Alberta's Auditor-General Report Raises Concerns Over Daycare Funding Mismanagement

Alberta's Auditor-General, Doug Wylie, has raised serious concerns regarding the province's management of daycare funding, stating that insufficient oversight has led to the risk of public money being improperly utilized. In a report published on Thursday, Wylie indicated that without verification processes in place, there is a possibility that daycare operators are being overfunded, contradicting the program's aim to lower child-care costs to $10 per day for parents. He emphasized that parents could end up overpaying and educators might not receive fair compensation.

The funding program operates through agreements that daycare providers make with the province, which are based on the number of children enrolled and their respective ages. However, the audit of 25 daycare facilities revealed that over half presented faulty data, with some facilities exaggerating attendance records and others even submitting duplicate entries for individual children. In three notable instances, substantial discrepancies were identified, including a case where incorrect reporting caused Alberta to overpay a daycare by approximately $26,000 in just one month. Although the report did not provide a comprehensive estimate of potentially misallocated funds for the fiscal year, it noted that Alberta allocated over $1 billion in subsidies for child-care services in 2023-24.

Wylie stated that the purpose of his office’s audit was not to quantify the total amount of waste but to assess the effectiveness of the government’s oversight of approximately 2,600 funded facilities. He expressed concerns that the failure to ensure funds are appropriately managed could undermine public trust in both this and other governmental programs. The report also indicated that there are no mechanisms in place to guarantee that funds are used to enhance staff wages, in addition to the lack of assurance about reducing parent costs.

In response to the audit, Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides acknowledged the issues raised and committed to improving the claims verification process to ensure funding is utilized effectively. Meanwhile, opposition voices, including Diana Batten of the NDP, criticized the government's management of childcare support, accusing the United Conservative Party of failing to protect families from increasing childcare costs.

Moreover, Wylie’s office issued another report on the government's financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing potential misallocations of $105 million to ineligible entities, with estimates suggesting this could actually be as high as $158 million. Economy Minister Joseph Schow defended the program, asserting that most applicants qualified for assistance after reviewing numerous cases.