WSIB President's Pay Raises Eyebrows

Pay Raises Eyebrows - Tory critic sees 'accounting mischief'

" "It certainly has the appearance of some kind of accounting mischief," Progressive Conservative finance critic Tim Hudak said yesterday. "I worry that the taxpayers and the premium payers of Ontario are going to be left footing the bill for this very high salary." Under provincial salary disclosure laws -- the so-called Sunshine List -- the WSIB has reported Hutcheon earned $844,000 in salary and benefits between 2003 and 2006. But because the labour ministry says she joined the board on secondment from her old job, it continued to pay her a deputy minister's salary for those same years, earning her an additional $744,000. . . . "Small businesses and manufacturers in (Premier) Dalton McGuinty's Ontario are really getting squeezed and they're going to hit the roof when they see their (insurance) premiums being used for this." "

The people who ultimately pay Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) president Jill Hutcheon will be outraged when they learn her salary was split in two on the provincial Sunshine List, allowing the board to report it paid her nearly $750,000 less than it actually did, critics charged yesterday.

"It certainly has the appearance of some kind of accounting mischief," Progressive Conservative finance critic Tim Hudak said yesterday.

"I worry that the taxpayers and the premium payers of Ontario are going to be left footing the bill for this very high salary."

Under provincial salary disclosure laws -- the so-called Sunshine List -- the WSIB has reported Hutcheon earned $844,000 in salary and benefits between 2003 and 2006.

But because the labour ministry says she joined the board on secondment from her old job, it continued to pay her a deputy minister's salary for those same years, earning her an additional $744,000.

The labour ministry paid Hutcheon the money but was reimbursed for it by the board.

"Without any explanation from the minister of labour -- who seems to have gone missing -- this does appear as if the WSIB was hiding her salary by dividing it between two pots," Hudak said.

"Small businesses and manufacturers in (Premier) Dalton McGuinty's Ontario are really getting squeezed and they're going to hit the roof when they see their (insurance) premiums being used for this."

Senior executives at the WSIB are paid out of insurance premiums paid by employers, while tax money funds the labour ministry.

The province's conflict of interest commissioner, Sidney Linden, says splitting salaries this way could lead to "adverse inferences" and is reviewing the rules that allow it and secondments in general.

Both WSIB chairman Steve Mahoney and Labour Minister Brad Duguid did not respond to requests for interviews yesterday. Hutcheon has also declined to be interviewed.

"It's important for the commissioner to set guidelines but my goodness," New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos said.

The whole point of the salary disclosure law is to allow taxpayers to see where their money goes, Kormos said.