Senior school officials’ pay largely secret

Ethics expert questions exemption on compensation disclosure

Alberta is an anomaly in exempting school boards from disclosing the salaries of their top earners, says a Canadian professor and author who is a public policy expert.

Alberta’s first so-called sunshine list gave taxpayers a glimpse at high-earning public sector salaries this year. Absent from the list were employees of school boards and municipalities.

A handful of school district salaries that are disclosed show Alberta’s top-earning school superintendent took home $405,544 last year.

“It’s very strange that (school boards have) been carved out like that. I can’t think of a legitimate reason, particularly when it’s done in other jurisdictions,” said Richard Leblanc, associate professor of law, corporate governance and ethics at Toronto’s York University.

Alberta’ s Public Sector Compensation Transparency Act and accompanying regulations says school districts are“enabled, but not required to disclose the names and compensation paid to employees.”

Similar acts in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia all compel school boards to publish names and salaries of employees earning more than the provincial threshold for making the information public. In Alberta’s case, that’s $105,000 for government staff and $125,000 for agencies, boards and commissions.

The province’s 61 school boards must publish school trustees’ pay and compensation to school district superintendents, secretaries and treasurers, the School Act says.

Edmonton Catholic Schools superintendent Joan Carr is the highest-paid superintendent in the province, according to a list of superintendent pay in Alberta Education’s 2015-16 annual report.

Calgary Board of Education superintendent David Stevenson is second, taking home $396,386 in salary and benefits last year.

The earnings of assistant superintendents and executive directors who work under superintendents are not publicly available.

Of 16 school districts contacted by Postmedia, only the Calgary Board of Education has plans to voluntarily publish a sunshine list.

The province’s largest school district hopes to have a list online by the end of 2016, which will have a threshold similar to the provincial one, Calgary Board of Education spokeswoman Megan Geyer said in an email.

Optional disclosure of salaries rarely works, Leblanc said.

“Why was the option created to begin with? That’s the issue,” he said.

The government wants to respect the autonomy of school board trustees who are elected by the public, Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said in an emailed statement. “For that reason, our government feels school boards are entitled to decide for themselves as to whether or not to disclose,” she said.

Voluntarily disclosing employees’ salaries without workers’ consent might be a breach of privacy, said Bob Barnetson, a professor of labour relations at Athabasca University.

He doesn’t see an “upside” to voluntary disclosure. “I don’t see any obvious rationale for the exclusion given the broad scope of the legislation otherwise,” Barnetson said in an email.

Health and education are the two largest areas of expense for provincial governments, said Leblanc, author of The Handbook of Board Governance.

“It’s one area they should err on the side of transparency and inclusiveness and disclose. The only exception that has been made in the past in very limited cases has been safety, which is police officers,” Leblanc said.

Disclosing pay of top executives should go hand-in-hand with organizations publishing performance metrics so the public can see whether their pay matches their worth, he said. Exorbitant pay or expenses don’t usually come to light unless agencies are required to disclose their expenses, he said.

As for the pay of superintendents, school boards negotiate the contracts based on experience, market conditions and the scope of the job. The benefits can include pension contributions, health expenses, car allowances and other perks.

Both Edmonton Catholic and Edmonton public’s board chairs were unavailable due to the summer break, district spokespeople said.