BIG EARNERS AT CITY HALL
CAO Colucci tops Sunshine List with $247K salary
Windsor’s chief administrator and police chief ranked No. 1 and 2 for city hall earnings in 2017, when 81 per cent of the 596 employees making $100,000 or more were police and fire personnel. City of Windsor CAO Onorio Colucci took home $247,144 plus taxable benefits worth $10,984, compared to a $235,161 salary and $10,083 in benefits the previous year. That $12,884 raise represents a 5.3 per cent increase. Chief Al Frederick, whose plan to retire Jan. 30 was forestalled when city council persuaded him to stay another 17 months, earned $252,599 in salary and benefits last year, compared to $225,959 in 2016.
The city released its so-called Sunshine List Friday, the required tally of earnings for anyone making $100,000 or more. While the list has been generally lengthening in recent years as salaries rise with inflation and an increasing number of employees crack the $100,000 mark, last year’s 596 was a drop from 621 in 2016 and 642 in 2015.
City treasurer Joe Mancina attributes the decline to the absence in 2017 of big one-time payouts to employees who otherwise would not have made the list. In previous years there were a number of employees who topped $100,000 because of pay equity rulings and other one-time payouts.
“So you see the number in 2017 is coming down,” said Mancina. One employee on the list who’s there because of a one-time payout is painter Daniel Gendreau, who last year won an arbitration fight to win back his old job with retroactive pay after the city eliminated it, forcing Gendreau to work a lower-paid job. His earnings totalled $117,045 in 2017.
Out of about 600 Windsor police employees, 361 made the list, including dozens of constables. Their earnings ranged from just over $100,000 to $143,294. Deputy Chief Rick Derus, whose contract was recently not renewed, received $214,439. Mancina said overtime and contract duties for private firms whose pay flows through the police service, increase their income beyond their base salary. “The listing is not necessarily reflective of base wages, that’s not what it is, because it could include overtime, it could include retroactive payments, it could include pay assignments (when they’re paid extra to do a higher-grade job), things of a one-time nature.” The extra income that comes from overtime may explain why some Windsor fire staff, such as Chief Fire Prevention Officer John Lee, who often attends fire scenes after hours to speak to media, made more ($156,450) than Chief Stephen Laforet ($153,424). Fire personnel on the list numbered about 123, out of 304 total employees. Excluding fire and police, there were 112 city employees on the list out of a total workforce of about 2,175.
Mancina explained the CEO’s increased pay was due to a normal salary increase in accordance with his employment contract, which provides for merit-based increases. Other top city hall bureaucrats enjoying increases are city solicitor Shelby Askin Hager ($179,827 to $186,878), city engineer Mark Winterton ($177,695 to $181,795), Airport and tunnel CEO Carolyn Brown ($163,453 to $186,404), Windsor Public Library CEO Kitty Pope ($147,026 to $148,823) and Huron Lodge longterm care executive director Alina Sirbu ($142,857 to $151,812). Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens is the only politician on the City of Windsor list, though the $109,928 reflects only what he was paid for his city duties. The mayor’s total compensation for the year was $174,289, when his pay to sit on various boards, particularly boards associated with Enwin, are counted.
Coun. Bill Marra, meanwhile, cracked the $100,000 mark as a vice-president at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, where he earned $166,380. He also received almost $40,000 from the city, bringing his total public-sector pay to about $206,000. Experiencing a drop in income were Commissioner of Development and Health Jelena Payne, whose pay and benefits dropped from $207,110 in 2016 to $205,514 last year. City Clerk Valerie Critchley also was paid less, $205,514 compared to $211,944. City planner Thom Hunt’s compensation also dropped, from $148,373 to $147,036. Mancina explained the decreases were caused by previous one-time payments in 2016 that didn’t happen in 2017. The salary disclosures are simply based on what’s reported on an employee’s T4 slip, he said.
Enwin Utilities did not release a list of all its employees making at least $100,000 but did disclose Friday the 2017 salaries of its executives. CEO Helga Reidel earned salary and benefits totalling $264,809, vice-president of water operations Garry Rossi made $188,551, chief financial officer Byron Thompson made $163,076, chief operating officer John Wladarski made $224,531 and vice-president of corporate services Victoria Zuber made $243,573. Mancina, who was promoted to city treasurer in April 2016, received salary and benefits totalling $173,119 last year.
