If Sunshine List’s $100,000 threshold were updated, it would be almost $175,000

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The public revelation that provincial public servants fear and armchair critics love to analyze came this week.

The Public Sector Disclosure Act of 1996, better known as the Sunshine List, is the annual count of public servants who earned $100,000 or more in the previous year. The list names employees who earn more than that threshold at the city and province, Crown agencies, hospitals, public health boards, school boards, universities, colleges and Ontario Power Generation.

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The 2023 list included 5,494 City of Ottawa employees, including elected officials and employees of the Ottawa Public Library and the Ottawa Police Service. In 2022, On the list were 5,831 municipal employees and elected officials.

Of the city employees on the 2023 roster, nearly half are first responders, including police officers, firefighters and paramedics, according to a memo to the city council from Lynne Curle, the city’s interim director of human resources. Excluding the Ottawa Police Service and Ottawa Public Library employees, there are 3,913 city workers on the list.

About 32 percent of city employees on the list have a base salary less than $100,000, but are on the list because of back pay, vacation overtime withdrawals, overtime bank withdrawals and salary continuity for those who They have left the city. .

Since the Sunshine Law was enacted in 1996, there has been no adjustment to the disclosure threshold, said Curle (who earned $159,873.74 plus $510.48 in taxable benefits, according to the list).

“If the $100,000 threshold were updated to account for inflation, it would now be $174,886.36. If the disclosure threshold were adjusted to this amount, only 230 municipal employees would be included on the list.”

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To be fair, $100,000 counts as a solid middle-class salary today. The list now includes not only top officials and administrators, but also thousands of teachers, police officers, nurses and mid-level managers.

Want to know if your child’s teacher or the police officer down the block is on the list? Visit ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure

In 2023, hospitals, municipalities and services and the post-secondary sector combined accounted for about 80 per cent of list growth, according to the province.

Curle added that under the legislation, the information must be provided in the prescribed manner. The city cannot provide a specific breakdown showing how the salary was determined; disclose what specific benefits were provided to staff or produce a report that differs from the approved format specified in the law.

Here’s what some of Ottawa’s biggest faces earned last year:

• Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe earned $198,702.14, plus $644.88 in taxable benefits.
• City Manager Wendy Stephanson earned $403,903.36, plus $8,02.28 in taxable benefits.
• Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs earned $344,400.01, plus $19,920.44 in taxable benefits.
• Paramedic Chief Paul Poirier earned $201,241.53 plus $2,296.98 in taxable benefits.
• Fire Chief Paul Hutt earned $230,902.96, plus $4,221.17 in taxable benefits.
• Dr. Vera Etches, Ottawa’s chief medical officer of health, earned $317,133.27, plus $1,820.72 in taxable benefits.
• Renée Amilcar, the city’s general manager of transit services, earned $330,686.65 plus $7,972.56 in taxable benefits.

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In the hospital sector:

• Ottawa Hospital President Cameron Love earned $647,124, plus $16,567 in taxable benefits.
• Dr. Virginia Roth, chief of staff at The Ottawa Hospital, earned $396,002.24, plus $11,494.84 in taxable benefits.
• Queensway-Carleton Hospital president Dr. Andrew Falconer earned $362,879.80 plus $1,813.20 in taxable benefits.
• CHEO President Alex Munter earned $329,999.94 plus $1,308.16 in taxable benefits.
• Acting Royals Chairman Cal Crocker earned $310,570.20, plus $1,472.39 in taxable profits.
• Montfort Hospital President Dominic Giroux earned $167,212.10, plus $86.10 in taxable profits.

In post-secondary education:

• uOttawa President Jacques Frémont earned $399,616.08 plus $14,400 in taxable benefits
• Carleton University President Benoit-Antoine Bacon, who left in late August for the University of British Columbia, earned $375,757.86 plus $6,114.28 in taxable benefits.
• Claude, president of Algonquin College Brulé earned $356,970.98, plus $9,896.91 in taxable profits

On local school boards:

• Pino Buffone, who became director of education for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board in September, earned $110,900.22 plus $5,000 in taxable benefits, as well as $151,452.04 plus $100.24 from his previous position on the Renfrew County District School Board .
• Tom D’Amico, director of education for the Ottawa Catholic School Board, earned $299,438.79 plus $100.24 in taxable benefits.
• Sylvie Tremblay, director of education at the Conseil des Écoles Publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario (French-language public board), earned $249,261 with no taxable benefits.
• Marc Bertrand, director of education The Conseil des Écoles Catholiques du Center-Est (French Catholic board) earned $264,579 plus $6,000 in taxable benefits.

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