The Big Money Question

[quote=“Walkalong”]
With regards to the guy on the ferry - probably due to experience and time served. In theory, we pay well for his skills in case there is an emergency.  Then, in theory, his considerable experience should be an asset.  [/quote]

I certainly am not suggesting that he is unexperienced now, nor that he was unqualified or not an asset a year ago…my only question is why he is entitled to a more than $13K raise.

Again, no question of whether the fire department personnel deserve to get paid a decent wage…but is the fire chief worth TWICE what Remo gets paid? I’m pretty sure it’s the guys down the ladder (heh) that do the bulk of the work, especially the life-saving kind.

I believe he retired in 2009, so he probably got all his banked/holiday pay, and what ever in else happens when you retire.

That might have been the case…when I retire I STOP getting paid; they don’t pay me out my full salary plus plus plus.

We arethe part of society that did not get the job lottery or know the right people. We have to take care of ourselves like grown ups, not be coddled like most of the pre-madonnas employed by the city. Exceptions are the firemen and sanitation engineers,LOL.

Wonder what the breakdown of salary expectations at CityWest is now that they aren’t under the same reporting umbrella that this list outlines?

It would be helpful if the city provided all of its financial reports and information on city investments on one easily to find page of their website.

If there is an FOI, as a municipal corporation Citywest should be providing salary information … how much public bodies and companies or societies they own and control pay their employees is public information. 

A few months ago some municipal corporations in Burns lake were ordered to open their books after the local paper (an affiliate of Northern View) made an FOI  bclocalnews.com/bc_north/lak … 33599.html

The 75k threshold will probably be bumped up in the near future.

My rationale is, wages are increasing and if the threshold is not raised you will soon see regular City employees achieving that salary level.,

The math
avg working year…2080 hrs (40 hrs x 52 weeks)
threshold …75k

$75,000.00  divided by 2080 = $36.06 per hour
( not unobtainable by a reg worker with some overtime) 

I agree with you that $75,000 should be moved up.  Here is the same list from the school district for 2009 (at the bottom of this post).  Most of those names are just regular old teachers.

I also don’t get why these organizations post this information as graphics on their website.  It looks like they just scan a piece of paper and put it online to follow the letter of the law, but certainly not the spirit.  Why not put it up in regular HTML format, so that Google can index it?  Or even a regular text-based PDF file, so that you can search it?

Both the City and school district have very capable and smart people working in their tech departments, so I can’t imagine this is an oversight.  If it is, then I have to rethink my evaluation of these tech departments as being smart.  Either posting images instead of text is on purpose, or their tech people just don’t understand the web.

Ok, never mind, taking a look at the school district site, I guess they just don’t get the web.  What a trainwreck of a site.  But that doesn’t let the City off the hook.  Surely they know posting the files as graphics makes them inaccessible to Google, unreadable by people with visual impairments, or people using mobile devices, etc.  Is that on purpose?

I have no idea how Mig did the Google embed thing.  I tried it a couple of times, but HTMF doesn’t allow it.  But dropbox works just fine.  Here are the SD52 PDF files (PDF TEXT not graphics!):

Public Sector Executive Compensation Reporting:  dl.dropbox.com/u/2145125/sd52-01.pdf
(This file is on the SD52 site sideways!  How’s that for accessibility!)

Schedule of Remuneration and Expense:  dl.dropbox.com/u/2145125/sd52-02.pdf

Any other lists of public Rupert salaries we can post?

Does the City list include Citywest employees?

Well I don’t particularly think that the “threshold” should be moved up, if they do lets say to 100 k, then those names and positions should still be identified as that’s some serious  taxpayer coin.

As for anything below 100,000 I would think it would be fair to list the salaries in increments without names if that’s a concern, ie: 80-100,000 how many employees and what departments , 50-80000 how many, and 50000 below how many.

Same with CityWest and any other city departments that aren’t covered by this current review.

Much the same for any other taxpayer funded occupation, use the same format if so desired, but at least give us some idea as to where the money goes.

It is our tax dollars that are used and we should at least be able to receive a breakdown of how many get how much, with or without the listing of names.  

Whether the threshold is moved up or not, remuneration and expenses paid to elected officials and public employees (including of municipal corporations) is public information subject to disclosure … with names included … if an FOI is made. That applies to Citywest just like it applies to the city, school board etc.

The province also requires any entity … public or private … that receives provincial funds or loan guarantees to prepare a ‘statement of financial information’ for elected officials and officers, and for employees paid >$75K. Since Citywest doesn’t receive provincial money it doesn’t have to prepare a SFI (but would have to respond to an FOI).

What got me is that in answer to councillor Ashley’s questions CFO Rodin attributed higher payroll costs to the collective agreement (and a few other odds and ends), but the union employees negotiated a 3% increase … no big deal, right around the inflation rate. When the 2008 and 2009 SFIs are compared a rather different explanation for a rather large increase in payroll costs … 21% overall … starts to emerge.  

I don’t mean this as criticism … it’s good that councillors Ashley and Gordon-Payne in particular are inquiring into finances and generally paying attention … but the council doesn’t come across as well informed about payroll issues … which raises questions about how pay increases to non-union employees in particular were approved in the first place … and also perhaps about information flow in city hall.

It’s been established that senior administrators have gorged themselves on the public purse of late.

Not very nice.

And has Mr Kelly benefited from this suddenly inflated entry-level senior administration salary?

Well word has it that some of his ex fellow workers where he came from have done well for themselves but Rudy has always had my respect .

No. I expect we’ll see him on the 2010 list, no doubt, but well shy of the six-figure mark.