We became increasingly uncomfortable with our clients losing up to 44% of their funds in management fees. Quite frankly, we felt this was outrageous,” the website says.

In launching their own business last week, these two women have shone a light on the potential for elderly and infirm people to be ripped off by a system that allows providers to set their own fees.

A bit of background: home care packages are funded by the Federal Govt to help keep elderly and infirm people in their own homes.

If they are lucky, clients are allocated between $9000 a year for a Level One package, through to $52,000 a year for a Level Four.

This money is then available for a range of services, from meals-on-wheels, to shopping, gardening, nursing care and the like, with the Federal Govt paying the provider, such as Moyne Health, Baptcare or Lyndoch Living, directly.

But there’s a nasty catch.

On top of the hourly cost set by the provider for nursing, gardening or shopping etc, there is also a management fee made up of two parts – “package” and “care” – and this combined fee can be as high as a kite.

There is no cap.

The onus, instead, is on the client to “shop around” for the best deal, as you do when you are elderly, isolated, or infirm, or don’t own a computer, or a smartphone.

Yesterday I “shopped around” on the complicated My Aged Care website, trying to work out the average total management fees charged by Lyndoch Living, Moyne Health, Cobden Health and Baptcare Health.

It took two hours, but it was worth it.

This bit of research confirms that Lyndoch Living and Baptcare Health charge like wounded bulls for managing home care packages – Baptcare sits around 35% and Lyndoch between 36% and 42% in fees.

Moyne Health and Cobden Health are much cheaper and charge, on average, between 22% and 27%. (As an aside, La Bella Life will charge a flat 26%).

[I have included more detail of this fee comparison at the end of this piece].

So, for example, a client with a Level 2 package worth $15,750 a year will lose 42% in fees to Lyndoch Living – or around $6669.

Ouch.

And a Level 4 package of $52,000 will see around $19,000 disappear in fees charged by both Baptcare and Lyndoch.

For what, exactly?

Of course individual packages need to be tailored and adjusted (this is the “care” fee), plus there are broader, compulsory admin tasks (this is the “package” fee), but for every ten clients on a Level 4, some providers are raking in around $190,000 a year.

Again, for what, exactly?

As it stands, some local providers charge up to $100 and $150 an hour as the “care” fee.

I doubt very much the staff involved are earning $100 to $150 per hour.

Worse, all this back-office gouging means less money in the kitty for a client to use for help at home.

National reporters like the ABC’s Anne Connolly are on to this rort and the Federal Govt has admitted it needs to change the system, which is now part of the Royal Commission into Aged Care, but proposed new laws remain on hold.

I asked Lyndoch Living on Tuesday for a comment on how it sets its management fees. There was no response.

I also contacted Meridith and Tricia for a comment on what will be different with their business. This was their response:

“From July 2015, all new home care packages were required to be delivered on a ‘consumer directed care’ basis. Unfortunately, not all providers have been successful in moving to a model where their fees, and the value of their services, is communicated to their clients in a format they understand.

It’s difficult for a client to ‘direct their own care,’ if they aren’t fully aware of the services they can fund with their package, or how much they are paying to have their packaged managed.

We intend to change that.

Our website…explains in detail the range of supports and services a client may be able fund from their Home Care Package. We also publish our management fees in a format that is easy to understand…our clients can access their Package Funds Statement online, at any time of the day.

This ensures our clients know exactly how much they have available to spend.  We do this because we firmly believe the funds belong to the client, not us.”

[If you have a home care package story to share, send me a message via FB or the website.]

Average management fees deducted:*

Package Level 1: $9000 

Lyndoch Living 40%; Moyne Health 25%; Cobden Health 22%; Baptcare 35%.

Package Level 2: $15,750

Lyndoch Living 42%; Moyne Health 26%; Cobden Health 27%; Baptcare 35%.

Package Level 3: $34,250

Lyndoch Living 37%; Moyne Health 26%; Cobden Health 27%; Baptcare 35%.

Package Level 4: $52,000

Lyndoch Living 36%; Moyne Health 26%; Cobden Health 27%; Baptcare 35%.

* For general use only. This is a selection of four home care package providers that service Warrnambool and the south-west. There are others. Please refer to the My Aged Care website for full details.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Reality bites: the Warrnambool City Council has written to families with kids in kindergarten to say the fees are going up for the next two terms.

