Algonquin’s president eligible for one hefty raise
Algonquin College’s president could qualify for a raise of as much as $124,000 — a nearly 40 per cent increase — if the college’s board of governors approves a proposed executive compensation program now that the Ontario government has ended its seven-year salary freeze on public sector executives.
The proposal, available online for public review on the college’s website until Feb. 1, represents the maximum salary allowed for the president and was made under the Ontario Broader Public Service Executive Compensation Act, passed in September by the Ontario Legislature.
If Algonquin president Cheryl Jensen were given the full raise, it would push her salary to $445,000 from her current pay of $321,165, a jump of more than 38 per cent.
In practice, no executive at the college will see a raise like that, assured Scott Anderson, executive director of communications, marketing and external relations (and whose salary could also increase if the proposal is approved.)
“I want to avoid the notion that this is what people are going to be paid,” Anderson said. “It gives the board of governors room to move if they need to negotiate salaries in the future. It’s not about giving executives at Algonquin huge raises. That’s just not in the cards.”
Originally, the college had proposed a maximum salary of $494,000 for the president, but posted a revised number Monday morning after receiving feedback, Anderson said.
Last week, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 415, which represents academic staff at the college, wrote to Deb Matthews, minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development, calling the Algonquin proposal “mind-boggling.”
“In this day and age, it just seems incomprehensible to people,” Jack Wilson, vice-president of OPSEU Local 415, said Monday.
Raises for academic staff at the college have been held below 1.8 per cent for the past three years, Wilson said.
“It’s really hard to fathom how they could justify that.”
The Broader Public Service Executive Compensation Act applies to executive pay at all Ontario public service organizations, from school boards to hospitals to universities. The province’s colleges are the first organizations to submit their executive salary proposals.
In its online post, the college says, “In practice, actual executive compensation at Algonquin College is maintained below the potential maximums ... and provides no compensation to executives that is not generally provided in the same manner and relative amount to non-executive managers.”
The college’s proposal also covers its senior vice-president, other vice-presidents and the executive director, communications, marketing and external relations.
Documents provided to the Citizen show proposed executive pay raises at 24 Ontario colleges range from a low of 8.6 per cent at Conestoga College in Kitchener to 54.1 per cent at Mohawk College in Hamilton.
Proposals on other college websites follow a similar format. Under the legislation, the colleges are allowed to choose a minimum of eight similar public sector organizations — “comparators” — and set the president’s maximum salary at or below the “50th percentile” of the comparators. Anderson said Algonquin originally relied on comparators recommended by the consulting firm Mercer.
Algonquin compared itself to four universities: Guelph, York, Waterloo and SAIT — the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary; four health-care facilities: William Osler Health System in Brampton, The Ottawa Hospital, Hamilton Health Science Centre and Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto; and four other “broader public sector” organizations: the LCBO, MaRS innovation centre in Toronto, Toronto’s Pearson airport; and BEHP — a proposed merged utility company in Brampton and Etobicoke.
Algonquin decided to drop the last four comparators after receiving criticism and replaced them with four colleges: Conestoga, Seneca, Humber and Sheridan. The change lowered the proposed maximum salary to $445,000 from the original maximum of $494,000.
The online proposal doesn’t list the salaries of its comparator CEOs, but most are available through Ontario’s “sunshine list.” They range from $400,000 for University of Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur to $722,875 for William Reichman, CEO of Baycrest.
Algonquin has 19,000 students and 1,257 full-time employees, and an operating budget of $300 million. In comparison, The Ottawa Hospital, one of Algonquin’s comparators, has more than 11,000 employees and a budget of nearly $1.3 billion. Its CEO, Jack Kitts, earned $630,485 in 2015.
The Algonquin proposal must be voted on by the board of governors no later than September 2017, Anderson said.