Huron County Council Approves A Motion On Provincial Funding For Public Health
by Bob Montgomery
Huron East Mayor Bernie LacLellan had asked staff to come up with a follow-up report on the current Provincial Funding for Public Health.
MacLellen asked that the motion approving that report be sent out to Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson and to all of the municipalities across the province for support because they're all dealing with the same problem. And that problem is that municipalities are being asked to pay more than their share of the cost for health care.
MacLellan says he understands that every level of government is doing everything they can to minimize costs. But in his opinion, health care has no place on property tax expenditures, and if the province is setting the schedule for what health units have to do, MacLellan doesn't understand why they can't fund their portion of it. MacLellen says using money from property taxes to fund health care is a non-starter as far as he's concerned and once you start down that road, where does it stop. MacLellan also points out municipalities already do a number of things to support their local hospitals and he doesn't want his property tax being used to cover the cost of health care.
Previously, the arrangement was that funding was a 75/25 allocation, with the province of Ontario contributing 75% and municipalities contributing 25%. The province has changed this arrangement to 70/30 with the province of Ontario contributing 70% and municipalities contributing 30%. Although the funding change was announced, the province provided mitigation funding to offset this change in formula. Therefore, there was no impact to municipalities. After the 75/25 allocation was reinstated, the province announced that health units would be eligible to receive only a 1% increase per year in funding. Currently, 82% of health units across the province are using property tax dollars to address the shortfall between the cost of the programs provided and the funding received by the province.
MacLellan says he's confident most of the municipalities across the province will support Huron County's position because everyone's in the same position. He adds, he believes the Association of Municipalities of Ontario is also looking at the situation.
