Several of Orillia’s agencies and committees will receive increased funding in the city’s 2024 budget, after outlining their cases during budget deliberations Tuesday.
The city’s physician recruitment and retention committee will receive a 50 per cent increase, from $50,000 to $75,000 in 2024, as it brought on a new staff member and looks to expand its efforts to bring more doctors to the community.
“The reason for this increase, primarily, is due to our significant increase in human resources this year. The committee saw 30 per cent increases in our human resource costs,” said committee chair, Dr. Matt Miller.
The committee’s previous staff person, Pat Thor, retired in the past year, and the replacement came at a “significant cost,” Miller said.
The board had a difficult time finding a suitable candidate and hired current board member, Melanie Delion, who works for and represents Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital on the board.
“It was also a time we couldn’t afford to put someone inexperienced in this role,” he said. “Melanie, with her human resources background, and sitting on the committee, we felt was our best chance to recruit as many physicians as possible. The hospital … also paid for 20 per cent of her salary, with the medical affairs department also paying for an additional 20 per cent.”
Miller also mentioned a need for the board to expand and change its approach amid province-wide shortages in primary care physicians.
“Another reason for the increase is the physician recruitment crisis … (and) lack of access to primary care. We are getting as innovative as we can during this crisis, and now's not the time to sit back and wait for physicians to approach us,” Miller said.
A strategy the board has employed is attending medical job fairs, each of which carry a $3,000 bill.
“The one of note is Melanie recently just got back from Ireland, and there's been a lot of press lately about foreign trained medical students wanting to come back to Canada, and we felt that this was one of our best chances to recruit new physicians and get in front of as many physicians as possible,” Miller said.
“When Melanie was there … we were marketing Orillia and the area, (and) she had 300 Canadian medical students pass her booth, with 66 good leads from people that are familiar with Orillia and the area and are also from this area.”
The Orillia Museum of Art and History, similarly, will receive a 20 per cent funding increase, over the $150,000 it typically receives, to $180,000 in the new year, as it plans to give staff a much-needed pay raise.
OMAH board president, Stephen Davids, said the museum has received $150,000 in city funding annually for the past decade, and noted the museum’s ability to increasingly do more with less.
“Our social media and online presence is a quantum leap, enhanced from before, and the number of, quality, and participation in programming is up and trending higher, all without a change in city funding,” he said. “In fact, we showed a slight surplus last year, which is unusual for a museum, but we are not able to budget for a surplus this year.”
Davids said a large part of the museum’s financial success has been finding grant funding, such as a grant that led to the hiring of its development officer for two years, but he also mentioned that employee compensation is “extremely out of line” with industry averages.
The plan for 2024 is to raise staff salaries to at least 80 per cent of the typical market salary for their positions.
“We decided to place them as close as we could or above (that) percentile, and we made those recommendations; they've been accepted by the board,” he said.
Information Orillia will receive a $5,000 increase, to a total of $50,000 for 2024, as it looks to increase its service levels.
In particular, the group hopes to meet increasing demand for its tax clinic services, which helps the city’s vulnerable population with its tax services.
“We're up to over 1,500 tax returns filed this year, with about $3.4 million returned to the community by way of refunds and credits,” said Ann Kleiser, operations administrator.
The mayor, however, questioned the increased funding request.
“I'm not as punched up about Information Orillia because I don't know much,” the mayor said.
“Can you tell me a little bit more about what you do? $50,000 seems like a lot of money for a bunch of tax returns," McIsaac added.
“We are a first point of contact for anyone in Orillia who has a question about how to access a service or resource. For example, just last week I was helping somebody very simply get their vaccine shot because they don't have access to the internet,” Kleiser said. “For anyone who cannot afford to access information electronically, they come to Information Orillia to get connected with services.”
Information Orillia also helps with case management, Kleiser said, assisting residents fill out a variety of paperwork to access services they need.
"If people are having issues with their landlord, for example, and the community legal clinic may be at capacity, we will actually help them fill out the paperwork to apply to the landlord tenant tribunal, and we help them apply for their CPP, their old age security,” she said.
The Mariposa Folk Foundation, as well, will receive an increase of $3,500 to $33,500 for 2024.
Decisions made during budget deliberations are subject to ratification on Dec. 11, 2023.
Watch OrilliaMatters throughout the day for more budget coverage.
