Municipal leaders are raising alarm bells of challenging times ahead because of Northwestern Health Unit levies.
Mayor Greg Wilson plans to introduce a resolution tonight (Monday) during the open Council meeting calling for the health unit to reduce costs in order to ease the burden on local communities.
Officials warn in 2021, municipalities will have to pick up the extra costs for public health, which could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The province is moving from 25% cost recovery from municipalities to 30%.
Health Unit Vice-Chair Sharon Smith notes that’s going to have a huge impact on property taxpayers, noting it amounts to a tax increase of over 1%.
Smith says local communities simply can’t absorb those costs.
Smith is also speaking out on a proposed merger between the Northwestern Health Unit and the Thunder Bay District Health Unit.
Talks have cooled off but Smith says its important to highlight the negative impacts on our area.
She notes the area is just too large for one Health Unit to cover.
Smith says “that’s 400,000 square kilometres, 40% of the land mass of Ontario, for a budget of combined $30-million. I would suggest that any costs in amalgamation would be negligible.”
She stresses if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
