Why Waterloo Region voted to rethink discretionary benefit spending

Regional councillor Geoff Lorentz says the region needs to "think outside the box" to reduce the cost of social assistance discretionary benefits, as council voted to cap the region's spending last week.

Waterloo region offers extra money to thoseon Ontario Works, which helps cover items not covered by the province such as eyeglasses or seniors' dental care:two areas where expenses were "going through the roof."

"Last year the region put in $600,000 extra, from a tax stabilization fund, and this year staff is recommending the same thing,"Lorentztold CBC's The Morning Edition host, Craig Norris, Wednesday.

• LISTEN to Geoff Lorentzinterview on The Morning Edition

However, after the region held an open forum, with local agencies that help those on provincial assistance, councillorsdetermined that this measure was unsustainable.

Instead, regional officials approved an additional $400,000 for 2017 and will review the matter again in June.

"Every year it seems that our numbers are constant and we are not getting people off the system, we are not finding jobs for people that are ready to work and so we need to take a second look at our operations," he said.

Regional staff are in support of finding more economical solutions. What those innovative answers may be isstill not clear to Lorentz, but he is confident that they need to go back to the drawing board.

"There is a real opportunity to hit the pause button and refresh tosee if we can look at different things that maybe we haven't tried ina while or never tried before," he said.