The heads of the Royal Conservatory of Music and Toronto's Luminato festival were among the highest-paid culture bureaucrats in Ontario last year, according to statistics released Friday by the Ontario government.
The salaries of almost 80,000 Ontarians earning $100,000 or more a year and working in institutions substantially funded either directly or indirectly by the province have been revealed at this time each year since the mid-nineties as part of the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act crafted by the Conservative government of Mike Harris.
According to Friday's report, Peter Simon, Conservatory president and CEO since 1991, earned just over $413,000 last year, plus almost $40,000 in taxable benefits. Janice Price, chief financial officer of Luminato (formally known as the Toronto Festival of Arts, Culture and Creativity), which started in 2007 and runs for 10 days each summer, had a salary of almost $383,000, plus almost $1,700 in taxable benefits.
Other high-paid cultural administrators in 2011 include Slawko Klymkiw, executive director of the Toronto-based Canadian Film Centre, whose salary was just over $301,000, plus $25,000 in taxable benefits, Art Gallery of Ontario director Matthew Teitelbaum (almost $307,000, including taxable benefits), Royal Ontario Museum director Janet Carding (almost $285,000, benefits included) and Ontario Trillium Foundation CEO Robin Cardozo (just over $232,000, including benefits). Lesley Lewis, CEO of the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, reported almost $178,000 in salary and benefits.
Steve Paikin again was the highest-paid employee at the Ontario Educational Communications Authority, better known as TVOntario, with a salary of $295,000 as well as almost $5,000 in taxable benefits. A former CBC Toronto journalist, Paikin joined TVO in 1992 and is currently host and senior editor of The Agenda with Steve Paikin.
Links to other salaries can be found online.