B.C.'s highest paid public sector employees: More than 2,000 earn $100,000-plus annually

Vancouver Sun June 19, 2010

The number of B.C. public servants earning more than $100,000 a year jumped 22 per cent in just two years, according to an exclusive database of government pay compiled by The Vancouver Sun. In all, among those agencies analyzed, more than 2,000 public-sector employees joined the six-figure-salary club between 2007 and 2009. This at a time when the province was suffering through a recession and many companies in the private sector were freezing salaries and laying off staff. In fact, statistics suggest that at the same time that six-figure salaries were on the rise in the public sector, they were going down among B.C. residents as a whole. (more)

Someone earning $100,000 a year earns roughly four times the median income in B.C., according to Statistics Canada, and makes more money than 96 per cent of B.C. adults. In late 2008, The Sun launched a searchable online database of public-sector salaries for all employees earning more than $75,000, including B.C. government staff and those at municipalities, Crown corporations and universities. The database was enormously popular, registering more than two million hits.

Today, The Sun launches the second version of that database at vancouversun.com/pay, with updated information on how much public servants are paid. The new database also makes it possible, for the first time, to see how quickly the ranks of B.C.’s highest-paid public servants are growing. The increase isn’t just happening at the $100,000 level. Those earning $150,000 or more went up even faster, by 26 per cent.And the ranks of the very highest paid — those earning $200,000 or more — went up by a still significant 20 per cent. (more)

DATA BASE: vancouversun.com/pay