Frontenac County will take the $240,000 one-time COVID funding from the City of Kingston, but … 

Jeff Green | Apr 29, 2020

It was, to all appearances, a gesture of good-will towards Frontenac Paramedic Services by Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson.

A couple of weeks ago, during a Twitter broadcast, Paterson announced that he would be bringing forth a motion to Kingston City Council at their meeting on April 21st. to provide $240,000 to the County of Frontenac. The money is intended to cover some of the COVID-19 related costs for the extra efforts being made by Frontenac Paramedic Services. Paterson mentioned in particular, that Frontenac Paramedics were providing COVID testing in people’s homes, when attending a testing centre would be a hardship for those people.

Paterson acknowledged that his council is locked in a dispute with Frontenac County Council over funding that Kingston provides for its share of the costs of running Frontenac Paramedic Services and Fairmount Home.

 “Given the enormous challenges facing our region, this is not the time for division. It is time to put politics aside and work together,” he said. “We’ll work to resolve our budget dispute with the county later this year,  but right now what’s most important is that our paramedics have the equipment, materials  and the personnel that they need to continue to do their great work responding to the COVID-19 pandemic here in Kingston and the County of Frontenac.”

Before Paterson’s motion made it to Council on April 21st, Frontenac County Warden Frances Smith had already made it clear that Frontenac County Council is not in a mood to put off that budget dispute.

In a letter to Paterson that was sent on April 21, and was shared with city council by him, Smith thanked the mayor for announcing his “intention to provide $240,00 to Frontenac Paramedics for 2020.”

However, she then turned to the ongoing budget dispute.

“As our budget pressures continue to mount in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, any shortchanging on funding from the city will directly affect our most vulnerable populations, including residents of Fairmount Home,” she wrote urging the city to approve the 2019 funding request and forego a mediation and arbitration process that is set to get underway in late June.

“I believe we can both agree that continuing the dispute at this critical juncture will distract from the tasks at hand and pull vital human resources away from fighting the COVID-19 crisis. Further, I believe that both parties would prefer to focus resources on delivering services, rather than paying lawyer’s fees and arbitrators.”

The rest of Smith’s letter, which is 6 pages long, presents the county perspective on the funding dispute, looking at paramedic services and long-term care, in turn. 

The letter deals with a number of issues. First, it says that arbitration will cost $25,000 and take 6 months to a year to complete. It then says that according to the funding formula that is in place for Fairmount Home, the City of Kingston can appeal the bill that they receive to an arbitrator, but the appeal must be filed by June 30, and the appeal cannot seek to alter any of the provisions in the agreement. The city did not appeal by June 30 last year, and they are seeking to alter provisions in the agreement, Smith claims.

The paper also says that increased paramedic costs to the city are the result of two factors, both related to growth. Growth in the west end of the city has necessitated a new 12-hour shift in that region, increasing overall costs, and growth in the city has also outpaced growth in the county, increasing the overall share of those costs to be borne by city ratepayers.

Finally, it points out that a study of paramedic costs, in Eastern Ontario, put Frontenac Paramedic Services in the middle of the pack, even though it serves the largest population. As for Fairmount Home, its cost per bed is lower, by $8.7 thousand per year, than those at the city owned facility, Rideaucrest.

At the Kingston City Council meeting on April 21st, Warden Smith’s letter was not well received.

In his account of the meeting, Whig Standard reporter Elliot Ferguson reported that Mayor Paterson said he was “extremely disappointed” by the letter but would not comment further, while Councillor Wayne Hill described the letter as a “glove being thrown down.”

City Council approved the $240,000 one-time grant, however, which is greater than the 2019 funding shortfall of $206,000.

When contacted late last week, Frontenac County CAO Kelly Pender said that the $240,000 did not come in response to any specific funding request from Frontenac County.

“We have been told to do whatever we need to do, to combat the pandemic, and the province will look after any shortfall,” he said. “We did not ask the city for money to fight COVID-19.”

He also said that the funding dispute with the City of Kingston is not a one-time concern, as it extends into the 2020 budget and beyond and will add up over time. He also said that in other parts of the province, similar disputes have gone to arbitration and in all the cases he is aware of, the arbitrator sided with the service provider.

“These are not funding requests, they are bills for services rendered under a contract,” he said. “It is pretty clear-cut.”

The Frontenac News sent a series of questions to Mayor Paterson on Monday of this week, pertaining to issues mentioned in this article. We received the following response from Amber Bryant-Peller, special assistant to the mayor: “Mayor Paterson plans to respond to the letter from Warden Smith later this week - the exact timing still to be determined. That letter will likely cover the majority of your questions and he would appreciate an opportunity to formally respond before commenting further on the matter.”