Ad hoc committee to debate request before committee of the whole budget meeting on Jan. 31
Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare board vice-chair Phil Matthews (left), board chair Evelyn Brown and South Muskoka Memorial Hospital Foundation executive director Colin Miller urge District of Muskoka corporate and emergency services committee members during January budget talks to consider increased taxes as a means to funding millions in future hospital infrastructure. – Alison Brownlee/Metroland
MUSKOKA — A request for millions of dollars was left hanging in the air.
Evelyn Brown, board chair for Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC), and Phil Matthews, board vice-chair for MAHC, along with other Bracebridge and Huntsville hospital representatives officially asked the District of Muskoka corporate and emergency services committee on Jan. 19 for $114 million within the next 15 years to partially fund new hospital infrastructure for the region.
“I know that 10 minutes is not adequate to do this appeal justice. I hope you’ll think long and hard about what I’m going to have to say before you make a decision,” said Matthews. “The issue is: how do we build a major capital fund for health care in Muskoka and build a major asset we don’t have right now.”
The district committee was in the middle of draft 2018 tax-supported budget deliberations.
Matthews noted undetermined plans for future hospital infrastructure and services required an estimated $84 million to $114 million local share, raised by the community, to cover 10 per cent of any capital build, plus furniture and equipment.
He said a proposal set to be submitted to the province this fall must demonstrate the community’s interest in and ability to fund the local share.
“If each of Muskoka’s 50,000 households were to give us the equivalent of a coffee and a muffin a week — $10 a month — that’s $500,000 a month or $6 million a year,” he said.
He argued that over 15 years — with interest — the district could collect $114 million.
The draft district budget included only $400,000 annually for hospital capital financing.
“The capital planning process is in your hands,” concluded Matthews.
Committee members were noncommittal.
Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith, committee vice-chair, asked whether donor support and other revenue sources had been considered, but was told the hospital foundations already relied heavily on donors to fund millions in immediate equipment and existing facility repair needs.
Smith then noted he wanted to support the hospitals, but the district already had millions in municipal obligations.
“While I appreciate the analogy of a coffee and a muffin, there are other places we could deploy the coffee and muffin,” he said.
He argued the province had “put us in an impossible situation” and that the ministry should reduce or eliminate the local share amount.
“I can’t, in my mind, capitulate to this provincial demand without at least going down swinging, in terms of presenting the municipal condition to them and how unbelievably burdensome this would be to us,” he said.
And John Klinck, district chair, noted MAHC’s significant request could not be taken lightly.
“We have a fundamental question about whether municipalities should be in the health-care business, we can argue that forever,” said Klinck. “But we all know that in health care, we’re in an awful pickle.”
Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison, committee chair, soon found support to strike an ad hoc committee to brainstorm responses to the request before the committee of the whole draft budget meeting set for Jan. 31.
NEWS Jan 22, 2018 by Alison Brownlee Bracebridge Examiner