Cabinet ministers attending the upcoming Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa will get a request from the chair of the District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board.
Mark King, who is also a North Bay city councillor, will make the case as to why the DSSABs in the north should manage the employment services in their respective areas.
King says there’s a need for standardization and uses North Bay as an example where there are at least 17 employment delivery agents.
“What you end up with are a bunch of employment programs that are watered down,” King said.
“You have people going in different directions without an idea of where they need to go.”
King says the local DSSAB has the expertise to manage the various services.
He says a staff statistician has more information at the ready than anyone in the city and that includes the resources at North Bay City Hall.
The Nipissing DSSAB is not the only service board making a pitch for management control of employment services.
King says it’s something the boards in the north continue to pursue as locally, a brief is being prepared that will be given to key government officials and ministers before the start of the AMO conference.
King says once everyone has looked at the brief he and others will have a chance to meet with the key ministers to, as he puts it, “see if there’s an interest to move it that way.”
AMO runs from August 19th through the 22nd.
(With files from Rocco Frangione)