By Greg Nikkel
Sun Country Health Region employees will begin to pay for their parking spots on Sunday, Feb. 7, if they park at a health care facility when they have a shift.
In a memo to all employees sent out on Dec. 30, Sun Country management noted they are expecting financial challenges in 2016, and will use the parking fees to do maintenance and provide plug-ins on their parking lots.
“The collection of parking fees to cover most of the costs of maintaining parking lots and to provide electrical plug-ins during cold weather is one method of gaining additional revenues without reducing level of programs or public services,” said the memo in part.
The fees will be $1 per employee per shift, regardless of the length of the shift.
“We can’t always do as much as we need to with programs and services. When we may be challenged to do a little more, you really only have two options. You reduce expenses or you increase revenues,” said John Knoch, vice-president of corporate and finance for the Sun Country Health Region.
“This was one revenue stream we were considering,” he added, noting the revenues can help with the costs of maintaining parking lots at all 28 facilities in Sun Country. Those costs include snow removal, electrical plug-ins and paving or asphalt repairs.
Citing health regions in centres like Saskatoon and Regina, he notes that parking costs for employees can be high on a daily basis, pointing to the Regina General Hospital as one example where parking is often a challenge.
“They pay quite a bit for parking. We’re not looking at trying to get that kind of revenue. What we’re trying to do is have other sources of revenue,” said Knoch.
“We regret the need to introduce this policy. However, during a time of budget restraint, SCHR chooses to use revenue from the Ministry of Health for health care services rather than to maintain parking lots,” explained the memo.
Asked if the unions gave any response to the health region about this fee, Knoch noted reps of all three unions were told about the fee in meetings with administrators, including CUPE, SUN and HSAS. “For the most part they were non-committal,” he said.
Sharon Seitz, president of Local 5999 of CUPE, said the union has received the memo on the parking fees and members have some concerns, and the union is requesting to have a meeting with the health region to get clarification on those concerns.
“We will be making inquiries as to what the implications of the policy are,” she said, not wanting to offer any more comment on the issue at this time.
“We think we’re in line with how other more rural health regions handle parking. We’ve got 28 sites we have to deal with, and we have to start putting money into parking areas. It’s hard to justify those kind of expenses. When we have to use block funding from the Ministry, it’s a much easier decision,” said Knoch.
The funds collected from the parking fees will be kept separately, and can be used wherever they’re needed in the health region, noting some sites are small and would not generate the funds that may be needed to maintain that parking lot.
“If there’s only two employees at a site, it’s going to take a long time to collect anything,” said Knoch. “We’ll shift the dollars to where they’re needed.”
The memo explained that staff can get a parking authorization form, and new staff members will sign it when they undergo orientation, and this will authorize the health region to collect the fee from their pay cheque.
Asked if an employee chose not to sign this form but to park off-site from the facility they work at, Knoch said, “We’ll respect that if people wish to do this.”
He noted there will be instances where employees walk to work or don’t need parking, but he also pointed out they are on a provincial payroll system, so it’s easy to manage and to keep the fees separate from the health region’s general revenues.
