By Jim Portside
March 29th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The macro picture one gets from the 2024 Sunshine list is hard enough to swallow – the macro level look is close to mind boggling. Does the angle of the pay increases graphic replicate what is done in the private sector?
Here are some of the more notable salary increases.
Jennifer Johnson earned 20.68% more in 2024. Ms. Johnson’s job title changed from “Senior Project Manager, Facilities and Buildings” to “Senior Project Manager”.
Kirsten Renner earned 19.81% more in 2024. Ms. Renner’s job title changed from “Supervisor, Payroll Services” to “Supervisor”.
Lori Jivan earned 18.53% more in 2024. Ms. Jivan’s job title changed from “Supervisor, Budgets and Policies” to “Manager”. It’s nice to see someone who does a stellar job of presenting the budget to taxpayers being richly rewarded.
Blake Hurley earned 14.97% more in 2024. Mr. Hurley’s job title changed from “Executive Director, Legal Services and Corporate Council” to “Commissioner”.
These salary charts remind me of a U2 song – “Hello, hello. We’re at a place called Vertigo”?
These are all good people – the question one has to ask is: are these increases realistic and can the city afford it?
All is well at city hall. After pushing through a 10.21% increase to property tax revenue for 2024, with almost no population growth, staff is richly rewarding their own efforts. Our mayor likes to call 2024’s 10.21% increase a 4.99% impact on our total tax bill but the reality is the city received 10.21% more revenue from taxpayers and, based on the Sunshine List, they know how to spend the money.
Related news story:
Burlington as it is seen on the 2024 Sunshine list.
Jim Portside is a Burlington resident who retired after several decades as a successful business owner
It’s actually closer to $200,000 based on Future Value=Present Value×(1+Inflation Rate) factored over 35 years and an avg inflation rate of 2% – I think we can all agree, ultimate transparency is a very good thing when it comes tax payer funded compensation. But the relatively “normal” $100K trigger should be reset ($200K?) – maintaining it at the lower number, produces year-after-year headlines that are disingenuous and basically stir-the-pot with worthless “news”
As for the “City Hall Salary Increases” headline, the news blurb may not (probably doesn’t?) tell the entire story. I would guess the majority of City employees received ~2or3 per cent increases in 2024 based on negotiated contracts and/or performance related acknowledgements. My ~40 years in private sector HR roles has taught me there are always “exceptional” compensation adjustments that result from a combination of performance/cost-of-living increases AND a (usually overdue) position reevaluation process which can misrepresent/slant the year-over-year total compensation uplift
Its time to bring a Elon Musk to Burlington. Council sits behind the walls of city hall on Brant street telling us what a great job staff are doing and rewarding them with remuneration increases far beyond what is happening in the private sector, paying for the largess with an 11% increase in city controlled property taxes. If you want to complain, try to get to talk to somebody, person to person. The new firewall of Service Burlington makes it almost impossible. The city employee, working less than 35 hours per week, with a long list of benefits, and pretty good job security has to be funded by a lot of citizens working 40 to 60 hours per week, at times spread over 6 or 7 days without benefits. It is time for the mayor to justify the remuneration increases she is supporting. If you don’t believe me talk to your hairdresser, your barber, your server at the restaurant, the checkout person at the grocery store. You might also want to talk to people who are dealing with food insecurity in Burlington, or those who are trying to help the homeless or about to be homeless.
The so called “Sunshine List” should be at about $180,000 today