The list, officially known as the Ontario Public Sector Salary Disclosure, features public sector staff who earned at least $100,000 in annual salary. The Ottawa Catholic School Board saw 468 teachers on the list, more than a 25 per cent jump compared to the previous year.
The total number represents department heads, program co-ordinators, consultant teachers, and teachers with no other designation. The latter group had 300 representatives on the Sunshine List – an almost 50 per cent rise from 208 teachers in 2019.
A rise in teachers surpassing $100,000 salary is expected, says Lisa Schimmens, the superintendent of finance and administration at the board. Teachers receive yearly raises based on inflation, experience and qualifications.
Their base salary depends on where they fall in a pay grid. Teachers are placed into five different certifications – all depending on their post-secondary education and any additional courses taken. The higher the certification, the higher the salary.
Teachers earn an annual raise from their first year to their twelfth as they step up the pay grid. They stay in their spot after that unless they either earn a higher certification or get promoted to a higher teaching position. Teachers are guaranteed a spot on the Sunshine List once they reach the highest level of qualification and experience, according to a pay grid for the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association. The grid is for a different school board but the salaries are similar to those for Ottawa Catholic board teachers.
About two-thirds of teachers in the board have more than 11 years of experience, according to Michele Pierce, president of Ottawa Catholic Teachers.
Ontario’s Ministry of Education also adds a small increase every year to account for inflation. Services worth $100,000 when the Sunshine List launched in 1996 amount to $160,224 in 2021, according to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator.
Schimmens says the province should raise the benchmark salary of the list to match inflation as well.
“If they don’t change the base, likely more teachers will grow onto that list just if they’re getting pay increases,” says Schimmens, who’s worked at school boards for 26 years and remembers the launch of the Sunshine List.
“It should be looked at and adjusted,” Schimmens says. “While this is a tool for accountability and transparency, now it’s become so voluminous that you kind of lose the intent of the list.
“Many years ago when it originally began, it identified those larger earners on the list because at the time, more than $100,000 was a larger earner,” she says.
Even more teachers could have seen sunshine if not for four strike days in 2020, Schimmens says. Teachers lost about $1,000 on average to the strike, she says.
“That would actually drop some people off the list that were very close to that $100,000 mark,” she says.
Elementary and high-school teachers share the same salary grid under Ottawa Catholic Teachers. The public Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has two different grids because it must reach agreements with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario and the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation.
Schimmens suggests elementary teachers make up the majority of those at the catholic board on the Sunshine List.
“You have proportionately way more elementary teachers than you do secondary,” she says, referring to the 10 grades in elementary school and four in high school.
Current student enrolment rates also play a role as future Sunshine Lists are released. Enrolment increases consistently every year, according to the board’s most recent budget. The board hires more teachers to keep up, says Schimmens.
“Because we’re growing, that list is going to grow naturally as well,” she says.