Police constable’s $211,719 among city’s surprising salaries

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This article was published 30/06/2016 (3417 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City hall’s decision to pay former acting CAO Deepak Joshi more than $567,000 to walk away from his job last year has attracted controversy but the annual compensation disclosure report where Joshi’s payout was listed also contains a wealth of information on the salaries paid to civic staff.

As expected, Joshi’s temporary replacement in 2015, Michael Jack, was the highest paid civic employee still on the payroll, at $222,251, but it was an unnamed police constable who was listed as the third highest wage earner, at $211,719 – close to the salary of his boss, police chief Devon Clunis, who earned $219,324.

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For the first time, the employee salaries are listed in descending order, regardless of the department where they work. In previous years, the report listed the civic departments alphabetically and then the employees in ascending order.

The unnamed constable earned more than Mayor Brian Bowman, who, at $178,738, was listed as the 18th ranked city employee.

The list of those employees earning more than Bowman included three CAOs (Joshi, Jack and current CAO Doug McNeil), Clunis, two police constables, three police sergeants, three police deputy chiefs, a police superintendent, chief financial officer Mike Ruta, and community services director Clive Wightman.

While the annual report lists the salaries of each civic employee paid $50,000 or more in 2015 and the department where they work, recent changes to The Public Service Compensation Disclosure Act requires municipalities to identify police officers only by a number beginning with the 2014 report – even Clunis’ name does not appear in this year’s report.

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And it’s not possible to track the police officers from year to year because the number changes from year to year: Clunis was 6505 in the 2014 report but identified as 256 in the 2015 report. The three deputy chiefs in 2015 (Art Stannard, Dave Thorne and Danny Smyth) were identified as 1328, 1268 and 1241 (not necessarily in the same order) and the two chiefs in 2014 (Stannard and Thorne) were identified as 6501 and 6500 (again, not necessarily in the same order).

The highest paid councillor was deputy mayor Mike Pagtakhan, at $111,879, who was listed on page 20 of the 145-page report, which means there were 903 civic employees who earned more than the top-earning city councillor.

The lowest paid councillor was Ross Eadie, at $89,552.

Former councillor Grant Nordman was listed at $51,271, which was a deferral of his severance after he lost the 2014 election to Shawn Dobson, whose pay was listed $98,444.

Bowman’s chief of staff, Jason Fuith, earned $133,236.

An analysis by the Free Press found the Winnipeg Police Service had the most employees (1,092) earning $100,000 or more, followed by the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (527), water and waste (46) and public works (37).

With files from Graeme Bruce

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca