By Mike Anderson

The Ontario government recently published its 2023 Sunshine List of public sector employees who earned over $100,000 in 2022.

The Town of Georgina has 100 employees on the list, up from 93 in 2021, which includes 44 firefighters.

The Town, with a population of 47,642, has 26 more $100K plus wage earners than Whitchurch-Stouffville, which has 74 employees on the list, including 30 firefighters, with a population of 49,864.

Since 2019, the number of Town employees earning more than $100k has grown by 35 per cent, while their total wages have risen 50 per cent, from $8,956,753 to $13,452,728.

The wage increases have exceeded the inflation rate since 2019. Canada’s annual inflation rate, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), was 6.8% in 2022; 3.4% in 2021; 0.7% in 2020; and 1.95% in 2019.

According to the 2022 Sunshine List, The Town of Georgina’s top salary earners were:

• Ryan Cronsberry, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), $272,958. (9% increase from $250,426)
• Rob Wheater, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer/Treasurer, $230,654 (34% increase from $171,614)
• Lawrence Artin, Head of Special Capital Initiatives, $207,392. (34% increase from $154,092)
• Ronald Jenkins, Director Emergency Services/Fire Chief, $195,064. (4.7% decrease from $204,810)
• Beverley Moffatt, Director of Human Resources, $191,979. (12% increase from $171,261)
• Shawn Nastke, Director of Strategic Initiatives, $191,519. (27% increase from $150,064)

Mayor Margaret Quirk earned $137,459 in 2022 (down from $138,702 in 2021), lower than most Mayors in the Northern six (N6) municipalities.

She made slightly more than the Mayor of East-Gwillimbury (Virginia Hackson, $133,737) but less than the Mayors of Newmarket (John Taylor, $163,086), Aurora (Tom Mrakas, $163,243), Whitchurch-Stouffville (Iain Lovatt, $159,412), and King (Steve Pellegrini, $158,905).

According to the 2023 budget, the Town of Georgina employs 296 permanent full-time staff, with roughly one in three making more than $100k.

Total salaries and benefits are $38,490,780, a 9.94% increase from 2022, which represents approximately 76 per cent of the tax levy ($50.4M) and 59 per cent of the Town’s operating expenses, $65M.

Ontario’s Sunshine List of public sector employees earning over $100K was first published by the Mike Harris PC government in 1996. Just 4,576 names appeared on that list; the 2023 list contains approximately 267,000 names.

Mike Anderson
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