Multiple Skytrain shutdowns were among the factors that bumped overtime pay across TransLink last year, contributing to an increase in the number of employees earning at least $100,000.
Financial disclosure documents show there were 524 TransLink employees in the $100,000 club in 2014, a bump of 21 per cent over the year before.
Take-home pay across the agency jumped about 3.7 per cent overall, something TransLink spokesperson Colleen Brennan blamed in part on overtime work.
“We had a storm, we had SkyTrain outages last summer, and we saw overtime costs go up. Those hours were worked and we paid them out," Brennan said.
Statistics Canada reported that wages across the country among all workers rose 3.5 per cent in the same year.
TransLink paid $452 million to about 6,700 employees in the SkyTrain, bus, West Coast Express, and Transit Police agencies in 2014, the documents say.
The top Transit Police officer, identified as Constable 44, earned $187,647 plus $18,630 in expenses, while the next highest earner was Constable 88, at $161,829.
NDP TransLink critic George Heyman said the agency should be better organized to minimize overtime, which costs more per hour worked than salary.
“They’re working huge amounts of overtime,” he said. “That points to bad management. We can’t get to the crux of this problem because we have a non-transparent board that meets in secret. People deserve better and the provincial government fails to provide it.”
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which has called for the Transit Police to be scrapped altogether and replaced with a cheaper security system, also questioned whether public funding is being put to good use.
TransLink said union agreements also bumped take-home pay,. But while employees earned more money, the executive compensation at the top of TransLink actually shrunk by 5.24 per cent, from $2.1 million to $2.08 million.
Former CEO Ian Jarvis took home $483,625, 3.3 per cent more than last year, while CFO Cathy McLay brought in $354,460, a 7.67 per cent decrease.
