About 80,000 public servants in Ontario have made the Sunshine List this year, the annual salary disclosure of all public employees who make more than $100,000. That figure is up 10 per cent from last year, though just under 67,000 make less than $150,000.
I like the list for its ease of use, even if the only reason would be to give us something to write about for a week.
The idea is that bloated salaries of high-ranking individuals of hospitals, or the president of Ontario Power Generation who topped the list with $1.8 million, are supposed to be very transparent. Shouldn't taxpayers be able ask if they can get somebody just as qualified and who will do as good of a job for $1.5 million? Or $1 million even.
I made mention of hospital CEOs because the only other public sector employee to break the million dollar barrier was one.
The Sunshine List is something I miss about Ontario. I remember it being a real big deal in college and working for papers there. I recall a Friday recap of our college paper, with the end of the meeting concluding with one of my professors clapping his hands, kind of like a gavel, and announcing, "Sunshine List next week. Let's get ready for that!"
The release of the Sunshine List is an event, and if Ontario wasn't quite so far down the economic pooper, it would probably have a red carpet rolled out for it. It's a little party for newsrooms. We like to report all the obscene salaries, but I'm not sure if anybody else cares. I wouldn't bring up the Sunshine List out for dinner with my friends, but if I were out with my journalism class buddies, we could talk about that thing through appetizers, dinner and a couple of drinks afterward.
I checked in to see if any of my college teachers are over the $100,000 mark. One of my journalism profs I see just broke the $100,000 barrier by $814.67. Good for her. It proves what they told us back in college: there is money to be made in the media world.
Saskatchewan has the Crown's Payee Disclosure Report, which I must have missed last June. It might benefit from a sexier name. It goes a step further, disclosing all salaries as low as $50,000.
His salary still wasn't really hidden. In an article from the StarPhoenix from 2011, it said Watson received $129,711 in his partial year with SaskPower, receiving $372,952 that same year from his previous post as CEO of SaskTel. What exactly does Tom Mitchell, the Ontario Power CEO, really do for that extra $1.2 million or so? That's a question Ontarians should ask. Maybe Watson just doesn't know his worth and should ask for a modest pay bump to get him in line with industry standards. More likely, Mitchell's salary is just gross hyperbole.
Mitchell is the highest paid public sector employee in Ontario, but I wonder how Watson ranks on the Saskatchewan list. Who is the highest paid public employee in Saskatchewan?
I have June to look forward to in order to figure that one out.
