Six of Meaford’s municipal staff members received salaries in excess of $100,000 in 2021, earning them a spot on Ontario’s annual ‘Sunshine List’.
Each year organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario must disclose the names, positions, salaries, and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year; the compiled list is commonly referred to as the ‘sunshine list’.
Neighbouring municipality The Town of the Blue Mountains saw 20 of their employees land on the list in 2021, with their CAO, Shawn Everitt, earning the highest salary in that municipality, more than $205,000. Meaford’s highest paid employee in 2021 was CAO Rob Armstrong who earned nearly $166,000 (full list below).
In 1996 the Mike Harris Conservative government passed the Ontario Public Disclosure Act, which the government of the day suggested would offer transparency and highlight increasing spending on public sector payrolls.
The Municipality of Meaford had no employees earning enough to land them on the list until 2009, when former CAO Frank Miele became the first, with a reported income of $118,000 in that year. In the years since, Meaford has had as many as six employees make the list, and as few as three.
The original threshold of $100,000 to earn a spot on the annual Sunshine List has never been adjusted for inflation, which has resulted in an ever-growing number of public sector employees being included in the list each year. In the first year of the list’s publication it included just 4,756 public sector employees, while last year more than 205,000 made it onto the list. This year’s (2021) Sunshine List includes more than 240,000 public sector employees.
Had the threshold been adjusted for inflation annually, public sector employees would today need to earn more than $175,000 in order to be included on the list.
Employees of the Municipality of Meaford to make the list in 2021 are as follows:
- Rob Armstrong, CAO, 2021 earnings of $165,764, and taxable benefits of $2,134.56
- Richard Carefoot, Chief Building Official, 2021 earnings of $101,330, and taxable benefits of $718.50
- Darcy Chapman, Treasurer/Director of Corporate Services (no longer with the municipality), 2021 earnings of $156,451, and taxable benefits of $1,638.54
- Matthew Smith, Clerk, 2021 earnings of $121,059, and taxable benefits of $1,655.54
- Christopher Collyer, Manager/Chief Operator Environmental Services, 2021 earnings of $104,112, and taxable benefits of $1,450.24
- Jessica Wiley, Director of Infrastructure Services, 2021 earnings of $104,210, and taxable benefits of $1,445.72
