'Sunshine list' growing

Photo: Colin Dacre

The City of Penticton’s “sunshine list” grew considerably in 2018.

The municipality’s annual disclosure of employees making more than $75,000 a year goes before city council next week.

The report shows 122 city workers above the disclosure threshold last year, up from 105 in 2017. The increase is being attributed to filled firefighter vacancies and cost-of-living increases for CUPE members and management.

Emergencies such as wildfires and flooding also pushed salaries upwards, although overtime was reimbursed in full by the provincial government.

Across the board, the City of Penticton’s payroll and expenses including reimbursed emergency overtime, grew 2.4 per cent to $24 million in 2018.

The top five public salaries including overtime at the City of Penticton in 2018 were:

• Peter Weeber, city manager: $200,000
• Larry Watkinson, fire chief: $190,000
• Mitch Moroziuk, general manager of infrastructure: $184,000
• James Bauer, chief financial officer: $173,000
• Anthony Haddad, director of development services: $164,000

For mayor and council, outgoing mayor Andrew Jakubeit was paid a salary of $60,700 while councillors received $21,269.