City Payroll: Who makes over $100K (Kelowna)

by Wayne Moore - Kelowna Correspondent - Castanet Jun 25, 2013 / 4:51 pm
Kelowna's mayor believes it's unfair that salaries of employees making $75,000 or more are made public as part of the city's annual report. Information contained within the annual report, released to council Monday, is required through the provincial community charter. As part of that report, the city must publish the names of every employee earning $75,000 or more plus every vendor in which the city pays $10,000 or more to each year. Mayor Walter Gray says salaries are always going to rise and, since the $75,000 threshold has remained static, the comparison is unfair. "Just figure it ahead 25 years. If you worked at McDonalds Restaurant you could make $75,000," stated Gray. "It is obvious the number of people or the percentage of people working for the city are going to make over $75,000. Gray says the province needs to reconsider the number. "It's unfair to people that work for local government and it's unfair to the public because they don't necessarily look at it five years back, 10 years back, whatever." In 2007, 123 city employees took home $75,000 or more. Fast forward five year and, in 2012, that number swells to 256. Over that same span, the number of employees earning $100,000 or more jumped from 29 in 2007 to 59 in 2012. Gray, speaking directly to the issue of salaries during Monday's council meeting, also stated staffing requirements for any local government is different from that of most private sector companies. "We are considerably different - because we have so many specialists involved in providing good government to our citizens," stated Gray. "Many people have MBA's and engineering degrees. We have arborists, chartered accountants, bylaw enforcement officers, firefighters, water quality technicians, electricians, heavy duty mechanics." Gray says it's not a fair comparison between what happens at city hall compared to the average private sector company.

The following is a list of the 59 employees with the city who earned $100,000 or more in 2012. The employees were either management or firefighters. No CUPE worker pulled in six figures.