Subsidized downtown parking enjoyed by other public employees

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This article was published 06/12/2016 (3457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It turns out Manitoba Hydro and Manitoba Public Insurance workers aren’t the only public employees who are subsidized to work downtown.

Employees of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and eHealth get a little help paying for parking spots.

But over at Diagnostic Services Manitoba, a public-sector diagnostic health-care service provider, 75 employees who hold a monthly parking spot near its 155 Carlton St. office are given $103 per month to subsidize the cost of the spot. Employees pay out of pocket for the remaining $93 to $112 cost of the parking spot, a spokeswoman for Diagnostic Services Manitoba said.

The $92,000 spent by DSM annually pales in comparison to the nearly $2 million spent annually on a blanket downtown allowance given to Manitoba Hydro’s 1,600 employees and Manitoba Public Insurance’s 1,000 employees, over and above their salaries, as compensation for having to work downtown.

Officials with both Crown corporations said it was to compensate for parking or transit costs used by the employees to get to work. However, the allowance is not attached to a parking spot or a bus pass.

Scott Powell, a spokesman for Manitoba Hydro, said the $840 annual downtown allowance given to its 1,600 employees working at Manitoba Hydro Place on Portage Avenue was introduced by Manitoba Hydro’s senior management team in 2008, when the utility consolidated employees from several locations in the brand-new office tower. 

“It was brought in to cover some of the higher costs associated with being downtown — transportation, parking,” Powell told the Free Press.

Employees at MPI’s Cityplace offices are given $600 annually, an allowance built into its four-year collective agreement signed in 2013.

The news comes as both Crown corporations have applied for rate hikes in the coming year, citing financial distress. Hydro’s 2015 compensation showed the median salary, including overtime and benefits, among the nearly 6,000 Hydro staff in Manitoba earning more than $50,000 was $91,565.

Ron Schuler, the province’s Crown services minister, criticized Manitoba Hydro’s growing levels of debt and blamed the former NDP government for its poor financial health. He said the skyrocketing salaries and money spent on downtown allowances show “the direction pursued by the previous NDP government has not been working for Manitoba Hydro.

“These figures are therefore certainly concerning and are one of the reasons our government has committed to prudent and sustainable fiscal management and transparent budgeting not only within core government but also amongst Manitoba’s Crown corporations,” Schuler said in a prepared statement.

Almost no other civil servants working for the Province of Manitoba or the City of Winnipeg receive an allowance or subsidy for working in downtown Winnipeg.

A spokeswoman for the province’s civil service commission said no subsidies are provided to employees working downtown for any government department, which include Manitoba Health officials at 300 Carlton St. and the Entrepreneurship, Training and Trade Department located at 111 Lombard Ave.

There is also no subsidy or allowance offered to civil servants at city hall, whose offices are located on Princess Street and on Main Street.

The Free Press asked several other government organizations — including the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Manitoba eHealth and Diagnostic Services Manitoba — and found that instead of a blanket allowance, in some cases the employer partially subsidized the cost of a parking stall.

Every WRHA worker downtown pays a flat rate of $89 a month for parking. However, the WRHA subsidizes the remaining balance on some spots based on the lease agreement for various parkades with leaseholders.

The range of top-ups paid out by the WRHA was not immediately available.

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca