Hydro, MPI employees paid extra to work downtown

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This article was published 05/12/2016 (3458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Hydro and Manitoba Public Insurance are paying their employees nearly $2 million in yearly allowances over and above their salaries as compensation for having to work downtown.

Roughly 1,000 people working at MPI’s Cityplace offices receive $50 a month, totalling about $600,000 annually. The monthly stipend is $70 for the approximately 1,600 employees at Manitoba Hydro Place on Portage Avenue between Carlton and Edmonton streets, which adds up to about $1.3 million a year.

Both Crown corporations have indicated they’re experiencing financial distress. Hydro has applied for a 3.95 per cent rate hike for the fiscal year beginning April 1. The Public Utlities Board ordered an interim rate hike of 3.36 per cent that took effect Aug. 1.

MPI has applied to the PUB for a general rate hike of 4.3 per cent. If granted, it would be the largest boost in automobile insurance rates since 1996.

“It was brought in to cover some of the higher costs associated with being downtown — transportation, parking,” Hydro spokesman Scott Powell said, adding the allowance has been in place since 2008, when the utility consolidated employees from several locations in the brand-new office tower.

“People can also use it to use for public transportation… obviously there is very limited parking in our building.”

As part of MPI’s four-year collective agreement signed in 2013, the $50 allowance became effective Oct. 1, 2014 to assist employees with parking and other costs. Executives and senior management do not get the allowance.

“(It is) to assist with downtown parking rates which are typically higher than other non-downtown MPI locations,” spokesman Brian Smiley said in a prepared statement.

Todd MacKay, the prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, called the allowances — luxuries rarely offered to private-sector workers — “outrageous.”

“It is expensive for lots of people to get to work and there is nobody there to help us with that, we cover it out on our own,” said MacKay. “It is a waste of money when these Crowns are already increasing rates.”

A mandatory report disclosing employee compensation at Manitoba Hydro was made public in July. It revealed outgoing president and CEO Scott Thomson received a gross income of $494,908 in 2015, $121,874 of which was classified as termination/retirement pay. It also showed employees earning more than $50,000 a year racked up a total overtime bill of $62.6 million. Their total gross pay was $563.4 million.

An analysis of the report by CBC Manitoba 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.

Manitoba Hydro executives told a legislative committee meeting in October the public utility’s debt outlook is dire, and hinted they will seek significantly higher rate increases from electricity consumers in the future.

Executives also warned hydro’s debt could increase to $25 billion from the current $13 billion in the next few years as the Keeyask generating station and the Bipole III transmission line are completed

“It speaks to a culture of entitlement, where somehow it is the ratepayers’ job to help someone get to work,” MacKay said. “This is absolutely unacceptable. A million dollars is still a lot of money; there are a lot of families who could get free electricity for the rest of their lives for a million dollars.”

— with files from Larry Kusch

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @kristinannable