The Ontario government released its annual public disclosure of salaries above $100,000, colloquially known as the Sunshine List, on March 20. It shows $715 million earned by 4,422 employees at U of T, Victoria University, Trinity College, and the University of St. Michael’s College in 2019.
Daren Smith, President and Chief Investment Officer of the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation, topped the Sunshine List for U of T with a salary of $800,749.46, a decrease from his $989,308 last year, and a knock-down from being the second highest-paid public employee in the province to the fifth. President Meric Gertler also moved down from being the third highest-paid employee at U of T to the 13th, having earned $438,892.04 in 2019 — a pay cut of nearly $50,000 from last year.
Gertler’s ranking on the Sunshine List was below multiple vice deans, finance and accounting professors, and three professors of strategic management who are, respectively, the second, third, and fourth highest-paid employees at U of T: Will Mitchell, Brian R. Golden, and Joel A. C. Baum.
The number of university employees whose salaries appear on the Sunshine List has steadily increased from 3,626 in 2016 to 4,422 in 2019 — an addition of about 400 employees every year. The average U of T employee listed made $161,710.11, with a median income of $146,587.39, indicating that those earning closer to $100,000 make up a majority of U of T’s Sunshine List.
