Huron Perth Public Health says a "funding shortfall" will be affecting its programs and services next year and result in job cuts.
A statement released Wednesday by HPPH says that the organization will be restructuring its programs and services in 2024 to "address a challenging budget shortfall."
Prior to amalgamating the Huron County Health Unit and Perth District Health Unit in 2020, both of those organizations received "little to no budget increases while expenses continued to rise due to inflation, affecting wages and other operating costs," the statement shared.
During the pandemic, a one-time COVID-19 funding injection allowed HPPH to properly respond to the pandemic situation locally. Roughly 75-78 percent of the staff were re-assigned to COVID-19 response, and additional staff were brought on.
However, HPPH says that increases to the it’s base budget remained limited and didn't factor in rising expenses for the health unit.
HPPH says they have to address a roughly $1.5 million funding gap that has been accrued over the last five years. The organization says the province announcing a 1 per cent increase for health units over the next three years is good, but won't be enough for them to address the gap.
Dr. Miriam Klassen, Medical Officer of Health for Huron and Perth, says even with the return to the 75-25 cost sharing model between the province and municipalities, it won't help their shortfall, even though it is welcome news to municipal partners.
"Unfortunately it does not affect the budget shortfall we are experiencing because it doesn't change our budget or revenue received. It simply shifts the source of revenue where more of it's coming from the province than the municipalities, which is where it would have been coming from had the funding formula been changed when implemented," Dr. Klassen shared.
Due to the financial challenges at hand, HPPH says it will be losing 13.5 positions from the current staff, which will represent a 10 per cent reduction in staffing. Some positions will be eliminated via retirement, as well as layoffs of temporary and contract staff. HPPH adds that several positions throughout the health unit will be affected, including management.
"So we will lose one program manager, one public health dietician, 0.5 administrative assistant/program support. This will become effective mid-year (2024). One program evaluator, 4.4 public health nurses, 3.6 public health promoters, one community developer and one online communications coordinator," added Dr. Klassen. “We have had to make difficult decisions. We have spent the past year decreasing program expenses in a variety of ways; however most of our budget is for human resources. We had to make the difficult decision to remove positions from the organization.”
The statement from HPPH notes that the changes will affect programming and services as early as next year. Dr. Klassen says staff were made aware of these upcoming cuts in October of this year.
Some cuts will occur via the noted retirements in December, and others will begin officially when the full reorganization becomes effective in mid-January of 2024, when layoffs will begin, with some coming in mid-June.
Dr. Klassen also confirmed these are the first budget related layoffs HPPH has experienced since amalgamation in 2020.
In terms of any additional funding, Dr. Klassen confirmed during a news briefing on November 8 that outside of the 1 percent yearly funding increases the province has already announced for 2024-26, there are no additional funds coming to help with the shortfall.
Regarding the effect this will have on current programs and services, Dr. Klassen addressed whether things will be outright cut, or how reduced some aspects of service may be from HPPH moving forward.
"Some of the details have yet to be specifically ironed out, but we do anticipate reductions in areas like health promotion, community development, population health surveillance and evaluation," Dr. Klassen explained. "The senior leadership team has been following certain principles to do determine which services and programs to reduce or discontinue. Things like priorities that have been communicated by the Ministry (of health). Things like continued COVID response, immunization catch-up, climate change, as an example."
Dr. Klassen notes that there are certain services that must be maintained, including for obvious legal reasons, including outbreak management and inspection. HPPH also has certain programs with funding obligations, like the Healthy Babies, Healthy Children program. As a result of that, HPPH had to prioritize certain programs and services over others as a result of the budgeting challenges.
It was shared in the news briefing by Dr. Klassen that HPPH will lose 24,570 hours of total staff time as a result of the staff reductions.
In terms of public outreach and consultation regarding the impact to current services and programs, Dr. Klassen says that's always an ongoing process. She adds that HPPH's mandate does come from the Ontario Public Health Standards, which tells HPPH and other public health organizations like it the type of work and service they are required to provide by law. However, Dr. Klassen says that HPPH continues to receive and consider input in a variety of ways.
"Our Board of Health is made up of local councillors, as well as some provincial appointees, and they provide us with community input. They come and they represent their communities," said Dr. Klassen. "In a more targeted way, our programs and services regularly evaluate their work and seek input from clients and partners. We gather input from lived experience, as well, for example from our LEE panel, or Lived Experience Expert panel, so we're always receiving feedback from our community and clients and partners."
HPPH will be relying on its newly released 2024-2027 Strategic Plan to help determine how best to deliver programs and services in the years ahead.
The plan includes four main pillars. Organizational resilience, focussed program delivery, partner and community engagement and finally, thriving workforce.
The plan is available for viewing at www.hpph.ca/reports.
“Public health in Ontario is heading into a transitional time,” added Dr. Klassen. “Public health structure, funding and mandates are under review. We expect new Ontario Public Health Standards to be implemented in 2025, and a new funding approach to be implemented in 2026.”
It was noted numerous times during the news briefing by Dr. Klassen how difficult this time has been for HPPH, and she adds that other local public health agencies are no doubt facing similar challenges or will be soon.