The ODA CEO gets paid $426,000 | ODA Financial Transparency starts today!

At the last General Council meeting, a strong message was sent to the board, ODA members want transparency for how our fees are being spent. Today we start at the top, to uncover how the outgoing board members voted to give Frank Bevilacqua, the CEO of the ODA, a raise. At a time when dental offices are struggling with labour costs, and CDCP is keeping most dentists up at night, Mr. Bevilacqua received a raise of 4% to now make his salary $426,000.

For reference the Prime Minister of Canada’s salary is $406,200, and Premier Doug Ford make $208,974.How could one justify his pay raise? Are we happy with how the ODA has managed the CDCP? Would members continue to pay the ODA if membership was not mandatory for CDAnet access?

You may now ask how this information was received. What I can tell you is that the following board members were present, and they were the only ones privileged to this information. Of course, the ODA staff were also present.

1. Maneesh Jain

2. David Brown

3. Jonathan Mayer

4. Brock Nicolucci

5. Edward Busvek

6. Gordan Markic

7. Homa Jammehdiabadi

8. Todd Plexman

9. Andrea Silverman

10. Domenic Trotti

11. Michael Vrbensky

12. Sara Worth

    
    

Not all board members necessarily supported this decision. It is the majority that makes the decisions and the rest have no ability to publicly object. The majority in this case is led by the office of the chair. You will also notice that Janet Leith and Christine Moore were not at this “emergency” board meeting. This meeting was called the last day of the old board’s tenure. This is in poor taste and reeks of cronyism to make sure that Mr. Bevilacqua’s raise was secured. Given how many incumbent board members lost their position, clearly Mr. Bevilacqua wanted to rush this through before his performance could be audited by the new board members. The new board members did not comment on this matter, but they were voted in with a mandate for transparency and accountability.

At the next election in the Spring of 2026, we need to hold these past board members accountable for being complicit in this deceit, just as we did at our last General Council election when we removed Todd Plexman, Dominic Trotti, and Michael Vrbensky. We will keep you posted as to which current directors are actively working for you. We need to stop the gravy train at the ODA and put member dentists ahead of all else.