He noted that the legislation for public disclosure of salaries has been around since 1996. “That’s 22 years ago since that was first enacted and that threshold has not changed,” said Mancina, explaining that if inflation was taken into consideration, a $100,000 salary in 1996 translates to a $152,000 currently.
The listing is not necessarily reflective of base wages, that’s not what it is, because it could include overtime.
Almost two years after one of the most powerful and highly paid leaders in local health care was terminated from his job, he remains the top earner at the agency he once led.
The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network paid ex-CEO Gary Switzer $289,900 last year, which was more than $52,000 above what it paid its actual CEO, Ralph Ganter ($237,723.74), according to the province’s latest Sunshine List figures released Friday. There’s never been any explanation by the LHIN as to Switzer’s sudden departure in May 2016. When asked last year how the local LHIN’s first chief executive officer was still able to pull in his top executive pay after being shown the door, board chairman Martin Girash told The Star: “That’s a good question.”
Since 1996, the Sunshine List — Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act — has made it law that all organizations receiving provincial public funding must release the names, positions, salaries and taxable benefits of employees who get paid at least $100,000 a year. Health care got a lot of sunshine in Windsor in 2017, with Windsor Regional Hospital president and CEO David Musyj the top local earner on the list, with a total in- come of $444,428.59 ($430,941.67 salary plus $13,486.92 in taxable benefits). It was a healthy hike over the $423,190.46 Musyj earned the previous year.
A substantial number of nurses jumped into Sunshine territory in 2017 at Windsor Regional Hospital, where the total reported figure climbed from 241 to 315, among them 197 members of the Ontario Nurses’ Association. Hospital COO and chief nursing executive Karen McCullough earned $267,953.74. Among more than 600 Sunshine listers at the University of Windsor, more than 40 earned $200,000 or more in 2017, with president Alan Wildeman at the top with $401,675.20 ($360,275.04 salary and $41,400.16 in taxable benefits). Provost Douglas Kneale, who becomes interim university president when Wildeman retires June 30, earned $273,987.56 in 2017. St. Clair College president Patti France broke $300,000 last year ($300,160.08 salary; $417.42 taxable benefits), as did Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare president and CEO Janice Kaffer in salary ($300,007.69 — same as in 2015), but with taxable benefits added, Kaffer’s 2017 earnings were $311,780.14. Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board director of education Paul Picard had a bigger 2017 salary — $224,369.24 — than his counterpart at the much bigger public board. But Greater Essex District School Board director of education Erin Kelly’s $207,444.65 salary got a big additional boost in taxable benefits — $75,929.35, compared to Picard’s $1,500.
In fact, 10 senior administrators at the public board each received 2017 taxable benefit packages in excess of $75,000, while six others earned benefit packages exceeding $50,000 each. Board vice-chairmanRonLeClairsaidtheyrepresent payouts to eliminate some long-term liability benefits covering non-union bargaining units. Le Clair said the $4.5 million in payout costs, all covered by the province, help eliminate about $21 million in long-term liabilities.
Many elementary teachers have begun earning $100,000 salaries, but one local public grade school teacher last year pocketed almost $154,000, close to what an education superintendent makes in salary. While unable to comment on specific individuals, Le Clair said it was likely a teacher enrolled in the “four over five program” — in which teachers are paid less over four years in order to take a paid fifth year off. Sometimes, he said, that teacher decides to stay and teach in the fifth year instead. Local Ontario court judges earned about $295,000 each last year, while provincial Crown attorney Nat Bernardon’s total 2017 income was just over $221,000. As for Switzer, the LHIN’s former CEO, “we would have changed this if we could have — it’s a done deal,” said Girash. He said Switzer was one of the first LHIN executives hired in Ontario in 2006, and when “the organization decided on going in a different direction,” its top executive was terminated and his original contract had to be honoured.
“This type of provision is historical, there are only a few of them left — you just have to ride them out,” said Girash.
Head’s up, folks — Switzer makes one final appearance on the local LHIN’s Sunshine List next year.