The registration fee for General, Graduate and Limited certificates will be increased to $560, for the period of March 01, 2018 to February 28, 2019.

The annual registration fee was calculated based on projected CRTO operating costs for the next 5-7 years. The number was chosen to be just enough to cover those costs, nothing more.

For the period of March 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020 the registration fee for General, Graduate and Limited certificates will increase to $620. This amount was calculated to cover projected operating costs for a few years beyond 2020. At an upcoming Council meeting, Council will discuss developing a “philosophy” on how to implement any future increases that are needed (i.e., frequent small increases vs. less-frequent larger increases).

Yes. The registration fee increase will alter the quarterly proration amounts but Members and applicants who begin practicing mid-year will pay adjusted amounts. For more information on the proration of fees see section 36.06 and 36.07 of the 2016 By-Laws (pg. 31).

Yes. The amount for the annual registration fee for Inactive members is $100.00 Registration fees are the CRTO’s only source of revenue, and as stated, projections for the operating costs of the College indicate that the current fees are not sufficient to meet ongoing, mandated regulatory activities (e.g., QA Program, Complaints and Discipline processes).

The CRTO receives applications from internationally trained health care professionals, as well as Respiratory Therapists who have not practiced for a number of years. These individuals must have their education and clinical competence assessed to determine whether they meet the minimum standards to practice in Ontario.

The current assessment process includes:

1. a program review of their health care education,
2. a one-on-one interview with RT assessors, and
3. demonstration of clinical skills in a simulated environment.

The previous process only included the first two assessments and often cost more than what the applicant paid. This by-law change caps the total assessment cost, providing transparency for the applicants, while still ensuring that the assessments are conducted on a cost-recovery basis.

Here’s what other RT regulators charge for General registration:

Annual registration fees in Ontario range from $250 per year for Dental Hygienists to $1950 per year for Midwives. The Colleges that are most comparable to us, however, in terms of membership numbers and annual operating budget are as follows:

We do, at a value of $150,000 and we will ensure that we exhaust that reserve prior to implementing any fee increase.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve been successful in reducing our operational costs substantially. With our Green strategy, we’ve reduced our paper and printing budget to almost zero. In response, we’ve also reduced our postage costs significantly. Our office supplies costs have gone down, our telephone and fax costs have gone down. In fact, the only core operational costs that have gone up are the credit card merchant fees we pay to have online registration and our translation costs, as we strive to make all of our materials available in both English and French.

Being located in Toronto is important. Not only are we close to the largest concentration of RTs in the province, we’re close to the other organizations we deal with on a regular basis – the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) and other government ministries and agencies, the Office of the Fairness Commissioner, our legal team, and other regulatory bodies (our peers, essentially). Email and telephone are fine but face-to-face meetings are important for maintaining the relationships we need in the business that we’re in. There are few avenues for gaining expertise in regulation so in terms of staffing, moving our offices would likely require replacing our staff. Not only do we have highly experienced staff, we most commonly recruit from those same organizations that we maintain relationships with, so staffing would be compromised by moving out of Toronto. Finally, we need to be easily accessible for members of Council, Committees, working groups, etc.

All that aside, it’s worth noting some facts about our location and our rent. Our offices are in a Class C building that specializes in businesses in the health care industry and not-for-profit organizations. Other tenants include the College of Chiropodists, the Hospital for Sick Children, and the Council of Ontario Universities. We pay less for rent than nearly every other College, including Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Dietitians, Medical Radiation Technologists, Medical Laboratory Technologists and Opticians. In 2016, we compared our rent against other locations in the GTA and in nearby cities like Hamilton and our current rent fits at the low to medium range of those comparators. Simply looking at the numbers, our rent comprises of less than 10% of our total operational costs. Even if we were to reduce our rent costs by 10%, we still would not be able to alleviate the current need for a fee increase.

We’re about as lean as you can get for a regulatory college of our size. We have had very little staff turnover through the years, resulting in a small and highly effective team. We average four (4) fewer staff than each of our peer colleges, which is an indicator of how that effectiveness has allowed us to stay small over the years. In addition, last spring we conducted a salary benchmarking exercise and confirmed that we are “on par” with comparable organizations.

Some costs are definitely continuing to climb. Like most regulatory colleges, the number of complaints that we receive each year has gone up. That brings a rise in costs associated with investigations, for the review panels to sit, for legal costs, and for disciplinary proceedings. Last year was the highest year we’ve experienced yet, with the number of cases exceeding 150% of the previous year. In addition, as our profession grows and becomes more sophisticated, the number of activities occurring at the national level also grows. This year we handled issues like labour mobility, accreditation reform, board exam reform, the harmonization of assessment practices for applicants trained outside of Canada, and the development of a new competency profile – the document that serves as the basis for the educational program curriculum across the country. Finally, we continue to update and develop documents and guidelines that are essential for the profession. This includes such items as the Ethics guidelines, updated guidelines on infection, prevention and control, updated standards of practice, etc.