LETTER: Is Chatham-Kent hiring a second CAO?

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Editor: Our current CAO is one of the highest paid CAOs in Ontario at $320,000 yearly. That’s about $1,230 per day, almost what a person on disability would receive in a month in Ontario.

In addition to his $320,000 salary, there is an added amount of tax dollar payout called employee burden cost, a cost to keep an employee on the payroll with vacation, pension, medical and so on.

The second or assistant C-K CAO will cost about $220,000 in annual salary plus more employee burden again.

C-K has previously assigned one of its general manager’s as acting CAO to take the reigns when our full-time CAO was absent. I don’t know why this model is no longer valid, especially when there was no additional cost using a GM for a stand-in CAO.

About 45 per cent of C-K’s total budget of about $444 million is already paid in wages.  I don’t know if that includes the employee burden costs.

Every taxpayer should be connecting with their council member to this matter.

Taxpayers should be aware council cannot give up its right to oversee all senior staff nor can any previous council decision override any current council. Council has an obligation and is free to consider anything at any time with a simple majority vote.

Why did council approve this hire?

At a time when municipalities should be reducing the size of its government, Chatham-Kent is increasing its government model.

My experience with provincial and municipal government over the decades demonstrates no existing legislation compelling local governments to be open, transparent and subsequently accountable. I suspect local governments like Chatham-Kent, not having the province breathing over their shoulder to hold them to account, may be more apt to do what they want, as there is no consequence for their behavior.

A CAO’s job is to find and implement cost savings, not increase costs.

John Cryderman

Chatham

1 COMMENT

  1. I have to agree this is an astronomical amount of money to pay anyone for that matter. Even the Prime Minister only gets $406000 a year!! So why are we paying this person so much? How much value do they really make for the municipality? When calculating the value of an employee, often referred to as Employee Lifetime Value (ELTV). This provides a basic understanding of how much revenue, on average, an employee contributes during their time with the company but in this case the municipality. Having said this how can we believe they are as valuable to their worth considering what I mentioned here. At thier current wages and let just say the “profit” margins are at 20%, then this employe wouldhave to generate as follows: Revenue needed = $320,000 / 0.20 = $1,600,000 for Chatham kent to justify this amount of wage for this employee. i would imagine they are and havent for the length of time they have been employed? I mean come on, even Darrin Cannifs wages are only at $116,747, since when did we start paying our employees more then we make? To me this is a huge business failure and if we hire another one at the mentioned $220000, then the numbers become evenmore astronimical! Sounds like we have a line up of “buddie” that are getting paid a ton to do what? Time to be much more transparent than they have been??

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