Belleville cuts Southeast Public Health’s 2026 budget increase from 3% to 0% in a 7-2 vote

Southeast Public Health (SEPH) was created in January 2025 when the Ford government merged 3 public health units:

• Hastings Prince Edward Public Health
• Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Public Health
• Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit

Provincial legislation requires all member municipalities to pay their share of what the Board of Health deems necessary to deliver mandated public health programs. SEPH public health board asked Belleville for a 5% increase for a total contribution of $1.4 million as part of the 2026 Belleville Operating Budget.

A budget amendment introduced by Councillor Kelly Henderson to reduce the units budget increase to 3% was supported unanimously in response to concerns that newly formed regional health unit had not produced the financial savings and efficiencies as suggested.

The Ford government has been defunding public health – provincial funding increases (often 1% per year) are not keeping up with inflation and population growth. SEPH has adopted a phased-approach over the next 5 years to shift from a traditional 75/25 funding ratio split to 67.5 per cent provincial and 32.5 per cent municipal funding in order to qualify for $4.3 million in provincial “merger funding” or “levy harmonization” grants.

This comes after the Ford government reverted to the 75/25 split following heavy pushback to their proposal to shift to a 70/30 (and in some cases 60/40) split in 2019 to save the province roughly $200 million per year.

Councillor Henderson introduced the motion

During the budget process, I had initially asked for the Southeast Public Health budget request to be reduced from 5 to 3%. That was an increase over and above the previous year. And I did so over their lack of transparency when I had made a simple request for some key financial information. The budget item reduction was unanimously supported by everyone and I thank you all for that.

The very following day after our budget meeting, the Southeast Public Health announced that they had a $3.6 million surplus as a result of onetime funding from the province. This was an excerpt from their meeting and a resolution relating to the surplus:

“2025 financial results indicate that the Southeast Public Health is in a favorable financial position. Excluding merger related activities, revenues were above plan due to an additional onetime funding while expenses were below plan largely because eligible costs were appropriately charged to the voluntary merger budget. This has resulted in a projected surplus of approximately $3.6 million which would be transferred to the reserves to support future financial sustainability.”

Again, the lack of transparency twice within 48 hours was astounding. They knew they had the funding and the surplus. They didn’t adjust their budget ask to the city, nor did they disclose the surplus to council beforehand so that we could make an informed decision and properly balance the interests of the the Belleville taxpayers. This in addition to the already questionable results of their merger, I question them, but that’s a topic. I mean, we’ll have it again, I’m sure.

I suppose that what I found most offensive by the Southeast Public Health was not – I’m speaking of their staff generally. Their refusal to disclose key financial information, thereby telling the residents of Belleville “really, it’s none of their business how they spend the money that they make us collect”. It’s imperative that we enforce transparency and accountability. As a result of this lack of disclosure, on March the 11th, 2026 at 2:13 p.m., I filed a Freedom of Information request on various line items of their budget and these are the same questions I had that they did not disclose previously.

I’m asking for your support today on this motion to reduce their budget increase to zero and divert the additional 3% increase that we originally agreed upon into our city of Belleville tax stabilization fund. I think it’s time we sent the Southeast Public Health Unit a fair fairly clear message that we expect transparency and accountability when it comes to their budget and that they really have no right or any business coming to the city of Belleville residents asking for an increase when they’re sitting in a multi-million dollar surplus position.

Councillor Kelly Henderson

Councillor Carr asked if the $3.6M was above the provincial stabilization funding

I’ll pose a question and maybe I don’t know who can answer it because obviously we’re not getting some clear answers from public health. Is the $3.6 million that they’re reporting, is that over and above the provincial stabilization funding that they’ve received?

The specifics wouldn’t be able to comment on necessarily for the Southeast Health Unit. I think from the description it seems to be over and above, however it identifies some utilization of one-time funding which would be mitigation for some of their expenditures, which I assume would buffer the surplus. I think the best approach, and we’ve had some discussions the health unit had identified open communication – looking to improve that – would be to have them back in the future to give us some updates on amalgamation where we’d be able to identify and ask some of those questions.

Director of Finance