School administrators make Sunshine List
The 10 highest paid administrators in Windsor’s two school boards took home a combined $1.8 million in 2014, according to an analysis of Ontario’s sunshine list by the CBC.
The sunshine list is a record of all of Ontario’s public employees who earned more than $100,000 in the last fiscal year. It’s been released annually since 1996.
Paul Picard, the director of education for the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board and Erin Kelly, the director of education for the Greater Essex County District School Board were both each board’s highest paid employee.
Picard earned $237,581.02 in salary and benefits in 2014 while Kelly earned $208,292.04.
The rest of the top ten was made up of four public board superintendents, three Catholic board superintendents, and the executive officer of the Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation, the public board's high school teachers' union.
In both the Catholic and public board, the story is the same – there are more administrators than teachers on the sunshine list.
A CBC analysis of Windsor-Essex’s school board data is below.
Windsor-Essex Catholic School Board
The 188 employees of the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board on the 2014 sunshine list took home a combined total of $21.1 million dollars last year.
The board has a total of 47 schools in the area – 37 elementary and 10 secondary.
Apart from Picard, the next nine highest paid employees – eight superintendents and the assistant director of education – earned almost $1.5 million in combined salary and bonuses.
The median salary of an employee on this list is $107,703.11 and the average salary is $112,212.67.
Thirty elementary school principals and 31 vice-principal made the list, as opposed to only one elementary school classroom teacher.
In the board’s secondary schools, 10 principals and 24 vice-principals made the list, compared to four classroom teachers who were not also department heads.
A department head is a teacher who also takes on a supervisory role within the department, said Stephen Fields, the communications coordinator for the Catholic board. In addition to teaching in the classroom, they also organize departments like history, math and science. Fifty-eight of these teachers were on the list.
Greater Essex County District School Board
The public school board reported 196 employees on the sunshine list. Collectively they earned $22.7 million in combined salary and benefits in 2014.
There are 63 public schools in the board – 56 elementary and middle schools, as well as 17 high schools.
Apart from the director, the top ten highest paid earners took home a total of $1.4 million in combined salaries and benefits. This includes eight superintendents, one secondary school classroom teacher and a union representative.
The median salary for a person listed here is $112,796.65 and the average salary is $115,720.91.
There are 57 elementary school principals and 18 secondary school principals on the list.
Fifteen high school classroom teachers and two elementary classroom teachers made the list as well.
Cathy Lynd, the superintendent of business and treasurer of the Greater Essex County District School Board said these numbers are to be expected because principals carry more responsibility than classroom teachers.
