Markham's top staffer won't say why he got nearly $80,000 pay increase in 2018

CAO Andy Taylor's pay jumped from $272,477.40 to $351,897.95 from 2017 to 2018

Yorkregion.com
April 10, 2019
Tim Kelly

Markham's chief administrative officer Andy Taylor had a very, very good year in 2018.

The city’s top staffer got a 30 per cent pay raise, making nearly $80,000 more than he did in 2017 when his pay jumped from $272,477.40 to $351,897.95.

Toss in Taylor’s taxable benefits received from the city, which totalled $64,894.06 in 2018 and his total package equalled $416,792.01.

It’s hard to understand why Taylor suddenly got such a whopping one-year increase given his pay history over the few years prior to 2018.

For instance, in 2015, he was paid $260,454.93. His pay barely budged in 2016, when he received a salary of $261,279.04. But he did receive a decent raise for 2017, going up to $272,477.40, more than $11,000 in one year or about 4 per cent.

But that’s nothing compared to the jump from 2017 to 2018.

Compared to other CAO's in neighbouring, large York Region municipalities, Taylor is paid considerably more.

Daniel Kostopoulos, who served as Vaughan's CAO in 2018 and just joined King Township, was paid $290,560.13, over $61,000 less than Taylor despite serving a municipality of roughly the same size. And Neil Garbe, CAO of Richmond Hill, admittedly smaller than Markham, was paid $289,001.51.

Attempts to get answers for the increase were stonewalled by both the City of Markham and Taylor himself on April 2.

Taylor, asked about why he received the big raise, would only say: “I’m not going to give you any details (about my increase). We’re obligated to publish what’s on my T4 and that’s what we did,” he said after a Markham city council meeting April 2.

He did indicate he wished he could say more about the increase but would not.

“We don’t do that (discuss details of salary) as an organization unfortunately, because I have a story to tell from that point.”

But Taylor would not elaborate on what that story was.

The only comment the City of Markham would make on Taylor’s salary increase was that it had complied with the requirements of the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1996.

“As you are aware, the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1996, requires Ontario municipalities to make public, by March 31 each year, the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in the previous calendar year. The City of Markham has complied with this requirement.”

To an inquiry as to why Taylor received a 30 per cent salary increase from 2017 to 2018, the city said it could not comment on the issue.

“In accordance with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the City will not comment on the compensation of a specific employee.”

But off the record, several others did hint that Taylor was owed money from the past 10 years for undisclosed reasons.

Perhaps that is behind Taylor’s comment: “I have a story to tell from that point.”

Another curious aspect of this year’s public salary disclosure list for Markham’s six-figure earners was that after going from 220 earners in 2015 to 290 in 2016 to 368 in 2017 it went down to 300 in 2018.

The reason was fairly straightforward according to the city.

“There were 67 firefighters who were reported (on the Markham list of those who made over $100,000) in 2017 but are not reported in 2018. There was an increase in the number of firefighters reported in 2017 due to the retroactive wage payments made in 2017, resulting from the ratification of the Markham Professional Firefighters Association (MPFFA) contract to Dec. 31, 2016. The decrease in numbers this year reflects the normalization of wages.”