Riverside gets restructuring ‘refund’

Although it will help, the $61,100 grant Riverside Health Care Facilities Inc. is getting from the province for restructuring won’t make up for what it has already cut–or the cuts it expects to have to make down the road.
Riverside CEO Paul Brown said the grant will cover 85 percent of the restructuring costs to cut $500,000 from its operating budget for the 1996-97 fiscal year.
That was how much Riverside had to cut in the first year of a three-year restructuring plan.
And Riverside is still waiting to hear on the $220,000 restructuring rebate it applied for to help cut $600,000 from its 1997-98 operating budget.
“They didn’t give us any money ahead of time to recover those costs,” Brown noted last week, adding the funding didn’t allow Riverside to re-hire some of the people it had to cut.
“It’s not like it brings us up to the level we were before,” he added.
Brown also said this money is just for operating. He added they haven’t heard on the capital, stressing Riverside lost out on some $5 million in capital funding with the loss of the CHO here.
In the final year of restructuring, 1998-99, Riverside was expected to cut another $800,000 (seven percent) from its operating budget. Brown noted that cut would be delayed but he didn’t know until when.
“And they did emphasize postponement. Even with the postponement, we’re still facing cost increases,” he admitted, adding they anticipated $800,000 in cost increases for things such as grid movement of staff, supplies, medical and surgical equipment, and arbitration awards.
“So all these bits and pieces help,” he added.