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The number of people on the annual public sector salary disclosure list has ballooned again this year, as annual raises and the effects of inflation on salaries continues to push up the average pay of public sector government workers.
According to experts, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
In 2017, there were a total of 131,742 people on the annual public sector salary disclosure list, which is more commonly known as the “Sunshine List.” The number was a 5.9 per cent jump from the 124,446 people who appeared on the 2016 list.
It was also a massive leap from the approximately 79,000 Ontario public servants who appeared on the Sunshine List in 2012.
“If you think the list is big now, wait,” said Daniel Cohn, a professor in the school of public policy and administration at York University. “The high school teachers are starting to enter the list already. Next year the elementary school teachers will start to enter the list,” he said, referencing expected teacher salary increases.
When the list was first released in 1996 the $100,000 figure encapsulated some of the top earners in the public service. Only 4,576 public service workers were named as part of the exercise, which aimed to bring more transparency to government spending. However, according to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, $1 in 1996 is equal to $1.50 at today’s currency valuation rates. The increase suggests an annual rate of inflation of around 1.87 per cent each year, over the past 22 years.
With the increased dollar value comes increased prices and increased salaries. Contract negotiations by workers and labour unions add to the salary increases, leading to an ever-increasing number of names being added to the government’s annual salary disclosure list.
In June 2017, a contract that was ratified with the Ottawa Police Service will see the salary for a first-class constable increase to $100,417 on July 1, 2019. The increase means, before overtime pay, the vast majority of Ottawa’s police officers will appear on the Sunshine List.
“It’s just a data dump,” said Cohn. “It’s not a meaningful tool for public policy.”
Other experts agreed, saying that it’s not the salary of the rank-and-file public employee that average Ontarians are interested in. People want to be informed about the highly-paid executives who head up Crown corporations.
“We learned today what the salary is of the CEO of OPG (Ontario Power Generation) which is the main public interest in this stuff,” said Angelo Melino, a professor in the department of economics at the University of Toronto, referencing the news that OPG boss Jeff Lyash made $1.55 million in salary last year. “Over time, it’s included a larger and larger fraction of people on the list. So, over time, everybody who works for the public sector will have their salary published.”
Cohn argued that adding more average public employees actually waters down the effect of the list, which should be to highlight the government’s big spend.
The idea for the annual disclosure is to mimic corporate behaviour in the private sector, which requires the dissemination of the compensation of certain managers and executives in a publicly traded company. In the private sector, shareholders can see the annual salary and bonuses paid to an executive and determine whether that executive is worth the money they are making. If they have a complaint, they can approach members of the company’s board of directors or attend the company’s annual general meeting and raise the issue.
However, with so many regular public service workers appearing on the list, it’s making it harder and harder to filter out the public servants worth watching, according to Cohn. The swelling numbers of people appearing on the list are almost watering down its effect.
“What I’d like to see is us shrink the list and make the list based on people who hold positions that are strategically important,” he said. “People who have the ability to influence the way everybody else does their job, like the deputy minister and the ADMs (assistant deputy ministers).”
vpilieci@postmedia.com
查看原文...
According to experts, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
In 2017, there were a total of 131,742 people on the annual public sector salary disclosure list, which is more commonly known as the “Sunshine List.” The number was a 5.9 per cent jump from the 124,446 people who appeared on the 2016 list.
It was also a massive leap from the approximately 79,000 Ontario public servants who appeared on the Sunshine List in 2012.
“If you think the list is big now, wait,” said Daniel Cohn, a professor in the school of public policy and administration at York University. “The high school teachers are starting to enter the list already. Next year the elementary school teachers will start to enter the list,” he said, referencing expected teacher salary increases.
When the list was first released in 1996 the $100,000 figure encapsulated some of the top earners in the public service. Only 4,576 public service workers were named as part of the exercise, which aimed to bring more transparency to government spending. However, according to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, $1 in 1996 is equal to $1.50 at today’s currency valuation rates. The increase suggests an annual rate of inflation of around 1.87 per cent each year, over the past 22 years.
With the increased dollar value comes increased prices and increased salaries. Contract negotiations by workers and labour unions add to the salary increases, leading to an ever-increasing number of names being added to the government’s annual salary disclosure list.
In June 2017, a contract that was ratified with the Ottawa Police Service will see the salary for a first-class constable increase to $100,417 on July 1, 2019. The increase means, before overtime pay, the vast majority of Ottawa’s police officers will appear on the Sunshine List.
“It’s just a data dump,” said Cohn. “It’s not a meaningful tool for public policy.”
Other experts agreed, saying that it’s not the salary of the rank-and-file public employee that average Ontarians are interested in. People want to be informed about the highly-paid executives who head up Crown corporations.
“We learned today what the salary is of the CEO of OPG (Ontario Power Generation) which is the main public interest in this stuff,” said Angelo Melino, a professor in the department of economics at the University of Toronto, referencing the news that OPG boss Jeff Lyash made $1.55 million in salary last year. “Over time, it’s included a larger and larger fraction of people on the list. So, over time, everybody who works for the public sector will have their salary published.”
Cohn argued that adding more average public employees actually waters down the effect of the list, which should be to highlight the government’s big spend.
The idea for the annual disclosure is to mimic corporate behaviour in the private sector, which requires the dissemination of the compensation of certain managers and executives in a publicly traded company. In the private sector, shareholders can see the annual salary and bonuses paid to an executive and determine whether that executive is worth the money they are making. If they have a complaint, they can approach members of the company’s board of directors or attend the company’s annual general meeting and raise the issue.
However, with so many regular public service workers appearing on the list, it’s making it harder and harder to filter out the public servants worth watching, according to Cohn. The swelling numbers of people appearing on the list are almost watering down its effect.
“What I’d like to see is us shrink the list and make the list based on people who hold positions that are strategically important,” he said. “People who have the ability to influence the way everybody else does their job, like the deputy minister and the ADMs (assistant deputy ministers).”
vpilieci@postmedia.com
查看原文...
