The executive of the Kenora District Municipal Association has decided it won’t join in the request for a programmatic audit on the Northwestern Health Unit–at least not yet.
And that has the Rainy River District Municipal Association wondering if it will have to go at it alone.
“I don’t know if we’re going to go ahead with it,” said La Vallee Coun. Emily Watson, also vice-president of the RRDMA, who added there was a large cost–between $250,000-$500,000–associated with the audit.
“I think we need more facts,” she admitted.
Fort Frances Mayor Glenn Witherspoon, who is president of the RRDMA this year, said a meeting would be called as soon as possible to decide how to proceed.
And he hoped if they chose to go forward, and an audit showed areas where savings could be found, then they would get the backing of the KDMA.
For instance, if the town could train a building inspector to do septic field inspections, Mayor Witherspoon said it made sense to do it–and perhaps earn a profit–rather than pay someone else to deliver the service.
The KDMA executive voted Monday night to put discussion of the audit issue on hold until the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association meeting in May in Thunder Bay.
KDMA president Roger Valley, who also is mayor of Dryden, said his association was holding off because the Ministry of Health released its new mandatory program guidelines.
“The municipalities up here want to know exactly what those changes are,” he stressed yesterday.
Although the exact details aren’t expected until next month, John Albanese, vice-chair of the health unit board, noted they did have some preliminary predictions of what the new guidelines would mean.
“According to what the mandate is, we’re short people and we’re short about a half-a-million dollars,” he said Tuesday.
Municipalities now pay $64 per capita for public health in the Kenora and Rainy River districts, which was one of the services downloaded onto them by the province Jan. 1.
The KDMA executive has asked for information from the health unit on how it has downsized over the past five years in order to cut costs.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
