The Grey Bruce Public Health board approved its 2023 draft budget, which calls for a 2.5 per cent funding increase.
Projected expenses for the Health Unit have decreased from last year by 9.28 per cent, but one-time funding from the Ministry of Health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has also dropped significantly. As a result, GBPH is requesting its first funding increase since 2015.
"Since I started working with the Health Unit until now, we haven't asked the counties for an increase," said Dr. Ian Arra, Medical Officer of Health. "There has been a couple increases from the Ministry, but obviously, so far we've managed to deliver services, meet the indicators and not request that increase. But with the recent inflation rates, no matter how we managed, it will end up requesting an increase."
One-time funding from the Ministry of Health is decreasing over $2.29 million between 2022 and 2023, but over $1.1 million is still available for COVID-19 and vaccines.
The Ministry covers 70 per cent of jointly funded program costs, leaving 30 per cent for local municipalities. The Health Unit projects that increase will cost Grey County and additional $57,051 and Bruce County $40,718 (shares of public health funding is based on population).
"The amount of resources, staff time, overtime, that we're spending on COVID, it's still there, just not to the same extent that it was in 2020-22," said Kim Rutherford, Manager of Finance. "That's why we're seeing a reduction in the expenses, but that was 100 per cent funded by the province, whereas the cost-shared programs, our normal operations which we're trying to resume and pick up after the pandemic, now that we're getting back to those that's what the 2.5 per cent will support."
Arra says the Health Unit was able to keep most of its programming running through the pandemic, but things that fell off included administering non-COVID vaccines like MMR, and health inspections of restaurants, as many were closed for long stretches due to restrictions.
The Health Unit has also budgeted for cost increases associated with new collective agreements, as they negotiate new deals with both ONA and OPSEU support staff.
