With Ontario facing a record budget deficit, and municipal ratepayers forced to fork over more in property taxes and user fees, the annual “sunshine list” released last week by the province is a real slap in the face.
Province-wide, the number of public-sector workers making $100,000 plus a year grew by another 10,000 in 2009—a real mockery at a time when a deep recession was throwing so many people out of work, and certainly no prospect of a raise for those lucky enough to still have a job.
Equally galling is a bureaucracy becoming even more bloated while front-line workers (whether teachers, nurses, or firefighters) and services are lopped because of budget cuts.
What is wrong with this picture?
Locally, it was nice to see some salaries were reduced from 2008 to 2009, and that some positions were dropped from the list. But this was more than offset by others joining the list as well as some eye-opening raises that just don’t fit the times: a nearly 20 percent hike for the CAO of the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board and roughly 10 percent jumps for both the CAO of the Town of Fort Frances and the former education director for the Rainy River District School Board.
Restraint may be preached, but clearly is not practised.
If double-digit raises aren’t bad enough, just as troubling is the fact the public is left in the dark about them. It is the public that is paying for these salaries, yet boards and councils seem to forget just who is footing the bill when it comes to setting pay scales and doling out raises behind closed doors under “personnel matters.”
The “sunshine list” at least sheds some light to allow taxpayers to hold these boards and councils accountable when it comes to spending our money.
It’s now up to taxpayers to do just that and demand this runaway horse be reined in.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
