Sunshine List reporting rules a tad cloudy, need to be fixed

Yorkregion.com
April 16, 2014
Editorial

It seems the Sunshine List isn’t casting as much light on public sector salaries as it should.

Case in point, take a look at the salaries of elected officials in our local York Region municipalities. Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua, Richmond Hill Mayor Dave Barrow and Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti pulled in $170,054, $169,690 and $178,701, including their regional salaries of about $52,000, according to the 2013 public sector salary disclosure list.

This newspaper was initially under the incorrect impression the aforementioned figures did not include the regional portions of their remuneration. The reason? Because a number of mayors who would appear on the list if their local and regional salaries were added up, weren’t there.

For example, Tony Van Bynen made $90,425 in his role as mayor of Newmarket last year and received $51,696 in his role as a member of regional council yet you won’t find his name on the Sunshine List. Same goes for Aurora Mayor Geoff Dawe who made $57,549 and earned $51,801 from the region.

As it turns out, York’s local-tier municipalities each pay the town/city portion of a politician’s compensation as well as the regional share, if any, but get reimbursed for the latter. However, it appears some municipalities hold the opinion that, as the source of the funds, they have a duty to report the aggregated figure for the purposes of the list, in spite of the reimbursement, while others say they’re dealing with two separate employers and, therefore, aren’t required to tally the two salaries.

Municipalities reporting both ways assert they’re accounting for the funds correctly with respect to the annual public sector salary disclosure exercise. According to the province, both may be right.

In an email to the York Region Media Group, Ministry of Finance spokesperson Scott Blodgett explained it is up to each employer to disclose the salaries and taxable benefits of its employees who were paid $100,000 or more over the course of the previous calendar year. Each is required to only disclose what it paid, he explained, and the act doesn’t provide for the salaries of individuals employed by two or more public sector employers to be combined.

Given that the legislation applies to “employees” of provincial ministries, governments, boards, agencies and non-profit organizations that receive at least $1 million from the province in the year of the report or at least $120,000 in the year of the report, where the figure represents 10 per cent or more of gross revenues, it’s a little disconcerting to know an individual could conceivably work in two public-sector roles, collect $99,999.99 at each and never make it on the list.

We’re not saying anyone is trying to be intentionally misleading or purposely breaking any rules: the act doesn’t require each employer to tally up earnings received from other public sector sources.

At the same time, it may be time for the legislation to be reviewed to provide clarity on how disclosure is handled for those receiving pay from multiple public sector sources and to define how these funds are reported.

Instead of debating if the $100,000 reporting threshold should rise, a better discussion might be to make sure the reporting of salaries is consistent across the board and inclusive of remuneration earned at all public sources. After all, the public is paying these salaries, so shouldn’t it have a complete picture?

Let’s get our act together.