Up in the air

Plans for new long-term home hit a roadblock

Redevelopment plans for the HJ McFarland Home have hit a wall. The County’s plan relied on the municipality accessing about $42 million from a provincial fund intended to accelerate the creation of new long-term care beds in Ontario.

Marcia Wallace, the County’s CAO, explained to Council last week the municipality won’t make the August deadline to access these funds. So far, the province has insisted it won’t extend the accelerator program.

It puts the County and ratepayers in a tough spot.

If Shire Hall borrows this money—which is a big if since the County has committed to borrowing beyond its limit—the cost of carrying this debt would add another $2.4 million each year to the tax burden—about a five per cent hit to the tax levy.

If it doesn’t borrow the money, the County is still required to upgrade the current facility by 2025. At a minimum, it must install sprinklers into the existing building at the cost of about $300,000.

Wallace explained that the impossibility of meeting the deadline only became apparent recently.

“When we looked at the granularity of that, it really meant that we needed drawings by next month,” Wallace advised Council. “It meant we needed to be tendering in June. We are nowhere near that. There is no way we can make that timeline.”

Wallace noted, too, that the County isn’t the only jurisdiction likely to miss out on this funding. She anticipates that the sheer number of potential new beds that won’t be created may nudge the provincial government to open up a new round of accelerator funding. For this reason, her team continues to push ahead in designing and planning this new facility to be ‘shovel-ready’ by fall.

“Ultimately [the province] want beds. But we have no chance if we aren’t shovel-ready,” she said.

Wallace said the file would return to Council later this year with a new or updated plan.

WHY GROW?
A question came up during budget discussions that appeared to catch HJ McFarland’s management a bit flat-footed.

The HJ McFarland long-term care home lost $306,000 last year. It is expected to lose $583,000 in 2023. These losses are added to the tax levy, and the property taxpayer funds this subsidy. The municipality is required under provincial rules to fund and manage a long-term care home.

But is the County required to double the size of the facility and presumably increase the amount County ratepayers subsidize this home? That was the gist of Councillor Roy Pennell’s question to the director of the home.

“If (HJ McFarland) doesn’t earn enough to pay the bills now, what’s the advantage in expanding?” asked the Ameliasburgh councillor.

McFarland’s executive director Kyle Cotton didn’t have a ready answer. In fairness, the conversation thread had been focused on staffing—in-house versus agency folks, and the means required to maintain highquality service at the home.

Cotton suggested a larger facility would create possible economies of scale savings.

Pennell’s question, coming at this late stage of planning for the new long-term care home, may have seemed as coming from out of left field. Nevertheless, after the executive director repeated bullet points about ‘legislated requirements’ and infection control and social services improvements, the councillor’s question remained mostly unanswered.