Non-union City of Greater Sudbury managers received an eight-per-cent boost in pay last year.
This, in addition to their regular three-per cent cost of living increase.
City CAO Ed Archer approved the wage hike within pay groups 16-18 (city directors and other senior managers), alongside a six-per-cent boost for pay group 15 in November 2023.
There were 23 people whose wages were boosted in pay groups 16-18, and eight people whose wages were increased in pay group 15.
Archer’s decision comes more than a year after city council members considered a resolution calling for a six-per-cent pay boost within pay groups 16-18 during a closed session on April 26, 2022, which the city’s elected officials did not approve.
This, according to a package of documents delivered to the Sudbury.com office in a brown envelope on Thursday. Submitted anonymously, a letter in the package is signed, “Honest City Employees.”
In their letter, the tipsters indicated that city council voted against the April 26, 2022, resolution to boost pay by six per cent, and that Archer proceeded with an even greater boost in November 2023 anyway.
In conversation with Sudbury.com this afternoon, Archer said his recollection was that the previous city council deferred the matter on April 26, 2022, for the next incarnation of city council elected on Oct. 24, 2022, to deal with, which happened.
“We were seeing, as we do regular benchmarking, salary levels falling behind the market and we were receiving recruiting challenges,” he told Sudbury.com of their April 26, 2022, effort, which carried forward and was dealt with through last year’s pay jump.
“We have a lot of senior staff who have reached the point in their career where the option to retire exists, and we were going back out to the market to find people,” he said. “The salary levels that we were providing did not meet the market expectations.”
By increasing pay levels, Archer said he used his delegated authority to follow city council’s direction.
Although a written statement provided by the city and our interview with Archer answered many of our questions, as of this story’s publication, staff were still calculating the total cost of last year’s pay increases which Archer authorized.
The brown envelope package provided by the tipster included an introductory letter, an inter-office letter from November 2023 sent by a compensation officer to staff slated to receive a pay increase, and a City of Greater Sudbury closed-session agenda and report from April 26, 2022.
Last year’s pay jumps were announced in the November 2023 letter to affected staff. The letter notes that Archer invoked Bylaw 2015-87, which gives him “delegation of authority to permit the adjustment of non-union compensation” within defined limits in their Salary Administration Plan.
Sudbury.com requested this salary administration plan from city communications staff, and as of this story’s publication, we have not received it.
On Sept. 26, 2023, several weeks before the pay jump, a unanimous city council (the minutes note that all 13 members were present) passed Bylaw 2023-150, which amended Bylaw 2015-87 and gave Archer the authority “to adjust the pay structure of all or some categories of non-union employees” when he believes “it is appropriate to do so” based on existing compensation philosophies and the salary administration plan approved by city council.
The pay jump was retroactive to April 1, 2023, and was anticipated to be paid by December, according to the November 2023 letter sent to affected staff and leaked to Sudbury.com.
These positions’ salaries were “below the level anticipated by our compensation philosophy and external equity expectations outlined in our Salary Administration Plan,” the letter said.
Archer’s decision to boost pay for the city’s top managers by eight per cent (and pay group 15 staff by six per cent) follows a 2022 resolution recommended by city administration to increase top managers' pay by six per cent, which did not pass.
A report by city Corporate Services General Manager Kevin Fowke, tabled for the April 26, 2022, closed session of city council, proposed a resolution to increase the wages of pay groups 16-18 by six per cent, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2022.
This is a resolution the anonymous tipsters indicated city council members voted against, and which Archer said was deferred for the newly elected city council to deal with.
Although the cost of Archer’s November 2023 decision to increase the wages of pay groups 16-18 by eight per cent and pay group 15 by six per cent remains unknown, we do know the estimated cost of the 2022 proposal.
Fowke’s closed-session report notes that increasing pay groups 16-18 by six per cent in 2022 would cost $236,100.
This isn’t the first time staff compensation was in the public spotlight, as compensation levels were in candidates’ crosshairs during the 2022 civic election cycle.
Prior to that, Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti said during a finance and administration meeting in late 2021 that “people are tired of excess everywhere.” Signoretti included “excess in staff compensation” in his list of alleged excesses.
This prompted Sudbury.com to look into staff compensation, and we were provided information from Archer which showed that 10 of the city’s 13 non-union pay groups were below the 50th percentile among a list of municipal comparators.
Fowke’s April 26, 2022, closed-session report noted that pay groups 16-18 were more than 10 per cent below market rates, which was why he recommended a one-time adjustment of six per cent to being the pay groups “back into an acceptable range, though still four to five per cent under the 50th percentile range for comparator roles.”
Pay group 15 was seven-per-cent below market rates at the time, according to Fowke’s report.
In their emailed response this week, a city spokesperson said they “regularly assess union and non-union positions to ensure they support organizational needs, provide fair and equitable compensation and ensure competitiveness in the labour market.”
The pay boost aimed to fill “a significant negative variance to the market for these pay groups.”
Meanwhile, in 2023, CUPE Local 4705 inside and outside units received a general wage increase of three per cent. “Outside of this general wage increase, several unionized positions underwent evaluations/market adjustments,” the city spokesperson said, adding that they were still compiling this information.
They also noted that salaries above the $100,000 annual salary threshold are included as part of the annual Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act (Sunshine List), which is published annually at the end of March.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
