COVID-19 and launch of vaccines put budgetary pressure on OPH in Q1
Ottawa Public Health says the post-Christmas spike in COVID-19 cases and the launch of the city's vaccination efforts pushed costs up in the first quarter of 2021.
According to a report and budget documents prepared for the city's board of health, OPH spent $23 million in base and one-time COVID-19 costs in the first quarter of 2021, exceeding the quarterly budget for those items by about $5.4 million.
The report says OPH is "projecting an over expenditure for the current fiscal year as a result of extraordinary costs related to COVID response and vaccine program," but ultimately believes the budget will be balanced by year's end, "with the assumption that the Province will provide full funding for these costs."
In the first three months of 2021, city staff say OPH spent more than $24.4 million on compensation, about 31 per cent of its annual budget of $79.3 million, and exceeded overtime spending by $400,000.
"The increased compensation costs are directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic response and the need to scale up the operations in support of the COVID-19 Vaccine Program by increasing overtime requirements, onboarding new casual staff in various capacities and not meeting vacancy allowance targets incorporated in the approved budget," the report says.
Case management efforts were strained in early 2021 due to a rapid rise in cases in January. More than 7,300 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed between Jan. 1 and March 31, 2021, each of which required contact tracing and case management.
The report says the Ontario government has provided all health units with an assurance that there will be a process to request reimbursement of extraordinary costs related to the pandemic; however, to date, no further information has been made available.
The board of health meets at 5 p.m. June 21.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Competition bureau finds 'substantial' anti-competitive effects with proposed Bunge-Viterra merger
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.