Blame these guys:
Nova Scotia Power paid its top two executives 41 per cent more than the industry average in 2007, according to a consultants report released Monday…
Much of the report was blacked out for confidentiality reasons by the government regulator, including the 11 executives’ names and salaries, except NSP president Ralph Tedesco’s name.
In NSP’s most recent management circular — required by securities regulators to reveal the five highest-paid company executives — Mr. Tedesco’s compensation package was listed as $770,000 in 2007, down from $1.1 million a year earlier.
The independent experts found the two highest-paid executives earned more than the utility industry average, and the two lowest-paid executives make 24 and 37 per cent less than other executives in the industry, according to the authors of the report.
While the top two executives are well above the median pay, three more executives are close to the median, and the remaining six executives are well below the median, according to the report.
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2008.
Er, what about the rising price of oil, coal, and natural gas? My impression from that article is that they aren’t a huge deviation from the norm and are, in any case, really just a drop in the bucket when compared to the overall budget of NS Power. One of my great frustrations with politics in Nova Scotia at any level is that the press seems to gravitate towards superficial issues at the expense of really understanding and analyzing real problems. In this case, the question should really be how do we provide affordable and reliable power given the spiraling price of energy commodities?
And who made the decision to use mostly oil, coal and natural gas? But more to the point, NSPI is guaranteed a six percent profit, over and above operating costs, which includes execs’ salaries. It’s a pretty good biz, to have a guaranteed profit, no matter how competently the company is run.