The County of Essex is setting aside more than it expected to for the new mega-hospital.
The county had set a target of saving at least $450,000 a year to help cover its portion of the projected $2-billion cost. However, the 2017 budget includes $590,000 for the project.
County Treasurer Rob Maisonville says the thinking behind the move is to save on interest costs.
Maisonville says the county will likely be on the hook for about $90-million to $95-million of the new hospital construction. He says kicking in a little bit more now could mean savings of about 4-million-dollars and paying off the debt faster.
"If we can make it $600,000 a year for the next four years, per se, then we'll have raised $55-million instead of $50-million which means on the back-end its a $35-million-dollar debt instrument," says Maisonville.
He adds coming in with a budget increase less than inflation helped boost what the county saved for the hospital.
"Putting a little bit aside today will help us in the long-term in the future," says Maisonville. "Our target was to try to be within inflation, we've always come in that way, including expansionary provisions, so we felt that there was a possibility to do that."
Essex County Warden Tom Bain (centre) listens to a report at the 2017 budget meeting for the county on February 1, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
County councillors approved a 1.76% tax rate increase in its 2017 budget, equal to a little over $16 on the yearly property tax bill for a home valued at $200,000.
"I think there were efforts to look at lowering [the increase], but we've got so much on the go as far as doing infrastructure work, we've got things out at the Sun Parlor Home that have been let go that we need to do," says Tom Bain, County of Essex Warden.
The new single-site acute care hospital still hasn't received the go-ahead from the province, but a location has been selected. The new hospital, if approved, will be built in Windsor at the corner of County Road 42 and Concession 9.