voxpopulicosmicum
Senior Member
The 2013 edition of the Ontario $100k+ salaries list (aka the "Sunshine List") was "dumped with the trash" this afternoon. I'm sure it will provide for lots of tabloid (and other) journalism over the coming days. It's a bit hard to figure out which of the 10-or-so lists contains which entities. I was interested, for my own reasons, in looking at salaries of local electricity distributors but haven't figured out where to find them.
One piece of info that smacked me across the face was the MORE THAN 3,000 MEMBERS OF THE TORONTO POLICE SERVICE ON THE LIST (see pages 178-244 of this list). Sorry for the shouting, but I was astonished. The combined annual salary of those Toronto police who earn over $100k per year (I'm not even sure if that includes the legalized protection racket that is "paid duty"; I'm actually pretty sure it doesn't) is likely almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS. Per year.
I truly must remember these tidbits the next time some right wing idiot starts talking about the travesty of city councillors getting free coffee. Perhaps this explains why Bill Blair chose this week as the appropriate time to admonish cops for their continued acts of idiocy.
***EDIT -- Oops. When I just googled some comparative figures for number of cops on the Sunshine List in previous years, I noticed that Chris Hume wrote about it in yesterday's column. Guess I haven't been keeping up with Hume.
***2nd Edit -- Here it is from a 2010 story in The Star:
One piece of info that smacked me across the face was the MORE THAN 3,000 MEMBERS OF THE TORONTO POLICE SERVICE ON THE LIST (see pages 178-244 of this list). Sorry for the shouting, but I was astonished. The combined annual salary of those Toronto police who earn over $100k per year (I'm not even sure if that includes the legalized protection racket that is "paid duty"; I'm actually pretty sure it doesn't) is likely almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS. Per year.
I truly must remember these tidbits the next time some right wing idiot starts talking about the travesty of city councillors getting free coffee. Perhaps this explains why Bill Blair chose this week as the appropriate time to admonish cops for their continued acts of idiocy.
***EDIT -- Oops. When I just googled some comparative figures for number of cops on the Sunshine List in previous years, I noticed that Chris Hume wrote about it in yesterday's column. Guess I haven't been keeping up with Hume.
***2nd Edit -- Here it is from a 2010 story in The Star:
Toronto police salaries are spiralling upwards and will only continue to grow unless politicians have the courage to rein them in, says a former city budget chief.
David Soknacki was reacting to the release of 2009 public sector salary disclosures that list 1,329 Toronto police uniform and civilian employees who last year earned more than $100,000 – a more than 30 per cent increase from the year before.
In 2008, 1,006 employees of the Toronto police service earned more than $100,000.
Those fattened pay cheques do not include lucrative "paid duty," where off-duty officers, paid by private companies, earn $60 to $70 an hour to perform such duties as directing traffic around construction.
"Politically, it's toxic" to question whether the city can afford to pay policing costs, said Soknacki, who left office in 2006.
"When money comes up for police, it's very, very difficult to push back.
"It's difficult to say you're for public safety, you're for having a safe and vibrant city but, at the same time, we can do things better in public safety," he said.
Now chairman of Downsview Park, the former city councillor is preparing a paper on policing, commissioned by the Toronto Board of Trade, which aims to set the agenda in the October mayoralty race.
In 2004, just 250 on city police payroll earned more than $100,000. By 2006, the total nearly tripled to 708. By '08, 1,006 made the club. By '09, 1,329.
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