Decision deferred until next week pending additional information
Adam Bramburger
Beaver Staff
Lennox and Addington County council couldn’t decide Wednesday what it should allocate in its 2018 budget for a grant for facility improvements at Kingston hospitals, so it deferred the decision.
After councillors received a comprehensive budget report from director of financial and physical services Stephen Fox, which set the tax levy increase at 2.2 per cent, they turned their attention to grant requests by the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation (UHKF) and Lennox and Addington County Seniors Outreach Services (L&A SOS).
Last year was the final year of 10-year commitments the County made to the UHKF and Lennox and Addington County General Hospital Foundation for annual grants of $100,000 and $50,000 respectively. In November, UHKF president and chief executive officer Denise Cumming visited council to ask for a $328,000 annual commitment. She said that figure was arrived at by taking the City of Kingston’s contribution as a base and setting a proportional amount for other municipalities based in 2016 patient visits from their residents.
Initially, councillors wondered if the Lennox and Addington County General Hospital Foundation would also be coming forward with a funding request in the near future. Eric Smith, a councillor from Stone Mills who also sits on the hospital’s board, said he wasn’t aware of any request. Greater Napanee’s Gord Schermerhorn added that in 2008 both hospitals were working on expansion projects and that likely precipitated the decision made at that time.
Schermerhorn started the discussion by suggesting council receive the request and not provide funding in 2018.
“I do have a little bit of a problem. With our new pair of paramedic buildings in Loyalist and Stone Mills and additional time and cost, I do have a hard time because of County tax dollars of making a donation,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I realize the Kingston hospital is a great employer too with Lennox and Addington County people working there and people from Lennox and Addington going there. Right at this time, I have a hard time to support it when we have our own pressures.”
While others councillors shared concern about the size of the request, they didn’t share Schermerhorn’s position to offer no funding this year.
“It’s a pretty difficult one,” said councillor John Wise, of Stone Mills. “We have some major health expenses in our paramedic services we’re providing and you can’t separate these things out, that’s part of the health-care system. At the same time, this is the major hospital in our area. All kinds of our residents go there for treatment and as Good mentioned, a lot work there. I think it would be churlish to give nothing, I just have a hard time getting my head around what I would want to give.”
Councillor Helen Yanch, of Addington Highlands, said she couldn’t support the motion.
“Let’s be honest, if you were in an ambulance and you get to the Napanee hospital — which is a lovely hospital, I’ve been there — but if it’s a heart problem, you go right off to Kingston. It’s where the cancer treatment centre is and it just goes on and on. I think we need to support that somehow.”
Marg Isbester, of Greater Napanee, said a $328,000 budget increase is a “huge amount” but hoped to see something done.
“I couldn’t support nothing as well,” she said. “They offer so many services our hospital can’t offer — for testing, for the OR, and so on. It is so close and it does certainly employ a lot of our people.”
Schermerhorn relented, however, stating in the interest of fairness, he’d rather entertain donations for both hospitals than just one. He praised the efforts of the hospital in Napanee.
“They’ve started several programs up for a little hospital in the County of Lennox and Addington. I guess, if I were them, I’d be coming and asking for something and they haven’t. I think they work their tails off to provide services for Lennox and Addington residents,” he said. “Yes, my wife’s been in Kingston hospital several times with cancer and a heart problem, so I know what Kingston hospital does and I appreciate that, but I think our little hospital is also adding programs and trying their best to service Lennox and Addington County. I have to stick up for them for the hard work they have done.”
He also came back to the cost of providing support, even if the County simply matched the City of Kingston’s percentage increase, which is 1.3 per cent over it’s previous commitment.
“If I’m looking at this right, with that contribution at the end of the day, we’re looking at adding another half a per cent (on the tax levy)… I’m worried about our business tax, I’m worried about residents paying their taxes. I never thought we would turn into the health-care business, but here we’re turning into that and that’s why I made the motion.”
When councillors voted, Schermerhorn was the only one to support his motion.
In her comments, Yanch suggested councillors come back to the question next week. Isbester made a successful motion to that regard and asked for more information about what other municipalities were doing with the request.
Fox stated he included data on Kingston’s commitment in his report, as well as Frontenac County’s commitment of $55,061 annually over the next decade, which represents a 1.97-per-cent increase over its past 10-year commitment. By contrast, Lennox and Addington is being asked for a 228-per-cent increase (which would add 1.28 per cent on the 2018 tax levy). Fox stated he also asked Hastings and Leeds & Grenville, but understood they hadn’t yet made decisions. Recently, Prince Edward County council voted this week to not fund the UHKF this year, after receiving a $61,797 request during its own budget deliberations.
Loyalist councillor Ric Bresee declared a conflict of interest on the issue as he is an associate director with the UHKF. He turned his back to the table and did not participate in the discussion.
The request from L&A SOS for an additional $15,000 in grant funding on top of the $5,000 it received pre-budget approval for last month passed unanimously. The money will subsidize the cost of fee-for-service programs for local seniors. The County’s overall $20,000 contribution is equal to those made from 2015-2017 and it represents a 0.06-per-cent impact on the tax levy.