Glad you asked.
It’s a database The Sun compiles each year with information on remuneration and expenses for people earning more than $75,000 a year who are paid out of the public purse. It also contains information on stipends and expenses paid to boards of directors. This is the eighth edition of the database, containing information for either 2014 or the 2014/15 fiscal year, depending on the agency’s reporting cycle. It contains information for close to 77,000 people.
Why do we do this? Accountability. These employees are being paid out of your tax dollars. The database is wildly popular, if Web traffic numbers are any indication, and people use it for all kinds of reasons. These include research for job-seeking purposes, disputes over child support payments, and old-fashioned curiosity about how much coworkers and bosses make.
Why the $75,000 cutoff? Most public agencies in B.C. are required by law to produce a list of everyone who earns more than $75,000 a year. Some agencies make that list freely available on their website and The Sun obtains the rest through Freedom of Information requests.
I’m on the list, but the information is not the same as what’s on my tax form. The information The Sun gets for this database comes directly from the agencies. We do not do any calculations ourselves, except in a handful of instances, mostly involving MLAs. So if the figure does not look right, contact your employer. Possible explanations are that some agencies include taxable benefits in remuneration, while others do not. When the agency included information about what they included under “Remuneration” and “Expenses,” it is included under “Notes.”
How do I search the database? It is available at vancouversun.com/pay. There are a few ways to search. You can select the sector (Health Authorities, for example), then the agency (Fraser Health) and then enter the person’s last name. Clicking on “Details” brings up information on where that individual ranks both within their agency and within the sector. If you leave the name field blank, the search returns the highest-paid employees either at that agency or within that sector. You can search previous editions of the database by using the Advanced Search function.
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