The new boss at Ontario Power Generation is taking a slight pay cut compared to his predecessor but will still be the province’s highest-paid civil servant.

Jeffrey Lyash, a Pennsylvania native and mechanical engineer who takes over Aug. 21 from president and chief executive officer Tom Mitchell, will earn a base salary of $775,000 and can double it with bonus pay to $1.55 million if performance targets are met.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli defended the outlay, which he said is within government guidelines and would tally slightly below Mitchell’s $1.555 million pay packet last year.

The money is “less rich” than many comparable nuclear power companies in North America and is “moving in the right direction,” Chiarelli told reporters.

“The performance component of it is very, very strategic” because it gives Lyash an incentive to earn the full bonus by making sure OPG turns in stellar financial results, the minister added.

Lyash takes over as the Crown utility prepares a complicated refurbishment of its Darlington nuclear generating station that needs to be “delivered on time and on budget,” OPG chairman Bernard Lord said in a statement.

New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns said the Liberal government does little more than talk about lowering lucrative salaries in the electricity sector while many Ontarians struggle to pay rising hydro bills.

“There’s no sign that they’re actually following through. It’s about five times what the premier makes,” Tabuns (Toronto-Danforth) said of the pay packet for Lyash, chosen after a worldwide search.

He said that Lyash’s experience is mainly in the private sector, including in mergers and acquisitions, which “raises concerns the government is going to go further than privatizing Hydro One.”

Chiarelli said Lyash was not chosen for that reason and there is “no connection to that in any way, shape or form.”

Lyash comes to Canada from CB&I Power, which OPG described as one of the largest U.S. power engineering, procurement and construction companies. He has 30 years’ experience in the industry, including a stint at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and several private companies.