Provincial cuts will cost Kingston about $1 million in provincial funding this year, with greater losses expected in the future, according to a report from the city’s senior bureaucrat.

The report, to be presented to city council on Tuesday night, outlines the known changes the provincial government has announced so far.

On May 29, the same day the provincial budget received royal assent, the Ontario government announced it was backing off planned funding cuts to public health, paramedic and child care services in 2019. That came after complaints from municipal governments that the funding changes were announced after many had already set their 2019 spending plans.

But in hitting the pause button on 2019 funding cuts, the provincial government also stated there would be more changes coming.

“It is important to note that there is still outstanding information for 2019 which could impact the estimated financial implications included in this report,” wrote Lanie Hurdle, acting chief administrative officer. “Staff are anticipating that the financial impacts for 2020 will most likely be higher than 2019 as they will include paramedics and public health changes.”

The provincial government announced earlier this year a plan to merge public health units, reducing the number in the province from 35 to 10 by 2021.

Details about how those new, larger regional public health units will be funded remain to be determined, but Hurdle wrote that for 2019 the city’s share of the funding for Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health was almost $4 million.

If the provincial government decrees that municipalities will need to pay 40 per cent of public health costs, Hurdle estimated that the cost to Kingston would increase by about $860,000.

Land ambulance services are also in for changes.

The province announced plans in the spring to reorganize the 59 paramedic services, including 52 emergency medical services, six First Nations, Ornge air ambulance patient transfer system, and 22 provincially run dispatch centres, into 10 agencies.

The city’s share of Frontenac Paramedics’ 2019 budget was more than $7.5 million and included a 7.74 per cent increase over last year’s amount.

The paramedics’ total budget for 2019 was $19.3 million, more than $1 million more than 2018.

The city had initially lost $1.2 million of its $14.4 million allocation for 17 different child care and early years programs for 2019. That cut was scaled back to a $400,000, but staff have yet to fully analyze how it, and potential future provincial funding cuts, will affect the programs.

Kingston Police is to receive about $237,000 less in the annual Policing Effectiveness and Modernization grant.

Hurdle wrote it is likely police will see increased costs attached to investigating animal welfare cases after a court decision earlier this year ruled that the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals could no longer enforce the law because it is a private charity.

The impact to many other provincially funded or shared services have yet to be determined or can be covered by municipal reserves, Hurdle wrote.

“The true impacts on the budget will not fully be known until more details on some of these initiatives are known and understood,” Hurdle wrote. “City staff will continue to participate in any future consultations to influence the direction of the legislation.”