One of the first acts of the new County Council is to adopt its budget for next year.
It's the first time new Warden Hilda MacDonald, the mayor of Leamington, will chair deliberations. It'll also a first for the newly-elected mayors of Essex, Kingsville, LaSalle, and Lakeshore.
Deliberations won't be an easy task.
The county faces many challenges, including the impacts of a prolonged pandemic, provincial funding constraints, an increase in social caseloads, new legislation mandating the level of care at Sun Parlour home, province-wide municipal insurance costs, and inflation.
A significant portion of operating budget expenditures are mandated by legislation, and a reduction in services could leave the county in a precarious legal position.
Reducing the capital budget will also be a challenge. The budget notes it can pay to address infrastructure needs today or pay more in the future.
As a result, county residents are looking at a 4.76 per cent increase in the levy for 2023. That's another $23.62 for a property assessed at $100,000.
County councillors will deliberate the budget for another month, and the levy could be reduced.
As it stands now, Sun Parlour Home will get another $706,000. Under the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, the province requires four hours of care daily per resident. The retirement home plans to phase that in with the target for this year of three hours and 42 minutes of daily care. Staffing hours will have to increase to meet the goal.
The county also plans to increase funding to service social housing units by $200,000.
Beleagured by off-loading delays at local hospitals and an increase in calls, Emergency Medical Services will see another $1.7-million. Another $4.9-million is for infrastructure services. Outside obligations, including to the Windsor Essex County Health Unit, Invest WindsorEssex, and a commitment to the proposed acute care hospital, account for an increase of $536,900.
Altogether, the 2023 budget calls for an increase in spending of $124.7-million, $81.1-million for operating costs, and $43.5-million for capital.
The budget process began in June 2022, and county councillors could adopt the spending plan in January 2023.
Deliberations begin at Wednesday night's meeting.
*Editors note: this story replaces a previous story that stated the budget levy increase was 1.56 per cent. The story incorrectly eluded to the 2022 budget. WindsorNewsToday.ca regrets the error.
