Gary McNamara says the province is dropping its share of funding from 75 to 70
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit can kiss $1.5-million in provincial funding goodbye.
Cost sharing is the main culprit, according to Board Chair Gary McNamara. Previously 75% of funding came from Queen's Park with the remaining 25% being collected from municipalities. The province's share will now drop down to 70% with the health unit on the hook for that missing 5%.
McNamara says it's the first step in an Ontario PC plan that will cut local health units from 35 to 10. The end game is to shed $200-million in funding over the next two-years.
He tells AM800 News municipalities have already set their 2019 budgets and they're hurting too — it's not as simple as asking for more.
"There's going to be a huge hit on the municipal tax-base. Just recently funding for ERCA for flood mitigation, cut 50%, libraries, grants that are coming to municipalities, 50% cut," he says. "We are certainly looking at ways to help mitigate some of those problems, but that can't be solved on the backs of the property tax owner only."
He says the health unit didn't expect the cuts this soon.
McNamara goes on to say the real fun will start when the government lays out plans to consolidate health units.
What regions Windsor-Essex absorbs or gets absorbed by will determine funding models and create a whole new list of challenges.
"They just gave us a whack in the side of the head today so we've got to take a step back, take a deep breath and figure out exactly how this is going to affect us providing the serviced moving forward," he added. "Union contracts and so forth, how do you harmonize all of that? You know what we're going through right now, so I think this is going to be a rude awakening for some of the rank and file folks."
McNamara says the health unit will know more on what's next in the coming weeks.
He says many services are mandated from the government, so they need to be maintained, no matter who's paying for them.