The 2016 Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health (WDGPH) budget approved on Oct. 7 includes a staffing cost increase of 1.4 per cent (1.5% increase in salaries), which will be offset by a reduction in full time employees.
“Public health cannot operate on an unbalanced budget so we have to balance the budget,” said WDGPH communications manager Chuck Ferguson in a phone interview.
“So what we’re doing is looking through attrition or retirement savings; that will ensure we have a balanced budget at the end of the year.”
Ferguson said senior management is currently discussing what the reduction in full-time employees will involve.
“I know they’re looking first at attrition and retiring,” he said.
“If there are any layoffs they’ll be very minimal and they’ll be done with all the appropriate notices and severance packages.”
Another area of cost savings is a 2.7% decrease in operating costs with savings over last year in office expenses, printing and postage ($10,167 saved); professional and purchased services ($309,471 saved); office equipment ($13,730); and communication costs ($26,225).
The budget didn’t reflect any increase in provincial funding for cost-shared mandatory programs, cost-shared related programs and most 100% Ministry of Health and Long Term Care programs.
The 100% ministry programs that did receive increased funding include Healthy Smiles Ontario, Smoke Free Ontario, and the Needle Exchange Program, which received a combined increase of $41,836.
The budget includes an 2% increase in overall municipal funding, as well as a 2% increase to municipal funding for both cost-shared mandatory programs and cost-shared related programs.
In the draft budget Wellington County will contribute $2.62 million in overall funding compared to $2.57 million this year; Guelph will contribute $3.68 million compared to $3.61 million in 2015; and Dufferin County will contribute $1.72 million compared to $1.68 million this year.
Also contained in the 2016 budget is $43,428 in municipal funding (a combination of all three municipalities) for the Children In Need of Treatment (CINOT) Expansion Program, which will go into the cost-shared mandatory programs budget because CINOT will be integrated into the new Healthy Smiles Ontario program in 2016.
The cost-shared mandatory programs budget will help fund low-income dental initiatives, like the fluoride varnish program in some elementary schools, that are at risk under the new Healthy Smiles Ontario integrated program.
The whole budget is balanced due to reductions to employee and operating costs, with both a total revenue and total expenditure of $21.83 million.
