On Monday, council passed out the final round of cash for this year through its Milton Community Fund, which is used to distribute $350,000 annually to community groups.

However, left off the list this year was Milton District Hospital, which had applied for $93,000 to purchase various surgical and diagnostic tools. It’s the first time the hospital has received no funding since the fund was established in 2001.

The hospital had received about 14 per cent of the $3.3 million the Town has distributed over the previous seven years.

Council was told in a staff report Monday that the hospital’s request “was not seen as a funding priority as the equipment utilization and benefit to patients at the Milton District Hospital was not clearly defined.”

However, Del Oxford, who chairs the citizen-led Community Services Advisory Committee (CSAC) that reviews applications for the funding, said the problem this year was that the hospital didn’t prioritize which equipment was most important.

If it had done so, the Town might have been able to provide it with partial funding for some of the requested equipment, he explained.

Council last year reduced the Milton Community Fund by $150,000 in order to put more slot revenue into other areas. A further $100,000 from the fund was set aside this year and for the next four years for the proposed arts and entertainment centre, scheduled to be built by 2013.

Despite the reduction in funding, Ward 1 Councillor Brian Penman, who also acts as vice-chair of the Milton District Hospital Foundation, warned against seeing this as a prioritization of arts over health.

“To pit one community need against another...I’m not going to go there,” he said. “A community at any given time has many different needs, and voices behind those needs. I’m not going to bite that one is more important than the other.”

Though this is the first time the hospital hasn’t received funding, it wasn’t the only one missing out. Overall, more than 30 groups applied for almost $650,000 to the Town this past fall. Of that list, 20 will receive money totaling about $190,000.

Regional Councillor Colin Best, one of two councillors on the CSAC committee, said many deserving groups often miss out and the hospital was one of them this year.

He added that provided ongoing funding to the hospital isn’t a Town responsibility as it falls under the jurisdiction of the Province.

Ward 3 Councillor Jan Mowbray, who had previously sat on the CSAC committee for five years, said the committee often debated whether it was appropriate to provide funding to the hospital as it already receives government funding, something for which other local groups might not be eligible.

The current committee is probably asking those same questions, she added.

Tim Foran can be reached at tforan@miltoncanadianchampion.com .