In Nova Scotia, the provincial government makes public its employees salaries over $25,000 and the cost of their travel expenses. As well, all payments over $5,000 to private companies is public. That information is easily accessible on the provincial Public Accounts web site (click on “Supplementary” links).
The New Brunswick government takes it one step further: the salary ranges for people making more than $60,000 working at provincial crown corporations like New Brunswick Power are also made public. In the United States, all federal, state and local government employee salaries are public information, as is each and every expense made by those governments, unless there is a security concern.
So far, however, such open and honest reporting of government expenses has eluded the city of Halifax. City contracts with private companies like Nustadia, which manages the four-pad arena in Bedford and The Oval, are secret, with not even the dollar amount made public. And while salary ranges spelled out in agreements with public employee unions are public, the overtime payments made to any specific employee are not. Moreover, salaries of the highest paid employees—non-unionized city managers—are completely secret.
But Halifax council Tuesday voted to ask the legislature for a change in provincial law that will take a small bite out of city secrecy. Councillor Jackie Barkhouse brought forward the proposal, which would amend the the Public Sector Compensation Disclosure Act. Currently, that act applies to about 120 provincially funded agencies like health authorities, school boards, universities and crown corporations, and requires that all salaries over $100,000 be publicly reported. Under Barkhouse’s proposal, the city would become covered by the act, meaning most city managers’ salaries would become public record.
Council passed the motion on a vote of 20-1, with only councillor Mary Wile opposing.
The legislature is under no obligation to adopt the changes. Or, alternatively, it could adopt stronger changes, requiring the city to match the provincial system of public accounts with its own.
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2012.
Good to see. Public money should be as accountable as possible.
I wasn’t aware that the US system worked like that. I’d be in favour of something similar here. Barring security issues, the average citizen should be able to quickly and conveniently see where every dollar of public money is going.
Is there enough paper in the country to list the number of city employees making over 100 grand?
Russ Williams:
You’re in for a bit of a shock if you think there’s a massive amount of City employees making over $100,000. That’s simply public perception that if you work for the city you make loads of money. The truth is, the majority of City employees are unionized and work between $25-45,000 a year. High paying management is small in comparison when you’re talking about number of people. Remember, there’s more peons than managers.
WTF is wrong with Wile? I know she is crazy with the cat throwing and all, but voting against making salaries public makes no sense. The taxpaying public should have a right to know where their hard-earned extorted money is going.
Now that we are opening up the vaults at city hall and reveling all, I am wondering if the name of the bozo who forgot or neglected to order fuel for the standby generators in the brand new sewage treatment plant will ever be made known as well as his salary, benefits, and pension accrual. You see diesel generators will not run without diesel fuel, if the back up diesel does not run, well in no time the place if full of sh*it, the same sh*it that the mayor, the council, the engineering department, and the so called inspectors tried to shove down the throats of the taxpaying public. Hell even Richard Hurlburt knows that you have to put fuel into a generator, right Richie, enjoying your sabbatical?
TDF? Humm now which department do you slave in? Or are you the bozo who decided to save the city some moola and not order fuel for the standby diesel generators in the brand new sewage treatment plant? My advice to you would be to obtain and read cover to cover a book by Richard Hurlburt on the maintenance and care of stand by generators it is a well written book, with a special section in the back on how to obtain yours free of charge, and how to wrangle time served with the wife, if you are caught.
Russ Williams:
Do you get good bounce with those leaps? Such big assumptions. Haha, thanks for the laugh
If this measure gains momentum, can we make sure that the ordinance is adjusted annually to CPI (Inflation)? Many sunshine ordinances in other jurisdictions have been pegged for years (and decades: I’m looking at you, Ontario) at a particular income level even though inflation increases salaries and the cost of living.
Remember: sunshine ordinances do not exist for us to quietly heap scorn on our neighbours.They exist to to help up keep an eye on public spending. Let’s make sure that only the highest salaries are disclosed and that more and more people’s income is not included year over year though bracket creep.