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The public disclosure that provincial public servants dread and armchair critics love to dissect landed this week.
The Public Sector Disclosure Act 1996, better known as the Sunshine List, is the annual tally of public servants who made $100,000 or more in the previous year. The list names employees who earn over that threshold with the city and province, Crown agencies, hospitals, boards of public health, 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 Ottawa Public Library and Ottawa Police Service employees. In 2022, 5,831 city employees and elected officials were on the list.
Of the city employees on the 2023 list, almost half are first responders including police officers, firefighters and paramedics, according to a memo to city council from Lynne Curle, the city’s acting chief human resources officer. Excluding Ottawa Police Service and Ottawa Public Library employees, there are 3,913 city workers on the list.
About 32 per cent of the city employees on the list have a base salary less than $100,000, but are on the list because of retroactive payments, overtime vacation cash-outs, banked overtime cash-out and salary continuance for those who have left the city.
Since the Sunshine Act 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 was updated to account for inflation, it would now be $174,886.36. If the disclosure threshold was 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 these days. The list now includes not only top officials and administrators, but thousands of teachers, police officers, nurses and mid-level managers.
Want to know if your kid’s teacher or the cop who lives down the block made the list? Visit ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure
In 2023, hospitals, municipalities and services and the post-secondary sector combined represented approximately 80 per cent of the growth of the list, according to the province.
Curle added that under the legislation, the information has to be provided in a prescribed manner. The city can’t provide a specific breakdown showing how salary was determined; disclose what specific benefits were provided to staff or produce a report that differs from the approved format specified under the act.
Here’s what some of Ottawa’s highest profile faces earned last year:
- Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe made $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
- Ottawa’s medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches 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 hospitals sector:
- The Ottawa Hospital president Cameron Love made $647,124, plus $16,567 in taxable benefits
- Dr. Virginia Roth, the Ottawa Hospital’s chief of staff, 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 made $329,999.94 plus $1,308.16 in taxable benefits
- The Royal’s interim president Cal Crocker earned $310,570.20, plus $1,472.39 in taxable benefits
- The Montfort Hospital’s president Dominic Giroux earned $167,212.10, plus $86.10 in taxable benefits
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 departed at the end of August for the University of British Columbia, earned $375,757.86 plus $6,114.28 in taxable benefits
- Algonquin College president Claude Brulé earned $356,970.98, plus $9,896.91 in taxable benefits
At local school boards:
- Pino Buffone, who became director of education at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board in September, made $110,900.22 plus $5,000 in taxable benefits, as well as $151,452.04 plus $100.24 from his previous posting at the Renfrew County District School Board
- Tom D’Amico, the director of education at the Ottawa Catholic School Board, made $299,438.79 plus $100.24 in taxable benefits
- Sylvie Tremblay, director of education at Conseil des Écoles Publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario (French language public board) made $249,261 with no taxable benefits
- Marc Bertrand, director of education Conseil des Écoles Catholiques du Centre-Est (French Catholic board) made $264,579 plus $6,000 in taxable benefits
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