Barrie is — in general — receiving services from Simcoe County at a reasonable cost, the results of a third party review show.
On Wednesday, Sarah Ban, a chartered public accountant at Deloitte announced the results of its annual value for service audit covering the financial relationship between the city and the county at a Barrie council meeting.
“It appears that the city is a net recipient for paramedic services, community services and social housing, wheras it is not a net recipient for long-term care and child services. Provided that Ontario Works is done solely on a caseload allocation, the city of Barrie’s received costs and benefits appear appropriate.”
Earlier this year, Deloitte was engaged by the Barrie to perform a value-for-money service audit covering 2021 through 2023. Last year, the city received about $112 million in services from the county.
According to Ban, the audit was completed in four distinct phases. First, her team investigated Simcoe’s adherence to the municipal services management agreement with Barrie, concluding it was compliant in terms of cost allocations for shared services over the time period.
Second, it considered whether grants and other revenues received by the county were used appropriately and fairly to Barrie and Orillia. Again, the auditing team found the county to be compliant with the agreement in this area.
Third, it compared these results to publicly available data from a similarly sized city and county — Waterloo and Wellington County. In the final stage, Deloitte’s auditing team used this comparative information to make recommendations about future cost-sharing agreements.
“It appears [Simcoe] has lower costs for providing paramedic services, community services and social housing. It scores [about] on average in Ontario Works and children’s services. In addition, it appears that long-term care beds are more accessible in [Simcoe] than in Waterloo and Wellington County.”
“When it comes to social services, it is more funding than expected. But when it goes across to long-term care services it’s less than expected,” Mayor Nuttall said during the question period following Ban’s presentation.
“So, we’re receiving more for shelter beds for the homeless — a problem that is rampant across the country — and less for children and seniors. Is that, overall, accurate?”
“It’s difficult to simplify it to that degree, given the nature of each of those services. Having said that, given our analysis, you are reading it correctly.”
Ban had also presented her results to Simcoe council during its meeting on November 12. In a statement provided by Warden Basil Clarke, he said the findings “point to good value for Barrie taxpayers.”
“Of particular note, Deloitte concluded that the county has delivered quality services at a lower cost than its comparator municipalities for providing paramedic services, community services and social housing. These three service areas make up the majority of the operational costs associated with our shared service agreement with the city of Barrie.”
