Article content

Alberta is an anomaly in exempting school boards from disclosing the salaries of their top earners, says a Canadian professor and author who is a public policy expert.

Alberta’s first so-called sunshine list gave taxpayers a glimpse at high-earning public sector salaries this year. Absent from the list were employees of school boards and municipalities.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Alberta exempting school districts from salary disclosure 'very strange,' says professor Back to video

A handful of school district salaries that are disclosed show Alberta’s top-earning school superintendent took home $405,544 last year.

Photo by Richard Leblanc

“It’s very strange that (school boards have) been carved out like that. I can’t think of a legitimate reason, particularly when it’s done in other jurisdictions,” said Richard Leblanc, associate professor of law, corporate governance and ethics at Toronto’s York University.

Alberta’s Public Sector Compensation Transparency Act and accompanying regulations says school districts are “enabled, but not required to disclose the names and compensation paid to employees.”

Similar acts in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia all compel school boards to publish names and salaries of employees earning more than the provincial threshold for making the information public. In Alberta’s case, that’s $105,000 for government staff and $125,000 for agencies, boards and commissions.