SHA unanimously votes to accept 2021 capital and operating Budgets – COVID impact unknown

Pending provincial government approval in June, Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) board members have unanimously approved the 2021-22 capital and operating budgets.

During their regular board meeting Friday, May 29, Chief Financial Officer Robbie Peters told the board that the budgets were created prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, so they don’t yet know what the financial impacts may be.

“We don’t have enough information to base our budgets on…we’re just finishing up some April numbers now which we will be using and working with the Ministry of Health to prepare some estimates around what the response to the pandemic cost us. So we’re working through that now.”

Also not included in the budgets are the 2021 economic stimulus funding announced by the provincial goverment for capital projects. In late March, the province announced $3.74 billion in funding to the SHA, an increase of nearly four per cent from the previous year, or nearly $141 million dollars.

Built into the operating budget this year are new investments including $20 million for surgical initiatives to reduce wait times, $15 million for administrative systems replacement in finance, HR, and payroll, $12 million for additional mental health supports, and $8 million for various other projects.

The total budget is about $4 billion, with revenue and expenditures matched to produce a balanced budget. The expenditures are an increase of $115 million over last year, which is 2.9 per cent.

The biggest chunk of the money goes towards staffing salaries, Peters said.

“Our range for salaries is somewhere in that 80 per cent range, so a very significant component of the SHA’s costs are attributed to the compensation side.”

On the capital budget side, there appears to be $7.3 million surplus this year said Vice President of Infrastructure, Andrew Will. Total budget is $131.9 million.

He says the priorities this year include many ongoing projects including the Meadow Lake Lodge long-term care facility with a $15.7 million investment.

Other investments include electrical renewal at $13.4 million, and $15 million for the Victoria Hospital.

There’s no way to know at this point how the COVID-19 pandemic will or has affected the budget, says SHA Chief Executive Officer Scott Livingstone.

“We simply don’t know what COVID is at this time. We do have some of the numbers trickling in from April, but besides some of those direct costs where we know additional equipment and some of the supply costs, we don’t have all of the information we need now, it’s just too early to tell what the longer term consequences might be to our budget.”

Those costs, depending on what they are and how much, could be spread over several future budget cycles.

“I would suspect they’re going to carry over multiple fiscal years, because I don’t think anyone knows if we’re going to be done with this (pandemic) in the next nine months.”