The Sudbury and District Health Unit will need to find new cost-saving measures in 2018 and beyond as it faces less funding from the province, says the medical officer of health.
During a board meeting Thursday the Sudbury and District Board of Health approved a 2017 budget that represents a 0.4-per-cent cut in total expenditures compared to the previous year.
In 2015, the provincial government announced it would freeze its funding for all but eight of Ontario's 36 health units.
To balance its budget, the health unit has had to turn to cost-saving initiatives, including doing all its printing off-site, and relying on attrition to reduce salary expenses.
The health unit said incremental savings listed as operational and attrition will result in a savings of $253,617 in 2017.
Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, the health unit's medical officer of health, said the future looks more bleak with no end in sight to the provincial funding freeze.
“We're able to manage in 2017 with only a small increase at the municipal level, but looking into the future it looks very difficult in terms of what a zero per cent on the provincial side means on the go forward,” she said.
Under the funding model the province introduced in 2015, the province takes several factors into consideration – including population and geography – to determine how the total pie of provincial health spending should be shared across the 36 health units.
Most health units receive around 75 per cent of their funding from the province, and 25 per cent from their respective municipalities.
Through the current funding model, the province determined that eight health units – primarily in urban areas around the Greater Toronto Area with high population growth – would continue to receive a two-per-cent funding increase per year.
The remaining health units – including Sudbury and Porcupine, which serves the Cochrane District from Hornepayne to Timmins – had their budgets frozen.
