While the local health unit was announcing 13 layoffs earlier this year – with more possibly to come – some of its high ranking officials were still enjoying substantial raises introduced in 2009.
Dr. Nicola Mercer, acting medical officer of health and chief executive officer of Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDGPH), received a pay increase of 25% last year – from $193,154 to $241,602.
And three out of four health unit directors received raises of around 18% in 2009, bringing their annual salaries from just over $106,000 to $125,580. A fourth director, newly hired in 2009, made $117,507 last year.
Mercer told the Advertiser she understands the concerns of people who might conflate the 2009 raises with the 2010 layoffs, but she said the two moves are not correlated.
“When people lose their jobs or see us laying people off, they want an easy answer,” Mercer said on Tuesday afternoon.
She explained a few years ago the unit was unable to fill two management positions, despite advertising for one for over a year, and a subsequent salary review – the unit’s first since around 2000 – showed the salaries of the directors and Mercer were “below market” based on similar positions elsewhere.
“The salary increases were fully absorbed in 2009 in the base budget,” she said. She added there were several other salaries adjusted last year, but the review showed most of the unit’s employees were fairly compensated.
A personnel committee, composed of five board members and several “ex officio” members, including herself, decided to conduct the salary review and award the 2009 salaries, Mercer said.
She noted budget shortfalls as a result of the province’s downloading of costs – which total close to $1-million this year – “far exceeded” any salary increases in 2009.
For example, she said the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program, in particular, was hit hard by the cutbacks. She explained that program is supposed to be 100% funded by the province, but funding has not kept pace with program costs over the past several years.
“We could no longer afford to subsidize it,” she said, noting that shortfall alone resulted in the loss of three nursing jobs.
Around the time of the health unit’s January layoffs, two sources told the Advertiser large raises for those in senior management positions at WDGPH likely contributed to this year’s budget constraints and layoffs.
In an interview at that time, Mercer denied that rumour, stating public health employees received a 3% cost-of-living pay increase across the board in 2010, regardless of position or salary.
She failed to mention the large raises for 2009.
When asked this week if there will be more layoffs, Mercer said she does not expect any but remained non-committal.
“We continue to try to preserve the staff we have,” she said. “We did what we needed to do [in January] and I feel we are in a fairly secure position moving forward.”
However, she warned provincial funding shortfalls – the size of which will not be fully known until the summer – could cause changes this year, and the need for a permanent building in Guelph, could add “substantial” costs in the future.
She also explained WDGPH is this year operating with three directors instead of the usual four in an attempt to save some money. The unit will likely hire a fourth director in 2011, she said.
