Municipal Measurements - Does North Bay have a revenue problem?

Recent reports put out by the Fraser Institute and stories in the news have raised the issue of taxation levels by the City of North Bay.  While it is important for politicians to remember that municipal, provincial and federal taxpayers are largely the same person, there does need to be a sufficient source of revenue for each level to cover the responsibilities attached to it.

With that in mind I thought it may be helpful to compare the revenue of the five large urban centres in Northern Ontario.  


The following charts are all based on 2015 numbers taken from the Financial Information Return website for each community.

North Bay had  $139.1 M in revenue for 2015, of which taxation was the largest contributor. 

The following chart shows that although the taxation level per capita for North Bay seems fairly close to the others, the total amount of revenue generated by the city is the lowest of the five.

While each particular stream of revenue should be examined to ensure it is maximized, there were a couple that stood out in the comparison.

User Fees & Service Charges,  Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund and Conditional Grants all seem to be higher in the other centres.  

The reasons for these differences are unknown to me, but it seems like North Bay may have a revenue problem that needs to be tackled.  The North Bay Taxpayers Association may want to take a break from the expense side and ask some questions about revenue.