Sudbury.com has gone through this year's public sector salary disclosures and broken down the top local earners by sector. Below, you will find three sections, highlighting the top earners at city hall, and in the education and health care fields.
We have also included a table searchable by name of the top earners at city hall. We did not include tables for the education and health-care fields, but instead teased out the top earners from those sectors and compiled them for you to read.
Sunshine List grows by 71 City of Greater Sudbury employees
The province’s latest annual Sunshine List was made public today, listing 688 City of Greater Sudbury employees with wages of at least $100,000.
The annual list of public salary disclosures includes those who earn more than $100,000 per year, and the 2023 list of City of Greater Sudbury employees is an 11.5-per-cent increase from the previous year’s total of 617.
The 2022 disclosure was a 17.4-per-cent increase from the 540 people listed in 2021.
Topping this year’s list is city CAO Ed Archer, whose 2023 salary was $297,160.40, plus taxable benefits of $11,136.24. This is a 3.5-per-cent increase from Archer’s 2022 salary of $287,163.21.
This year’s Sunshine List includes 14 City of Greater Sudbury employees who earned at least $200,000, which is a significant drop from the 31 city employees who topped $200,000 in 2022, but more in line with the 11 city employees recorded as earning this much in 2021.
After Archer, the City of Greater Sudbury’s other top earners to bring in more than $200,000 in salary paid were, in order:
- Paul Pedersen (Greater Sudbury Police Service chief): $281,160.80
- Anthony Cecutti (general manager of Growth and Infrastructure): $247,147.50
- Steve Jacques (general manager of Community Development): $246,515.75
- Kevin Fowke (general manager of Corporate Services): $245,884.00
- Joseph Nicholls (general manager of Community Safety): $245,884.00
- Sharon Baiden (GSPS CAO): $236,177.20
- Sara Cunningham (GSPS deputy chief): $233,877.92
- Richard James Mcdougall (fire captain): $230,884.15
- Colin Braney (fire captain): $226,193.20
- James Gervais (fire captain): $205,460.68
- Tyler Popowich (fire chief training officer): $204,666.60
- Ian Wood (Strategic Initiatives, Communications and Citizen Services executive director): $203,756.70
- Michael Slywchuk (fire captain): $201,260.40
The 2023 list includes six fire services staff members who earned more than $200,000, which was a drop from the 16 recorded in 2022. In 2022, Greater Sudbury Fire Services hit $2.4 million in overtime costs, which doubled the amount spent in 2019.
During 2024 budget deliberations, city council greenlit the hiring of four additional full-time firefighters, in part to help alleviate overtime hours.
“We have a concern with the amount of overtime hours we have and only having a few people taking on overtime,” Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre during a December 2023 budget meeting, noting that the lion’s share of overtime was being done by 35 per cent of career firefighters.
Greater Sudbury Fire Services was also cleared to hire two additional training officers to help the department meet new training requirements mandated by the province.
Health Sciences North Sunshine List total jumps by 29%
There are 1,027 Health Sciences North employees who received a salary of at least $100,000 in 2023, which was a 29.5-per-cent jump from the 791 employees who made the list in 2022.
This, according to the province’s latest public sector salary disclosure, which takes place at the end of March each year and includes a list of public sector employees whose wages cracked $100,000.
The top-earning employee was Health Sciences North Research Institute vice-president academic and research impact Robert Ohle, whose salary was $318,130.75.
The next five were:
- Mark Hartman (senior vice president, Patient Experience and Digital Transformation): $303,627.20
- Max Liedke (senior vice president and Chief Operating Officer): $280,994.00
- Cindy Louise Girolametto (registered nurse): $271,773.49
- Brenda Slywchuk (registered nurse): $265,521.15
- Dominic Simon Giroux (president and chief executive officer): $256,488.86
Giroux stepped down to accept a new role as president and CEO of Hôpital Montfort, Ontario’s French-language academic health sciences centre based in Ottawa.
In 2022, Giroux received a base salary of $368,953, plus $80,208 as president and CEO of Health Sciences North Research Institute.
At Public Health Sudbury and Districts, medical officer of health Penny Sutcliffe topped the list at $370,388.04. This is a slight jump from the $365,157.00 she received in 2022.
There were 27 Public Health Sudbury and Districts employees on the Sunshine List in 2023, which was a drop from the previous year’s 49.
In 2021, her salary hit approximately $800,000 due to pandemic-related overtime.
There were 16 St. Joseph's Health Centre of Sudbury of Sudbury employees on the 2023 list (up slightly from the 12 listed in 2022), topped by president/CEO Kari Gervais, whose salary was $238,997.91.
At the Northern Ontario School Of Medicine, 77 people made the Sunshine List, topped by president, vice chancellor, dean and chief executive officer Sarita Verma, who was paid $382,825.90. This is a $37,219.18 jump from her 2022 salary of $345,606.72.
Last year, it was announced that she had declined the offer of reappointment with the school, but would remain in her role until her first term as president ends in June 2024.
In the Sunshine List, Verma was followed by vice president administration and chief operating officer Ray Hunt, whose salary was $236,560.79.
