Ontario moving ahead with city funding changes but at slower pace
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford is promising a new collaborative approach to working with municipalities even as he announces that he will go forward with changes to how cities and towns are funded.
The province had announced in April’s budget that some public health and child-care programs delivered by the municipalities but funded by the province would see big cuts. Now the funding changes will still go ahead but will be more gradual.
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In an interview with Newstalk 580 CFRA in Ottawa, Ford told radio host Bill Carroll that the province is working with municipalities to find efficiencies even as the province pulls back on funding.
“We’re extending the transitional funding until 2020, we’re giving them a little cushion,” Ford said.
Ontario will standardize the funding of public health for municipalities by having the province pay 70% of costs while municipalities pay 30%. On child care, the province will pay 80% of the cost to create new spaces while municipalities will pay 20%.
The changes will take effect Jan. 1, 2020.
Under the original plan, which was retroactive to Jan. 1, 2019, Toronto was scheduled to move to a 50-50 funding model while other large cities like Ottawa would pay 40% while the province paid 60%.
A source in the premier’s office said that the current funding model is all over the map and some municipalities will actually see an increase in funding due to the standardization of the funding model. The province will also cap increases to municipal budgets on this file to no more than 10% for cities and towns that will get less money.
The changes are being rolled out by the Ford government as the premier and several of his ministers appear at the annual meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in Ottawa.
In a speech to municipalities on Monday morning, Ford boasted of the billions of dollars in new funding for public transit, schools and other infrastructure projects but also called on municipal leaders to help find efficiencies.
“The solution shouldn’t be imposing one-size-fits-all solutions from Queen’s Park. The solution is giving municipalities the tools and supports they need to have more flexibility with their budgets,” he said.
The province announced in May that they would help pay for line-by-line audits for large cities and school boards to find savings of 4%. So far, 90% of municipalities have taken the province up on that offer.
A government official said their calculations show that any changes to public health or child-care funding from the province can more than be offset by meeting the savings targets from the audits.
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