The health unit will be able to run in 2021 with a budget increased only 0.26% over 2020, Angela Vickery said at the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit's February board of health meeting.
This comes despite pressures related to wages, benefits and contract increases, Vickery noted, but there were also decreased expenditures on such things as office supplies, travel and renovation costs.
The increase means an additional $53,000 in the $20,597,756 budget.
The draft budget was approved, following which Vickery presented what she termed a Reader's Digest version of her unaudited financial statement for December, which showed a surplus of about $700,000. Part of the reason for this was the pandemic-forced cancellation of expenditures related to programming that could not go on this year and the one-time $773,300 received from the province as mitigation funding.
Municipal contributions to the health unit will come from the three member municipalities - $230,427 from the County of Northumberland, along with $204,503 from the City of Kawartha Lakes and $46,351 from the County of Haliburton.