Sunshine List: Outgoing NOSM president got $37K pay raise
Outgoing NOSM University dean Dr. Sarita Verma received a pay bump of $37,000 between 2022 and 2023, according to information released through the Public Secondary Salary Disclosure Act, known colloquially as the Sunshine List.
Verma, who is leaving the medical school in June, is also Sudbury’s highest-paid public sector employee.
She is listed as having earned $345,606 in 2022 and $382,825 in 2023.
Following this article's publication, Sudbury.com received the following explanation from the medical school regarding Verma's pay raise.
"When we became a university, Dr. Verma's role expanded from Dean of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to President, Vice-Chancellor, Dean, and CEO of NOSM University," said the written statement. "The position has evolved, and consequently, there have been changes in the scope, accountability, and responsibilities of the position."
The next highest-paid Sudbury education sector employee is interim Laurentian president Sheila Embleton, whose salary is listed on the Sunshine List as being $315,480.
Embleton is listed as an employee of York University, as she was seconded to Laurentian to take on the interim role.
However, according to the terms of her secondment contract, she’s actually being paid more than $340,000 per year, as she’s receiving a top-up of $24,015 from Laurentian.
The secondment agreement said that during Embleton’s time at Laurentian, “York University shall invoice Laurentian quarterly for 100 per cent of the full quarterly cost of the Compensation Arrangements applicable to Dr. Embleton.”
This is actually Embleton’s last week on the job, as the university’s new permanent president, Lynn Wells, starts her new role on April 1.
It’s a similar story with interim Laurentian provost Brenda Brouwer, who’s being seconded to Laurentian from Queen’s University.
She’s listed under Queen’s as earning $334,793 in 2023.
Brouwer’s secondment agreement said she will continue to be paid by Queen’s University at her current base salary of $306,942, less statutory deductions.
In addition, Queen’s was to pay Brouwer an annual salary top-up of $27,851 less statutory deductions, “in recognition of her taking on the role of interim provost and/or executive lead at Laurentian,” which accounts for her higher 2023 salary.
Queen’s is invoicing Laurentian for Brouwer’s compensation.
Besides the interim president and provost, Laurentian’s next highest earner was Melissa Wiman, a kinesiology professor at Laurentian, who earned $226,892. Also on the $200,000 and above club at Laurentian is natural sciences professor Blake Dotta, who earned $218,400 in 2023.
Collège Boréal president Daniel Giroux earned $274,042 in 2023. That’s a nearly $13,000 raise from the $261,558 he earned in 2022.
Over at Cambrian College, president Kristine Morrissey earned $253,314 in 2023. Promoted from within at Cambrian, Morrissey presumably will earn more in 2024, as she only became the college’s president in May 2023.
The college’s vice-president, external partnerships and strategic enrolment, Shawn Poland, who also served as the college’s interim president for part of 2023, earned $222,079 in 2023.
In terms of the formerly federated universities operating on Laurentian University’s campus, no employees from either Huntington University or Thorneloe University, including the institutions’ presidents, Kevin McCormick and John Gibaut, appear on the 2023 Sunshine List.
These organizations clarified to Sudbury.com last year that they no longer submit information to the Sunshine List because they no longer receive public funding after the 2021 severing of the federation agreement with Laurentian University.
However, the third formerly federated university operating on Laurentian’s campus, Université de Sudbury, lists its president, Serge Miville, as having earned $209,741 in 2023.
There have been some substantial raises among the top-paid employees at the city’s school boards.
Conseil Scolaire Nouvelon director of education Paul Henry, who’s retiring from the board at the end of this year, earned $264,574 in 2023.
That’s a raise of nearly $40,000 from his 2022 salary of $225,116. He also received a substantial raise between 2021 and 2022. He’s listed on the 2021 Sunshine List as having earned $195,779, meaning he got a nearly $67,000 raise in just two years.
Rainbow District School Board director of education Bruce Bourget earned $247,959 in 2023. He earned $208,090 in 2022, meaning he also received a big pay raise - in his case, nearly $40,000.
Sudbury Catholic District School Board director of education Joanne Benard earned $234,845 in 2023. She also got a raise of more than $34,000 over the past year, having earned $200,513 in 2022.
Sudbury.com has reached out to all three school boards for an explanation.
Conseil scolaire du Grand Nord director Sébastien Fontaine also earned more in 2023 than he did in 2022. However, he had started with the school board in early 2022, and only took over the director position in April of 2022.
Fontaine earned $175,436 in 2022 and $225,682 in 2023.
In terms of the number of employees on the Sunshine List at Sudbury’s various educational institutions, here are some statistics:
- Laurentian University: 262 employees (that number was at 261 in 2022)
- Cambrian College: 205 employees (that number is up significantly from 2022, when the college had 173 employees on the list)
- Collège Boréal: 135 employees (up from the 104 employees on the list in 2022)
- Rainbow District School Board: 675 employees (up from 658 in 2022)
- Conseil scolaire catholique Nouvelon: 376 employees (the board had 383 on the list in 2022)
- Conseil scolaire du Grand Nord: 200 employees (up from 192 in 2022)
- NOSM University: 77 employees (up from 72 in 2022)
