MUSKOKA — The number of District Municipality of Muskoka employees earning more than $100,000 nearly doubled in 2009.
A public sector disclosure list will reveal that the number of district employees making more than $100,000 jumped from 13 in 2008 to 21 in 2009, according to a report from Stephen Cairns, Muskoka’s commissioner of finance and corporate services.
Cairns claimed the reason for the large increase is because of a one-time pay anomaly, which happens every 12 years.
The amount reported on the disclosure list is based on the employee’s annual T4 forms, he said.
Cairns said employees’ salaries on the list appear to have increased by seven per cent, but in fact there was an extra pay period in 2009.
District staff, which is paid on a biweekly pay cycle, had 27 pay periods in 2009 starting on Jan. 2. The pay on Jan. 2 was actually payment for work performed in 2008, said Cairns.
“It looks as if they got an extra week’s pay, but they didn’t,” said Cairns.
In 2010 it will look as if people had a reduction of pay, he added.
“Because 2009 is high and 2010 will return to a normal year, it will look like everybody got a pay cut and that is not right either,” said Cairns.
Staff will also have to report more taxable income for 2009, said Cairns.
“It is a two-edged sword,” he remarked.
The public sector salary disclosure list, which details public employees earning more than $100,000, will not be released until the end of March, but Cairns said he wanted to forewarn district council about the pay anomaly.
Approximately four employees should not have been on the list for 2009, said Cairns. However those four employees will be on the list in 2010 because of a two per cent raise for non-union staff approved this year, he noted.
“It (the extra pay period) accelerated their being on the list by one year (but) by next year they will be on the list. They will have just crept over the $100,000 mark,” said Cairns.
The other four staff reporting salaries over the $100,000 mark would have been on the list regardless of the extra pay period, said Cairns.