On March 23, the Ontario government released its annual Sunshine List of public employees who earned more than $100,000 in 2017.
The list contains 3,811 U of T employees, up from 3,626 employees who made it onto last year’s list. The top U of T earner was Daren Smith, President and Chief Investment Officer of the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation (UTAM). Smith took home $936,089.48, making him the second highest paid public employee in the province. This is a substantial increase from the $512,215.61 he made in 2016. UTAM is a not-for-profit subsidiary of the university responsible for the management of its pension funds, endowment, and both short and long-term investments.
The next top earners from U of T are also from UTAM. Senior Portfolio Manager Charles O’Reilly made $571,307.86, while Chief Operating Officer Lisa Becker, the top female earner at U of T, made $499,678.76, ranking 55th in the province. Managing Director Adrian Hussey earned $499,080.91, while rounding out the top five was Vice-Dean of Learning and Innovation and Professor of Economics Mihnea Moldoveanu, who took home $467,300.04.
Many of the remaining U of T top earners in 2017 teach in the Rotman School of Management; this was also the case in 2016. U of T President Meric Gertler appears 13th on the list of U of T earners. He earned $438,892.04 last year, almost identical to the $438,892.32 he made in 2016, which had made him U of T’s seventh highest earning employee.
More than half of U of T’s Sunshine List earners made between $100K and $150K. Only 0.6 per cent of the Sunshine List members made more than $400K.
Average salary of U of T’s Sunshine List members went down slightly from $160,568.28 to $159,553.18 in 2017, although the number of earners increased. Professors of Education appeared most frequently in this year’s edition, with 74 of them earning more than $100K, followed by Professors of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who appeared a total of 51 times.
