qathet Regional Hospital District (qRHD) has adopted its 2024 budget and five-year financial plan.
At the March 28 regional hospital board meeting, directors considered three readings and adoption of the $6 million budget.
When considering first and second reading of the budget, Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said he found the financial plan bylaw to be helpful because it clearly outlines the financial plan over the next five years, 2024 to 2028 inclusive. He said he was a little concerned, however, that he had just received a copy of the bylaw and would have preferred to have received it sooner.
Electoral Area A director Jason Lennox expressed the same concern.
“I think I understand but I’m voting on some serious costs here,” said Lennox.
Manager of financial services Linda Greenan said the bylaw was the same as the financial plan in the budget final report, so directors had the information.
Gisborne said his understanding was that the timeline for the budget submission to the province was imminent, so if the hospital board did not pass the budget, he was sure the ministry of health would be unhappy with the board.
Corporate officer Michelle Jones said the budget had to be approved before the end of the month.
Hospital board chair and city director George Doubt said his take was that March 28 was the last day it could be approved. He said directors had seen the five-year financial plan previous to the meeting, just not with the bylaw information attached to it.
The hospital district unanimously gave approval to the first three readings and adoption of the budget.
According to a media release from the regional hospital district, highlights of the 2024 budget include the ongoing paydown of the debt for the Willingdon Creek Village complex care facility and a contribution of $428,000 in previously approved grant funding toward continued facility upgrades, renovations and purchase of major clinical equipment for qathet General Hospital and Evergreen Care Unit. At the hospital, there will be pharmacy room upgrades, replacement of chillers, roof replacement, radiology fluoroscopy replacement, modernization of dumbwaiters, operating room mechanical room boiler and direct digital control upgrades, plus replacement of a high-voltage breaker and transformer and upgrades to a generator. At Evergreen, there will be building envelope repairs and roofing replacement.
The release stated that this year’s budget has a $1.7 million increase from 2023, with the inclusion of contribution toward a reserve fund for future regional health care infrastructure and equipment needs.
For the past few years, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) has come to the regional hospital board for infrastructure and equipment upgrades, for which the hospital district has borrowed. By establishing the reserve, the district is hoping to avoid borrowing to pay for future requests from VCH.
Earlier in the meeting, directors approved a modification to the hospital district draft budget to add a residential tax rate of $20 per $100,000 of assessed home value, based on the 2024 completed tax roll values, to the reserve fund in each year of the five-year financial plan.
According to the release, contributions to the hospital district are collected annually through property taxes in each of the five electoral areas, and City of Powell River. Funding is also provided by Tla’amin Nation.
“These taxes are utilized to support and expand health care resources throughout the region,” stated Doubt. “The need for health care infrastructure and equipment will continue to increase across the province due to provincial downloading, and as such, the qRHD is experiencing increased requests from Vancouver Coastal Health to support necessary health service upgrades. qRHD is often expected to contribute up to 40 per cent toward the cost of these projects.”
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