By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Budgeting during what is hoped to be the waning days of a pandemic, when there is no guarantee that a variant of concern is not waiting in the wings, is a challenge discussed at the March board meeting of the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit.
The draft 2022 budget prepared last fall had to undergo an increase of $3,634,196 to $25,639,670, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Natalie Bocking reported. Fortunately that includes continued one-time funding for on-going COVID-19 response and recovery, as well as other one-time funding largely related to infection-prevention and control.
The salaries-and-benefits item has grown due to plans to retain some of the contract staff that were taken on in support of COVID response – helping to ease the return of so many staffers in other programs back to their original duties after they were drafted into the COVID fight.
Dr. Bocking noted that more health-unit employees made the so-called Sunshine List of $100,000-plus salaries – an additional 10 to bring the total to 27 in 2021.
“That was all pandemic-response-related,” she said.
“Largely overtime, individuals involved in actual COVID response, case and outbreak management, that sort of thing – and also vaccines, with vaccine clinics being high priority.”
