Annual Sunshine List reveals first responders as Ottawa’s top earners for 2020
Posted Mar 20, 2021 12:59:00 AM.
First responders are among Ottawa’s top earners, according to the Ontario Ministry of Finance annual Public Sector Salary Disclosure List, also known as the Sunshine List.
The list, which details the salaries of public servants who earn over $100,000, was released — and according to a memo to council from Elizabeth Marland, director of human resources, on Friday, 4,858 city employees were on the list in 2020 — 54 per cent of which are first responders.
Breaking it down further, 1,462 are employed by the Ottawa Police Service; 846 are employed by Ottawa Fire Services; and 320 work for the Ottawa Paramedic Service.
The 2020 year saw an increase of 214 people on the list in Ottawa compared to the 2019 report.
“It should be noted that there were 27 pay periods in 2020; in a typical year there are 26,” Marland clarified. “A year with 27 pay periods occurs once every 11 years. The additional two-week pay caused some earnings to increase beyond $100,000. If this was a typical 26 pay period year, there would have been 158 fewer employees as compared to 2019, which would have been a decrease of 3.5 per cent in 2020.”
Marland also said that 36 per cent of city employees on the list have a base salary less than $100,000, but are on the list because of earnings from one or more of the following reasons:
- Retroactive payments (including economic increases)
- Any premiums (including overtime, stand-by, shift differential and on-call)
- Vacation cash-outs
- Banked overtime cash-outs
- Salary continuance (for employees who have left the city)
If the $100,000 threshold was updated annually to account for inflation, it would now be $153,177.
If the disclosure threshold was adjusted to this amount, only 379 municipal employees would be included on the list.
But COVID-19 has had an impact on city operations.
These impacts can be seen among OC Transpo staff on the list, which decreased by half due to reduced operations while CIPP staff on the list has increased to respond to the emerging needs of the pandemic.
