These are district figures, including allocated corporate costs, not North Bay’s individual program contributions. The local share includes amounts attributed to unorganized territories. The budget also includes $320,000 for the Healthy Communities Fund and $169,296 for the Board.[2]
DNSSAB publishes financial information. The accountability problem is where decisions happen. It is a separate corporation, and North Bay must pay its lawful share of the requisition. Council cannot simply rewrite that bill.[3] North Bay currently holds six of twelve board seats, including Chair and Vice Chair. That provides substantial representation, but six seats do not guarantee a majority.[4]
What I will move on Council
I will bring a motion requiring DNSSAB and other external requisitions to be broken down by service in North Bay’s budget materials: gross cost, provincial and federal funding, North Bay’s contribution, administration, service delivered and results achieved.
Council should debate each service publicly and record its position before the relevant external budget is adopted. Residents should see what their representatives requested, how they voted and what changed. Those votes would guide our advocacy; they would not cancel a lawful payment obligation.
Changing our own budget presentation does not require provincial restructuring approval. Obtaining additional information will require cooperation from the organizations holding it.
What I will move if appointed to the DNSSAB board
Put a name to every vote. DNSSAB already allows any board member to request a recorded vote. I will use that right on every public vote involving budgets, contracts, service changes or policy, so each member’s vote is recorded by name in the minutes. I will also move to make recorded votes automatic and publish them in a searchable register organized by member, issue and date. Residents should be able to see what was approved, what it costs, and how each of North Bay’s six representatives voted.
Corporate Services has a $4,209,385 budget, already allocated across programs.[2] I will move to publish those allocations in detail: each administrative role, contract and shared service, the programs charged, and the basis for dividing the cost.
Every program should have a clear budget and a named executive responsible for results. Where administrative functions overlap with City services, publish the comparison and the cost of combining them. Shared services should demonstrate their value. Moving an expense into another column does not reduce it.
Northern Pines has operated 60 transitional and supportive housing units for several years.
No outcome data has been published.
I will move that DNSSAB report annually, for Northern Pines and every housing program it funds: units and beds, people served, cost per person housed, how many moved to permanent housing, and how many were still housed twelve months later.
Count the cost of ambulance offload delays
Nipissing paramedics responded to 18,954 emergency 911 calls in 2025.[5] When a crew remains at an emergency department waiting to transfer patient care, that crew is unavailable for another call. Hospital handover and wider health-system capacity affect the ambulance service that municipal taxpayers help fund.
DNSSAB and North Bay Regional Health Centre introduced Fit2Sit to release eligible patients into hospital care sooner.[6] Residents should be able to see whether measures like this are restoring ambulance availability.
I will seek a joint public report from DNSSAB, the hospital and Ontario Health covering the previous full year and current year to date, followed by quarterly updates. It should publish:
Time from ambulance arrival to transfer of care, with routine handover and delay clearly distinguished.
Ambulance hours and paramedic staff hours occupied by delays, reported separately.
The value of paid crew time tied up, calculated using actual staffing costs.
Additional overtime and replacement coverage attributable to delays, with related provincial funding identified.
A reduction target, a deadline and the organization responsible for each action.
The public documents reviewed do not establish a reliable annual local dollar cost. That figure needs to be disclosed and checked. Crew time already budgeted and additional spending must be reported separately, without double counting. A hospital bottleneck should not disappear into an ambulance levy.
What I will advocate for over time
Ontario Works: The Province already funds financial assistance fully. DNSSAB budgets $16,590,711 for that assistance in 2026, with no municipal contribution. Municipalities still contribute $2,759,025 to program delivery.[2] Under current regulations, the Ministry is the delivery agent and DNSSAB is a delivery partner.[7] I will advocate for the Province to assume the remaining core eligibility and payment-administration costs. Any locally chosen additional supports should have their own visible budget.
Housing, homelessness and children’s services: I will seek provincial designation of North Bay as its own service manager, with the corresponding funding and responsibilities. The proposal must show staffing, assets, liabilities, transition costs and effects on neighbouring communities before a transfer is agreed. Residents should know who can make a decision and who must answer for the outcome.
Paramedic services: Keep coordinated deployment across Nipissing, with a distinct budget, transparent cost-sharing and clear operational accountability. Ambulances must continue to cross municipal boundaries when people need them.
Restructuring requires provincial approval and negotiation.[3] Council can begin the reporting and scrutiny reforms while that work proceeds.
Sources and verification notes
Prepared September 28, 2026. Amounts are approved budget figures, not final actual expenditures.
City of North Bay, 2026 Operating Budget, account 6055 DNSSAB. The City’s contribution rises from $14,480,058 to $15,011,777.
DNSSAB, January 28, 2026 Approved Budget, printed pages 6, 9, 12, 18, 20, 21 and 23. Department totals include the program-delivery lines. Corporate Services costs are allocated across programs and must not be added again.
District Social Services Administration Boards Act, especially sections 2, 3, 4, 6 and 11. Section 6(2) requires payment of the lawful municipal share. Internal City scrutiny does not create a veto over that obligation.
DNSSAB current board roster and Procedure By-law 2, sections 17–21. Decisions require a simple majority of votes cast; tied motions fail. Board composition can change following an election.
DNSSAB 2025 Annual Report, printed page 12. The 18,954 figure is district-wide emergency calls, not hospital arrivals or offload-delay incidents.
DNSSAB Paramedic Services, Fit2Sit. The page describes the June 2023 initiative and intended benefits; it does not establish current measured effectiveness.
Ontario Regulation 136/98, section 1 and Schedule 1, item 40. The current regulation names the Ministry as delivery agent and DNSSAB as delivery partner. The current consolidation date should not be presented as the date Nipissing individually changed roles.
Limits relevant to publication
The table reproduces the four published departmental totals. It is not a reconciliation of DNSSAB’s entire gross organizational budget. North Bay’s exact contribution to each service was not verified, so none was invented by applying one uniform percentage.
DNSSAB’s “municipal share” reporting includes a share attributed to territories without municipal organization. The approved apportionment distinguishes the $24,186,394 municipal levy from $699,058 for those territories. See approved apportionment, Appendix A, page 20. Paramedic cost-sharing is treated differently, another reason not to apply North Bay’s overall percentage uniformly.
Corporate and program-delivery costs cannot all be treated as removable overhead. They include services necessary to deliver programs. A transfer or consolidation needs a costed operating model.
No verified annual local offload-delay dollar total or sufficient published local hours-and-cost dataset was located in this review. The NBRHC financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2026, DNSSAB’s 2026 budget and 2025 annual report do not establish that figure. This is a research limit, not evidence that the cost is zero or that internal records do not exist.
A defensible delay-cost report should distinguish the accounting value of existing staff time from incremental overtime and replacement coverage. Those values cannot simply be added if doing so counts the same expense twice. Releasing a regularly paid crew improves available service capacity without necessarily reducing payroll.
The proposed deadlines, reporting obligations and structural changes are policy commitments requiring the relevant Council or board approvals. No unilateral power for an individual councillor is claimed.