Take that, families with young children, a nice big slice of cold fish across the chops! C19 be damned!

Letters were sent out to families last week saying the new fee would be $340 per term, up $8, “as reflected” in the 2020-21 budget.

That’s odd, because the WCC Budget for 2020-21 hasn’t been passed.

In fact a special council meeting will be held next Monday (June 15) so people who have taken the time and effort to write a submission can be heard.

Too bad if you planned to object to higher kinder fees – it’s a done deal!

And what a deal.

For the sake of raising, what, an extra $10,000 or $20,000 toward the bottom line of a $73 million budget, they are kicking young families right in the crayons.

If the WCC can’t absorb that sort of cost as a goodwill gesture to young families as they emerge from C19, then its priorities really are broken.

Perhaps the CEO could defer his automatic pay rise and any bonuses for 2020 indefinitely – I reckon that would cover the cost of the fingerpaints.

Or maybe we could cancel the delayed trip to Sweden to look at hydrogen fuel cell prototypes, which seems a little excessive when we are apparently struggling to fund morning fruit and milk.

For those who listened to the outpouring of self-congratulatory twaddle from the Mayor and councillors during last week’s meeting about the WCC’s “wonderful” response to Covid-19, this fee rise is a slap back to earth.

Fee rises hurt. Rate rises hurt.

And they hurt some families even in the “good” times, let alone when the ass has just fallen out of the national economy.

This kinder fee rise may also not be the last, but the first, for 2020-21, because hidden in the DRAFT budget is a line showing the fees for Term 1 and 2 next year.

It has three little letters: TBC.

To be confirmed.

We will watch with interest to see if any of the seven councillors stand up on 6 July, when the budget is due to be passed, and put a line right through any kindergarten fee increases for the next 12 months.

That – not self congratulation – is the kind of practical help our community needs right now.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

It’s amazing what falls out of a budget when you give it a good hard shake, like the 100 per cent fee hike over four years for the use of Warrnambool’s public sports grounds.

Ouch! How is that for a whack in the cahoonas?

Just like the big whack to register your dog in 2019, the new fee structure started as part of an earlier Warrnambool City Council budget (2017-18), but the full impact is only starting to bite as sporting clubs receive their second batch of bills.

With my stellar sporting career now well behind me – (err, cough) – I had no idea this fee crunch was happening.

Local clubs certainly do.

Having paid 25% more last financial year, clubs are now paying another 25% on top of that, and will do so again, so that by the end of 2020-21 the user fees will have fully doubled.

You can see the fee increases for yourself in the snapshot below, but, for example, a District League, Category 2 sportsground that was costing a cricket club $2581 per season in 2016-17 was bumped up to $3226 the following year, and by the end of the next financial year will cost $5041 per season.

The change is all part of the council’s move to a stronger “user pays” system to off-set the costs of maintaining and operating its 14 sports grounds, which cost around $635,000 a year.

Before the major fee hike, only about 10% of this cost was covered by the clubs.

The council is now moving their share of the cost to 25%.

This might all make sense financially for the council, but for small, not-for-profit sports clubs, it is proving a big pill to swallow.

As one cricketer said to me, we have to remember that the $5000 fee for his club is for only the length of a cricket season, not a full year, and that many clubs already rely heavily on volunteers, sponsors and donations to survive.

Back when the idea of a major fee hike was first raised, at the end of 2014, club representatives piled into the Lighthouse Theatre to listen to council recreation and culture manager Russell Lineham explain the council’s thinking and, at that time, he assured clubs that nobody wanted to see them go out of business.

Now that the 25% a year increases are actually here and starting to hurt, it appears that some clubs are worried about just that. It also appears that some councillors are worried too.

In a letter to clubs earlier this year, Mr Lineham said the council had received both written and verbal feedback from clubs and, as a result of their concerns, the fee structure was now under review.

“Council officers will undertake a review…to determine whether any changes can be made to improve the equity of fees levied to the various tenant clubs,” he wrote.

In the meantime, however, the winter season bills are due and must be paid.

So if you see a sporting club out turning sausages at Bunnings, be sure to buy one…or two…or even three.

If you would like to see The Terrier keep digging up, sniffing out and chewing on local issues, please consider throwing something in the tip jar.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Thanks to some great digging by all of the terriers out there, we now know that Warrnambool is the second most expensive place in the whole of Australia to register your desexed dog.

