Crown workers’ salaries up 2.2% overall from 2016

REGINA Overall compensation at Saskatchewan’s three largest Crown corporations increased 2.2 per cent over the past year.

The 2017-2018 Crown Investments Corporation of Saskatchewan payee disclosure report, released Monday, shows the total cost of employee salaries at Saskpower and Sasktel went up from the year prior.

Saskpower’s overall compensation cost was $378,404,109, up $7,053,278 or 1.9 per cent, from the year prior. Senior management costs went up significantly higher, with compensation costs rising 19.8 per cent from the year prior.

There are 3,286 employees making at least $50,000 at the Crown corporation, and 1,882 of those make at least $100,000.

The average salary of employees making at least $50,000 is $110,143.

Sasktel’s overall compensation cost was $310,323,744, up $8,815,351 or 2.9 per cent, from the year prior.

Like Saskpower, the cost of senior management went up higher, rising 14.8 per cent from the year prior.

At Sasktel, there are 3,320 people making at least $50,000 — 680 of whom make at least $100,000. The average salary of employees making at least $50,000 is $85,932.

Saskenergy’s total compensation cost was $79,266,312, which is 1.27 per cent higher than the year prior.

Senior management compensation dropped from 2016-17 by 2.8 per cent.

There are 759 employees making at least $50,000 working at Saskenergy — 304 of them making at least $100,000. The average salary of those employees is $95,588.

One of the most significant measures of former premier Brad Wall’s final budget, the 2017-18 budget called for an overall reduction of 3.5 per cent to public sector wages.

The province announced plans to reduce public sector compensation costs by 3.5 per cent to help combat its $1.2-billion deficit.

Wall contended that setting the targeted reduction for the province’s 64,425 public sector workers would save the province $250 million, or roughly 20 per cent of the total deficit figure.

The plan failed, but has not been entirely abandoned: It is a measure that has continuously been brought to at least some of the bargaining tables at which the province is negotiating.

But Monday ’s release of the payee disclosure report is further evidence of how difficult it has been for the province to shrink public sector wages.

Rather than go down, they continue to creep up.

Last year — the first fiscal year where the wage cut was mandated — overall salaries increased almost two per cent. Since the 3.5-percent public sector compensation reduction plan was announced, wages at the province’s three largest Crown corporations have gone up more than four per cent.