A record 123,410 Ontario public servants – from cops to politicians, teachers and bureaucrats -- earned $100,000 or more last year, making the annual Sunshine List 6.9 per cent bigger.

That’s according to the annual disclosure of civil service salaries released Friday at Queen’s Park.

Some top the benchmark with overtime, such as a Toronto parking enforcement officer Lallman Lall, who more than doubled his base pay to $144,849 by handing out tickets.

Remember the sauna-like conditions on sweltering subway cars last summer?

There were just four “vehicle heating, ventilation, air conditioning repair persons” at the TTC. The busiest, Thomas France, made $156,459 thanks to overtime on the maximum base pay of $76,377 in that job.

It also paid to be a radiologist at the new Woodstock General Hospital, serving the small southwestern Ontario city, where Dr. Robert Vinson made $615,029.

But topping the list was Ontario Power Generation president and CEO Jeff Lyash, who earned $1.16 million for keeping the lights on in the province.

His predecessor, Tom Mitchell, who ranked highest in the salary sweepstakes last year with a $1,528,933 pay packet after retiring in August 2015, got another $562,957 in 2016 from pro-rated bonus pay that he had deferred.

The list was first issued under then-premier Mike Harris, a Progressive Conservative, two decades ago to shine light on public sector salaries and remains an annual fixture.

“It is important for our government to be a leader in openness, accountability and transparency,” said Treasury Board president Liz Sandals, who earned $165,851, the standard cabinet minister’s salary.

Premier Kathleen Wynne made $208,974, Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown $180,886 and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath $158,158.

All MPPs – who, unlike most government employees, do not have a pension plan -- have had their salaries frozen since 2008.

Wynne said there are no plans to raise the threshold of $100,000, which has not changed since 1996.

With inflation, $100,000 in then is the equivalent of $149,424 now and $100,000 today would have been $67,925 when the list began.

“One hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of money and so we’re going to keep it at that level,” Wynne said earlier this week.

If the threshold had been adjusted for inflation, the number of employees on it would have dropped by 84 per cent.

Growth in the list of almost 7 per cent should set off alarm bells, said Christine Ven Geyn, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“Pay and benefits for government employees is the largest chunk of the government’s budget, and they can’t keep expanding that line item at this pace.”

Other big earners rounding out the top 10 included: retired University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation president and CEO William Moriarty, who made $1.05 million; Ontario Pension Board executive vice-president and chief investment officer Jill Pepall at $835,389; OPG chief nuclear officer Glenn Jager at $832,750; University Health Network president and CEO Peter Pisters at $753,992; Sinai Health System president and CEO Joseph Mapa at $719,724; Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care president William Reichman at $718,475; Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre president and CEO Barry McLellan at $715,000; the Hospital for Sick Children’s president and CEO Michael Apkon at $690,566; and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health president and CEO Catherine Zahn at $672,731.

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Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing), who made $116,500, lamented that Hydro One employees’ salaries are no longer available – other than the top five executives – because the utility has been partially privatized.

“In a time when people are struggling to keep the lights on, the Wynne government continues to hand out excessive salaries to their friends at Hydro One,” said Fedeli.

New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto Danforth) said “the larger problem is with the people at the top” like power executives and hospital CEOs.

“That has far greater impact on people and, frankly, is far more consequential than the other salaries,” said Tabuns, who earned $132,867.

A scan through the six volumes of the Sunshine List – which stack 13 cm high – reveals some other nuggets.

The highest-paid Toronto police constable, Abdulhameed Virani, earned $243,000, more than double the $94,949 based pay for first class constables thanks to overtime.

That compares with $332,511 paid to Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders, up from $286,265 the previous year.

One TTC transit enforcement officer, Carlos Uncao, made $213,150 with overtime at double-time because the unit was down two officers last year. The base pay in that category tops out at $76,377 annually.

Toronto Mayor John Tory clocked in at $184,666 and former Wynne deputy chief of staff Patricia Sorbara – who resigned until Elections Act charges against her are settled in a Sudbury trial this fall – earned $156,290.

In all more than 11,600 City of Toronto staff and employees of city agencies including TTC, TCH and Toronto Police service, earned more than $100,000 last year.

Topping the list is Toronto city manager Peter Wallace, who raked in $350,072.89. Other top city earners include deputy city managers John Livey and Rob Rossini at $300,013.86 and $283,132.99 respectively, and chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat at $247,832.09.

TTC chief executive Andy Byford, who was unsuccessfully wooed by an Australian transit agency this year, earned $339,913.43.

With files from David Rider

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