The most expensive place is Bayside Council, the council that covers the multi-million dollar suburbs around Brighton, Melbourne. It charges $78.

Our council will this year charge $70, up from $54 last year, because of a 300% increase in costs passed on by the RSPCA that runs the Warrnambool City Council-owned pound on behalf of the council.

In 2017, the council put out a tender to run the pound for the next three years and got only one response, which was the RSPCA.

Despite the RSPCA jacking up its fees by a whopping 300% this year to $331,918, this monopoly option was still chosen by the council as the best option.

As a result, we are now paying more than just about everyone, including councils the same size as Warrnambool:

Warrnambool: $70

Ballarat City: $40

Greater Bendigo: $45

Greater Geelong: $41.40 

Greater Shepparton: offering discounted fees to encourage registration: fee $32. Normally $40

Horsham Rural: $42

Latrobe City (Traralgon): $43

Mildura Rural: $44

Wangaratta Rural: $43

Wodonga: $50

Now look at how we compare with our neighbouring councils:

Moyne Shire: $39

Glenelg (Portland) Shire: $35

Until last year, Moyne Shire shared the costs of the Warrnambool pound, but decided a 300% increase was off the scale, so it looked elsewhere. It now uses the Southern Grampians Shire pound in Hamilton.

In Port Fairy, it costs $39 to register your desexed dog and in Hamilton, it costs $43.50.

Glenelg Council was similarly cost savvy. In 2016, the RSPCA in Portland told Glenelg Council it would have to increase its pound fees by 400%, The council effectively said “don’t be so ridiculous”, the RSPCA backed down and the council still uses the pound.

In Portland, it costs $35 to register your desexed dog: half of what Warrnambool is expected to pay just 90km down the road.

Let’s now go further afield.

Greater Bendigo Council this year announced it was taking back control of its pound from the RSPCA because of the rising costs over which, of course, it would continue to have no control. Bendigo charges $45 per dog.

There is an RSPCA shelter in Castlemaine, but the council there (Mt Alexander Shire) doesn’t use it and runs its own pound. It costs $46 to register your desexed dog in Castlemaine.

There is also a big RSPCA shelter in Burwood East, but the local council there (City of Whitehorse) switched from the RSPCA to Animal Aid in 2017. It costs $55 to register your desexed dog in Burwood.

There is also an RSPCA shelter in Wangaratta, but the council there uses the pound run by the city of Albury/Wodonga. It costs $43 to register your desexed dog in Wangaratta.

There is also an RSPCA shelter in Ballarat, but in 2017 the Ballarat council moved across to the new, government-run Ballarat Animal Shelter. It costs $43 to register your desexed dog in Ballarat.

There is another RSPCA shelter in the City of Casey, in Melbourne, but that council uses the Cranbourne Animal Shelter and Lost Dogs Home. It costs $54.50 to register your desexed dog in the City of Casey.

Do you see a pattern here? I don’t know what is going on within the RSPCA that has seen it move to a “full cost recovery model” for its pound services, but it hasn’t gone down well.

Except in Warrnambool, where we are sticking with the RSPCA and going solo. We didn’t even try and stare the 300% price hike down, like Glenelg.

The council did, apparently, look at the cost of running the pound again itself, but decided the RSPCA was the better option. Really? At the second highest cost anywhere in Australia?

We have to trust the council on this, because the cost of the alternative – running the pound itself – has not been made public.

This year the cost is $70 per desexed dog, but that will most likely increase in the next two years, when the RSPCA will jack up the price again to $417,146 and then $429,666 in 2020-21.

On a simple measure of equity, it is grossly unfair that pet owners of Warrnambool who do the right thing and register their dogs will pay the second highest fees in Australia.

On a broader level, it exposes an inequity across Victoria, which is yet to follow the lead of  WA, NSW and South Australia, where there is one set government fee, whether you live in Port Pirie or Port Adelaide.

In WA, a desexed dog costs $20. In SA it is $40 and in NSW, $57.

When you look at these fees, you can only conclude that we are paying far too much in Warrnambool and nobody has explained why. (You can sign an online petition via the link above).

There is also now zero incentive for anyone to register their new dog in Warrnambool. Why would you?

What this means is that instead of reducing the problem of unregistered dogs, this fee hike will only add to it, creating even more business for the pound. How ironic.

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