West Lincoln sets aside McNally funding decision

By Tristan Marks
NewsNow

West Lincoln deferred a request for funding from McNally House Hospice to budget time after a lengthy discussion at last week’s council meeting.

McNally House board of directors president Murray Bain appeared before council as a delegation to follow-up on a similar request the hospice made by letter.

Council held a similar discussion when they received the correspondence in June.

Bain made a request on behalf of McNally House for $70,000 from the Township to be paid in $14,000 installments over five years.

This money would go to help fund the hospice’s ‘Life and Every Moment’ campaign to build a new 10-bed residential hospice and a new daytime hospice among other expansions.

He emphasized that this investment would benefit the people of West Lincoln as McNally House Hospice offers a free service to residents across West Niagara and beyond.

While councillors by and large said they support hospice service, most noted that the Township did not need the extra tax burden.

Coun. Mike Rehner kicked off the discussion by noting that the Niagara Region already committed to a similar request from McNally House. He also added that West Lincoln’s tax levy already has a lot to contend with in both paying off its recreational centre and contributing to the WLMH fund.

Rehner also said that committing to an investment now would be putting the cart before the horse as the Township has not yet begun its 2022 budget process.

“I would be willing to support bringing it to consideration at tax time,” he said.

Likewise, Coun. William Reilly said that while he supports hospices such as McNally out of his own wallet, he could not justify adding a $70,000 burden to West Lincoln’s tax base.

“I don’t want you to think rejecting this [request] is insulting hospices…but I have a responsibility to the tax payers,” Reilly said to Bain.

Coun. Cheryl Ganann, on the other hand, saw reason to support the request.

Ganann agreed with Bain that it would benefit the residents of West Lincoln to have greater access to hospice services as population cohorts continue to age.

“I think it would be important to get this to budget,” she said.

Coun. Harold Jonker asked if there was a way to have staff investigate how the township could pay for the request.

Treasurer Donna DeFilippis said staff would undertake this investigation as part of the budget process.

Council then voted to move the request to the budget process beginning in the Fall.