The Alberta government has for the first time unveiled compensation packages for board members and executives at the province's agencies, boards and commissions – a series of lists that show the top boss at the Workers' Compensation Board took home more than $896,000 last year.

The sum appears to outstrip what his counterpart in British Columbia is paid by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has pledged to align compensation at the province's agencies, boards and commissions – or ABCs – with those in the private sector and has released a comprehensive accounting of compensation for directors and executives making more than $125,000 per year. WCB Alberta's chief executive Guy Kerr collected $896,206.25 in salary and other compensation last year, according to government records. Five WCB vice-presidents took home compensation ranging between $629,780 and $462,377 .

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The New Democratic Party presented the information this week in a format that is neither uniform nor easy to search. The Wildrose Party, Alberta's Official Opposition, compiled the data, making it searchable. Mr. Kerr plus five WCB vice-presidents occupy six of the top 13 spots in the Wildrose's collection.

David Erickson, Alberta Electric System Operator's chief executive, ranked second on the compensation list with $861,549; while Jim Ellis, the head of the Alberta Energy Regulator, landed third with $721,680. (The database was last updated Friday afternoon.)

"The release of the sunshine list is a significant step forward for transparency in public sector compensation," Derek Fildebrandt, the Wildrose finance critic, said in an interview. "The head of the WCB salary [and] total compensation package appears to be stratospherically high."

He cautioned against immediately considering rich packages as egregious. "Seeing someone with a high salary on the sunshine list should not instantly equal bad. We have to pay good people to do good work so that compensation needs to be reasonable" and comparable to similar positions in the public and private sector.

British Columbia in 2012 announced plans to reform compensation at its Crown corporations. Two people, at varying times, held the role of chief executive at the Workers' Compensation Board in British Columbia in 2014. Their combined compensation totalled $555,453, according to government documents. One of the vice-presidents pocked $351,217 in 2014.

The Alberta government has been steadfast in its commitment to continue to build infrastructure such as schools and hospitals during the economic downturn. Alberta's deficit is $10.4-billion this year. Ms. Notley has repeatedly said she will not gut front-line employees or rip up union contracts. However, mandates for the province's agencies, boards and commissions – as well as their pay practices – are under the microscope.

Representatives from the AER, AESO and WCB, all defended their compensation structures Friday. Carrie Rosa, a spokeswoman for the AER, said the energy regulator benchmarks itself against oil and gas firms rather than the public sector because that is the competing talent pool. Mike Deising, a spokesman at AESO, said his organization benchmarks itself against other electric system operators in North America (both public and private), as well as other government agencies. The WCB declined an interview request and instead e-mailed a statement.

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"WCB's executive compensation philosophy compares our organization to a peer group of 29 similarly-sized Canadian companies, which must meet two of three criteria: being from the public sector, the financial services industry, and being Alberta based. The vast majority (24) of these organizations are public sector," spokesman Ben Dille said in the statement. The board, he said, uses an independent consultant to review the group annually.

"We need executives who are capable of managing a $10-billion investment portfolio to protect future worker benefits while guiding 1,700 employees to make the right decisions every day. It's critical that we are able to compete for top talent."

Doreen Barrie, a political studies professor at the University of Calgary, said sunshine lists can illustrate how governments may have rewarded friends with well-paying positions.

"Publishing the lavish payments to officials at agencies, boards and commissions is certainly an eye-opener (and jaw-dropper) for Albertans struggling to make ends meet. In the interests of transparency, it's important to know how much high-paid executives are earning," she said in an e-mail.