Hamilton gets $18.7M more in COVID-19 relief, but faces more tough times in 2021

The province is giving Hamilton another $18.7 million to help it deal with COVID-19 costs, money the mayor says is "absolutely vital" to balancing the books mid-pandemic.

This is especially true given that the pandemic will cost Hamilton an estimated $60 million more in 2021.

Hamilton will receive $18,681,919 of $500 million the province is spending over 444 municipalities, said Donna Skelly, Flamborough-Glanbrook PC MPP, in a media release.

That's on top of federal and provincial money the city has received for transit, social services, and other needs in recent months. The two levels of government distributed $1.39 billion through the Safe Restart Agreement. 

This latest money, the province says, was allocated using municipal assessment data and what proportion of Ontario's COVID-19 cases a municipality is handling. 

Hamilton's share was among the highest.

This money is "help with maintaining the municipal services and vital frontline services people rely on every day," Mayor Fred Eisenberger said in an email.

"As we continue with our 2021 budget discussions, vaccine distribution and ongoing efforts towards fighting the pandemic, it is absolutely vital that we have funding commitments like these to help plan out our continued response."

City staff are reviewing the announcement, he said, and seeing how far it will go to alleviating COVID-19 costs.

Earlier this week, city councillors approved a draft operating budget with a 2.1 per cent increase over last year. That's an increase of $89 more on the average household assessed at $380,000. 

The increase comes as the city is expecting a surplus of $48,885,183. That's partly because of COVID-19 funding from upper levels of government, said Mike Zegarac, the city's head of finance. The surplus is also, in part, because of services that were deferred or temporarily shut down because of the pandemic, including recreation facilities.

But despite help from the feds and the province, the city is looking at a pandemic strain of $60 million on the 2021 budget. The city needs to put aside some money to deal with those pressures, he said. 

While some councillors wanted to trim the budget even more, others said the city is doing well, all things considered.

"The fact that we're even close to 2 per cent is absolutely amazing," said Coun. John-Paul Danko (Ward 8, west Mountain).

As for the provincial help, Skelly said the latest money provides some "stability."

"This funding will give the City of Hamilton the confidence needed to continue providing critical local services while also proceeding with planned projects that will help drive our economic recovery."

Here's what other local municipalities received:

• Haldimand: $635,248.
• Norfolk: $918,556.
• Burlington: $2,860,354.
• Brant: $434,382.
• Brantford: $1,264,892.
• Niagara Region $6,594,635.
• Niagara-on-the-Lake: $427,007.
• Niagara Falls: $1,887,048.
• St. Catharines: $2,941,748.
• Lincoln: $458,968.
• Grimsby: $553,771.
• Fort Erie: $774,113.
• Port Colborne: $505,536.
• Welland: $1,147,788.
• Wainfleet: $158,381.
• West Lincoln: $267,744.