Dr. Alex Summers and Dr. Chris Mackie at the Middlesex-London Health Unit took home nearly $900,000 combined in 2021, according to newly-released data through the Sunshine List.
But the chair of the board of health stressed the figures are the result of a provincial salary framework combined with hefty overtime hours resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The provincial public sector salary disclosure showed that then-medical officer of health Mackie — who resigned March 4 following a leave of absence announced in November 2021 — earned $468,874.19 in 2021 with $2,046.48 in taxable benefits.
Matt Reid, chair of the MLHU’s board of health, was unable to confirm whether Mackie was paid while he was on leave but he did say that “there was absolutely no overtime that was paid for that period.”
Then-associate medical officer of health Summers — who served as acting medical officer of health upon Mackie’s leave and was officially named medical officer of health last week — was paid $415,961.32 in 2021 with $1,826.88 in taxable benefits.
“All medical officers of health and associate medical officers of health are put on a grid that is approved by the province and is applied to all medical officers of health throughout the province of Ontario,” Reid told Global News on Wednesday.
“The local board of health really doesn’t have any sort of discretion in the matter. It’s not that we are able to increase it. Where a person starts, every year they will move up on the grid that’s prescribed by the provincial regulations.”
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While Reid did not have exact figures available, he said that Mackie’s base salary would have been about $300,000 while Summers’, as associate medical officer of health, would have been “a bit lower than that.”
How they ended up with pay over $400,000 is largely due to overtime, he explained, including roughly six weeks’ worth of overtime from 2020 that wasn’t paid out until 2021.
“These are exceptional times with COVID and we do expect that this overtime will be reduced post-COVID and you will not be seeing these type of overtime charges being made,” said Reid.
“They are being fully funded by the provincial government. The provincial government recognized that this was happening and asked them to track it, and did say that they alone would be paying for it. So it will not result in an increase to property taxes for the City of London or the County of Middlesex.”
Reid also added that while unionized members are paid overtime at time-and-a-half, the senior leadership team is not.
Overtime hours were also highlighted last year when the 2020 Sunshine List was released and it was revealed that Mackie earned roughly $100,000 alone in overtime.
At the time, then-director of healthy organization for the MLHU Emily Williams, currently the MLHU’s CEO, also noted that the number of employees making the Sunshine List more than tripled in 2020, to 67 from 19, also mostly attributed to overtime hours resulting from the pandemic.
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