Big Jump In Sunshine Listers In Frontenac County

Jeff Green | Apr 10, 2024

The sunshine list is getting longer and longer.

For the 2023 year, Frontenac County paid 109 employees over $100,000. That represents an increase of 55% over the 70 that made over $100,000 just a year earlier.

The Frontenac County increase was higher than the province as a whole, with saw an increase of about 12%, from 267,000 in 2022, to just over 300,000 last year.

In Frontenac County, the main driver of the increase comes from the two largest service areas for the county, Frontenac Paramedic Services and the Fairmount Home long term care facility, where most of the employees are represented by public sector unions. The Paramedic Services accounts for the bulk of the sunshine listers, including 76 paramedics (57 primary care and 19 advance care) as well as at least 9 people at the supervisor or director level, for a total of 85 positions.

There are at least 10 Fairmount Home employees on the list as well. While employees working at Fairmount and the paramedic services are technically Frontenac County employees, most of the funding that covers the costs for those services comes from the Province of Ontario and the City of Kingston.

Four of the 11 Frontenac County employees earning over $125,000 are funded entirely by Frontenac County ratepayers, led by Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender, who is leaving the County later this spring or early summer, whose pay eclipsed the $200,000 mark for the first time in 2023.

South Frontenac also saw a large increase in sunshine listers, jumping from 7 in 2022 to 13 in 2023, a whopping 85.7%. The top 5 earners in the township include CAO Lousie Fragnito and the four employees at the director level, followed by 8 people at the management level.

In Central Frontenac, there were four employees on the list in 2023, up from 3 in 2022 and 2 in 2021.

In North Frontenac, there was a massive jump in percentage terms for 2023, from 1 to 6, a 500% increase.

Addington Highlands saw an increase from 2 to 3 in 2023.

Among the largest changes that have taken place in the Frontenac Townships that impacts the numbers on the Sunshine List is the establishment of full time Fire Chiefs and even full time Deputy Fire Chiefs, positions that are all reaching the $100,000 salary sunshine list threshold in the 2020’s.

By comparison, the City of Kingston saw a 13.3% increase in its sunshine list for 2023, up to 2099 from 264 a year earlier. Lennox and Addington County bucked the trend however. Their list actually dropped, from 32 in 2023, to 31 in 2023.