The
top 1,000 employees with the highest package (salary + taxable
benefits) in the Ontario Public Sector Salary Disclosure, the
so-called “Sunshine List”, saw an average increase of almost
$25,000 in 2012 compared to the previous year, an increase of 7.2%,
much higher than the bottom half of the 80,000-strong list which saw
an increase of only 2.2%.
Is
this cause for alarm? Highly paid CEO's are fully in the public
spotlight, and the many many school principals have their pay closely
monitored, but what about the highly paid individuals near, but not
at the top? The data shows that for them, 2012 was a good year.
Every
year since 1996, the Ontario Ministry of Finance has released a list
of all public sector employees who earned more than $100,000 in the
previous year.
Oversight
We can
all see that “Sunshine List” champion Thomas Mitchell, President
& CEO of Ontario Power Generation took a pay cut this year, but
with approaching 100,000 names on the list, more sophisticated,
data-drive oversight is possible.
Government-friendly
observes point out that the average salary on the list has decreased,
just like last year, but that is a red herring. Anyone can add over
9,000 people earning just over $100k to a list with an average salary
of $129k and bring down the average. As the list continues to grow
from the bottom, we can expect the average salary to decline, without
this being any indicator of public fiscal discipline.
Opposition
partisans will lament the increasing growth of the list, 9,000 more
this year and 7,500 the year before. This is again misleading. The
pyramid shape of any organisation tells us that there are more people
as you move down the salary brackets. With a perfectly reasonable
average salary growth at just over 2.5%, 9,600 employees graduated to
the “Sunshine List” this year after having earned around $98k
last year. Probably more than 9,600 employees, currently earning
around $98k will be new additions to the list next year, and more the
year after. Inflation and economic growth will ensure that the list
grows, and the pyramid shape will ensure that it grows faster.
Top
1,000
So who
are these lucky 1,000 who on average made 7.2% more in 2012?
This
year the top 1000 best packages on the list included:
- 583 individuals working in hospitals
- 176 Pathologists
- 50 Chief Executive Officers
- 66 Vice-Presidents (Senior, Executive, etc.)
- 79 Psychiatrists
- 86 employees in electricity
- 56 Vice-Presidents (Senior, Executive, etc.)
- 144 working at Universities
- 100 Professors
Big
raises
Of the
1,000, 737 can be matched exactly by name and organisation type to
last year. 92 of those fortunate souls saw an increase of over 25%!
At the top of the pack was Mohamed Abelaziz Elbestawi, Vice-President
Research/Professor at McMaster University who was reported as paid
salary $266k in 2011 and $506k in 2012! Trung Kien Mai, a
Pathologist at The Ottawa Hospital saw his paid salary move from
$306k in 2011 to $515k in 2012!
Of
those 92 with big raises:
- 83 work in hospitals
- 50 are Pathologists
More
questions
At
this point, this analysis raises more questions than it answers, but
that is to be expected from an analysis of this salary disclosure
data. The Public Salary Disclosure Act can help us find questions,
not answers. What we do know is that:
- Salaries near the top grew substantially
- Those salaries grew much more, even on a % basis than those at the bottom
- Growth was higher than expected given slow economic growth
- Some individuals can be shown to have experienced extraordinary raises
- Pathologists do well, and 2012 was a particularly good year for some
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