EXECUTIVE PAY
Mohawk College President 2015: $260,208.67 Proposed: $267,000 — $401,000 with 20 per cent at risk based on performance Executives 2015: $127,000 to just over $219,000 Proposed: $182,000 — $273,000 with 15 per cent at risk based on performance
staff. “There is no reason why folks shouldn’t get increases as the cost of living goes up. It’s just they really need to think about the numbers. The messaging on this is a problem.”
The union also questions the comparators used to create the salary ranges. Mohawk — unlike some colleges — took the advice of the College Employer Council which used a third party consultant to help determine the comparators.
It looked at wages at Conestoga, Humber, Seneca and Sheridan Colleges. It also looked at the salaries at four Ontario universities and four hospitals including the two of the largest in the province Toronto’s University Health Network and Hamilton Health Sciences.
HHS is the city’s largest employer, has a budget of roughly $1.2 billion and consists of five hospitals, an urgent care centre and a cancer centre.
Mohawk has a budget of around $198.7 million and has fewer than 1,000 full-time staff.
“In many cases, the comparator groups are completely unrealistic,” states a letter to the province from OPSEU Local 240 provided during the public consultation period.
It also questions the need for significant raises:
“We understand that colleges want to hire good people, and our faculty members want good managers too, but no evidence has been provided to us that would indicate that there is a shortage of qualified applicants for these executive positions.”
However, Robb says the pay ranges will help attract and retain top executives pointing out the college lost its last president Rob MacIsaac to HHS. His salary doubled from $322,000 to about $650,000 a year depending on performance when he became the CEO of the hospital network.
“We need to be competitive with other colleges and institutions where we could lose executives,” said Robb. “When you have really good people they tend to get courted. We’d like to keep them here at the college and also be able to attract top talent as well.”
In making the salary changes, the province mandated public consultation.
“The people of Ontario have a right to know how their dollars are being spent and deserve a clear rationale for why executives are paid what they are paid,” said Buchan Terrell. “We want to have a rational, reasonable conversation about compensation to ensure that we can continue to attract the best and brightest to our system, while also managing public dollars responsibly.”
Mohawk did its consultation from the middle of December to the middle of January because that “was the time agreed on by the 24 colleges,” said Robb.
It got 25 responses, including the one from OPSEU.
“On Christmas Day what was I doing, probably not looking at that” said Ondercin-Bourne. “It should be done at a time when more people can participate.”
Horwath agreed: “It doesn’t seem to me like that’s an optimal way to get feedback.”
College Employer Council CEO David Brook said the colleges chose that consultation time because they wanted to make sure they met the province’s deadline to have the salary ranges in place by September. However, he said any college could have done the consultation at another time instead.
Colleges are the first to go through this process. All public institutions including hospitals, school boards and universities will create their own executive salary ranges by September.