Sun shines on top earners

More than 5,000 on list in Waterloo Region

WATERLOO REGION — More than 5,000 public-sector workers in Waterloo Region made the province’s Sunshine List of people earning at least $100,000, including hundreds of police officers, firefighters and teachers.

Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, is once again the highest-paid among public employees in the region. Turok earned $521,578 in salary and benefits in 2017; he ranked 47th in the province, which listed more than 131,700 public sector employees earning six figures. Turok and Perimeter faculty member Davide Gaiotto were both among the top 10 public-sector earners in the region.

The province released its 2017 Sunshine List, which discloses the salaries of all public employees earning $100,000 or more, on Friday. The list requires all organizations that receive provincial funding to disclose the salaries of employees earning at least $100,000.

Locally 5,022 people made the list. Top earners include the heads of two local research institutes, the heads of two of the three local hospitals and the local health integration network, and the presidents of Conestoga College and the two universities.

Local universities and institutes figure

prominently on the list; Conestoga College’s president John Tibbits pulled in more than the presidents of either of the two local universities, with total compensation worth $411,109. Conestoga had 104 employees on the Sunshine List.

The employer with the largest number of employees on the Sunshine List was the University of Waterloo, which had 1,450 employees pulling in a salary of at least $100,000 a year. The top earner was president Feridun Hamdullahpur, who earned $403,329 in compensation, followed by Raymond Laflamme, the director of the Institute for Quantum Computing, with $317,514.

Although the list originally was dominated by chief executives, doctors and university professors when it was introduced in 1996, it now includes

many people in more everyday jobs, including front-line police officers, firefighters, schoolteachers and paramedics.

For example, the list of public employees in the region includes 34 paramedics paid from $149,212 to $101,655, and two Grand River Transit bus drivers whose total compensation was $103,311 and

$100,692. It also includes 91 Catholic schoolteachers and 61 teachers from the Waterloo Region District School Board, and more than 250 firefighters and fire prevention officers working in the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge earning as much as $128,872.

Waterloo Region Police had 641 employees on the Sunshine List, a larger number than either Wilfrid Laurier University or either school board. Chief Bryan Larkin was the highest paid police official, with total compensation of $295,415, but the list also included 435 police constables, who received compensation ranging from $147,762 to $100,599. The police service employs a total of 774 officers, including supervisors.

Wilfrid Laurier University had 603 employees on the Sunshine List, topped by outgoing president Max Blouw, whose total compensation was $386,863.

The highest-paid municipal public servant in 2017 was Michael Murray, chief administrator at the Region of Waterloo, whose 2017 compensation was $292,815. Next highest was Dr. Liana Nolan, who heads the region’s public health department, with compensation of $290,823. The region had 311 employees on the list.

Kitchener had 294 people, topped by chief administrator Dan Chapman, who took home $221,723. Cambridge had 170 employees on the list, headed by city manager Gary Dyke who earned $244,106, while Waterloo had 157, topped by chief administrator Tim Anderson, who took home $212,220.

The full list can be seen online by searching for “Ontario public salary disclosure” or going to the province’s website.