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I have the same question, has Mario's role or scope of work changed since 2004 to warrant an increase over that period of almost 70k???

Secondly Linda Leeds salary increased from 114k to 148k in 2 years??

On what merit were these increases given, secondly why the large increases during a recession?

Who decides their increases? Themselves??

Nice work Andrew!

Normally we relate salary increases to cost of living and performance. I suspect that the big increases for senior Milton staff are more related to Milton's growth.

There is probably a table somewhere, produced by bureaucrats, that shows a suggested salary range for senior positions in communities of various populations. As Milton grows, so do the senior salary ranges and salaries. I would certainly expect our council to have a policy for this and be monitoring salary requests against that policy.

I am in the wrong profession! How can I apply for these jobs...

Andrew ...

I would love to see a comparison in the same table created; Wage increase % vs. population increase % in Milton.

then I will vote whether the wage increase was fair.

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The wage increase , at the top most level should have nothing to do with the population increase .

The population increase can justify the increase in number of jobs.

BTW, I am not saying that the wage increase is not justified just saying that the wage increase of top most earners should not be related with population increase

I don't understand why our chief librarian gets almost $115000 a year when we only had one library till very recently. That seems really high to me.

It's hard to judge some of the compensation increases without knowing more about the performance criteria, objective goals, etc related to an individuals merit increase review. When individuals are good and at the top of your game, in these positions, you have to pay to keep them. A good CAO can save the town many times over his salary per year. So if the performance is merited then so is the salary.

Thanks Andrew for putting that chart together. Yes, I see the CAO's average increase was 6.9% year over year with the largest jump being in the recent year reported.

John Oliver, the president of Halton Healthcare Services recently got a $95,000 raise bringing his salary to $635,000 in 2008. It's probably more so in 2009. Not exactly a typical cost of living increase.

I'm not trying to defend these salaries. They are emotionally jarring. But the Town needs to make decisions on what is *best* for the town. I think you need to try to keep the emotion out of it when setting salary for the town's top positions and really base it on getting the most benefit/return for the town.

I do appreciate though that so far we've been able to keep town council, school trustee, and other elected positions in Milton fairly low in salary. I don't think people should get involved in local politics for money. But it's a different story when your talking about staff positions. They should be compensated competitively with adjustments for their individual merit & performance. There's a "cost/benefit" ratio and motivational aspect with those type of positions that's different than elected positions.

Some other CAO's in Ontario...
Population, location, salary (some 2008 or 2009)
45,965 Cornwall, Ontario CAO $175,00
162,704 Richmond Hill, Ontario CAO $224,344
74,295 Newmarket, Ontario CAO $189,755
74,561 Kawartha Lakes, Ontario CAO $161,028

But please look at them in the perspective that the salary should not be based just on population. To judge better you really would have to know more about an individuals performance, the town's requirements, the geographical location & comparable market salaries in that area, etc.

On one hand it's easy to say 'keep emotion out of it' when looking at high salaries, but it's difficult to see a CEO, CAO, what-have-you making 100's of thousands or even 100's of millions in yearly compensation and not feel unsettled. But you have to look at it from the perspective if that individual leaves, what salary are you going to pay for a different individual of similar performance & capabilities.

Andrew, I don't think the poll as it is stated currently really works. Each individual is going to be different. One top staff member maybe merits 0% increase based on their performance, current salary, market average, etc while another staff member could merit a 10% increase.

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I have to agree with Rick on this one. You cant simply ask if you think a specific % increase is acceptable or not. You need to look at comparable jobs in other municipaities and what they are making. Salary Surveys concucted by executive search firms and companies such as Mercer provide this data.

While I do think that some of these salaries are high, I would be really curious to see what some comparables are in other areas.

I strongly believe that increases should be based on Merit and salary comparisons should be conducted on a regular basis, however, in some cases, you need to pay more $$ to retain top talent (both in Business and the Public sector)

In any private corporation that I am familiar with there are 3 components to "normal" staff salary management:
- A salary range for each position that is reviewed periodically by comparing to other similar positions (Mercer was mentioned).
- An annual cost of living adjustment that is applied to the salary ranges and received by basically all staff.
- A performance component that is distributed based on individual performance and their position within the salary range.

I believe that Milton Council approves a cost of living adjustment and an aggregate performance increase percentage at budget time. I don't know how Milton sets the salary ranges, or when it was last done, but am certainly curious after seeing Andrew's data.

The only explanation that would justify the senior staff salary increases for me would be if there had been a major increase in salary ranges. For example, the salary range for Milton's CAO might have been $120k to $150k in 2004 based on comparable 50,000 population communities. Then a review may have been done based on comparable communities of 100,000 and a new salary range set at $160k to $190k. That is an increase of over 30% to the salary range. Assuming the increases to senior salary ranges are justified, would you give that increase to the senior individuals in one shot, or phase it in as may be the case in the actual annual increases? I would phase it.

Does anyone know how Milton manages senior salary ranges and when was the last review? It can't be a secret cuz its our money.

Have a nice pension too I bet. Fly first class, go to "important" meetings with cocktails included... Funded by yours truly. Nice to see my tax dollars being spent this way. How about they all take a 15% paycut and give the proceeds to the hospital. Wankers. Pay them less and they can go to the private market. At least they will create jobs etc. I'm sure someone less qualified could do the jobs better and for a lot less anyway. Its an old boys club.

How about me move these jobs off-shore

I think if you compare the salaries of the CAO of Milton to the CEO of a hospital we're getting a bargain. Civil servants don't get paid nearly as well as the private sector. Granted, civil servants (certainly in non-management levels) have more relevant job security, but from a dollars/benefits sense our CAO is a bargain for the responsibilities he has. Also, $100K in today's dollars is $75K 10 years ago. It is still a lot of money mind you, but not the same really. In many of these jobs its prerequiste to have an MBA, relevant executive experience, etc. If any one has those they should apply for the post as opposed to throw there names in the air hear about being in the wrong profession. Let's be fair here. Emotion overriding reason by some posters here - not me though, nosiree .

Wow must be nice to get an increase over 6 years of 70K. I'd say these increases are more in line to keep these people from leaving to other municipalities. If you want to argue that a CAO is saving the municipality money, then great, create a metric for it and create a bonus clause in their contract that if they hit the metrics they get bonused.

I haven't seen an increase in the 2 years since I started with my new company due to wage freezes for everyone. This while we have collectively increased sales by over 45 percent YoY during a recession. Too bad the quotas were jacked higher then they should have been, so even with the growth we weren't comped on that overacheivement. Yes i'm nuts for putting up with it, but the place isn't that bad to work at. Maybe I'll apply to the town of Milton.

Wow... I'm in the wrong job.

I received a 0% raise in the last 2 years. I received 1.4% raise this year... regardless of the fact that I've consistantly scored Excellents and Outstandings on my reviews.

Funnily enough - up until last year, HR would show us a 'benchmark' of what Below Average, Average, and Outstanding Employees average wages were (based on wages throughout Ontario). Now that I'm ranking 'Outstanding' all the time, they didn't show me the benchmark this year, lol.

How's this for an idea? Municipal employees have 'surveys' taken of them by the public; the rating they receive directly affects their raise. Wishful, but misguided, thinking, I know.

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