Ottawa: Algonquin President to retire with $500,000 plus pension



Labour union officials say the special compensation Algonquin College president Robert Gillett will receive as part of his retirement is outrageous.

Gillett, who announced his plans to retire on Aug. 25, will be leaving the college permanently at the end of December 2012. He will receive $500,000 in addition to his pension, according to the Ontario Union of Public Service Employees local 415 that obtained the information through an access to information request.

Jack Wilson, vice-president of the local that represents the faculty at the college, said the union filed the request before the president announced his plans to retire.

“We were concerned about what kind of liabilities the college might face if senior administrators chose to leave,” Wilson said. “We were shocked with what we found.”

The numbers the union published in their December newsletter Local Lines are from Gillett’s most recent contract.

The president is entitled to a paid leave of absence of one year at 100 per cent of his salary and benefits. He’s also entitled to a retirement allowance of one year’s salary.

Wilson said that also includes a supplementary pension – he couldn’t find any definition of it in the contract.

“There is a special reserve fund set up to pay the supplementary pension and if it runs dry, there’s a provision in the contract for the balance to come out of the college’s operating budget,” Wilson said.

Wilson said when support staff were striking at the college this fall, management urged workers to think of the tough economic times.

“It’s sort of a coincidence that we received the numbers when people started talking about Occupy Wall Street,” Wilson said. “People are rightly becoming frustrated when senior administrators are getting bonuses and everyday people are facing financial hardships.”

Mike Dunlop, chair of the Algonquin College’s board of governors, said that because of the contribution the college has made to the Ottawa Valley and the community of Nepean, that it’s important to attract the absolute best.

“It’s not an entry-level job,” he said. “If we were to under-target people for the position it would do a disservice to the community and to the students.”

Dunlop said Gillett has doubled the student body and the number of facilities.

“His name will be on the new student commons building,” Dunlop said. “That was a decision by the students association that put up millions of their own money to build that building. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.”

But Wilson said the chair’s attitude had him concerned about the possible salary of the college’s next president.

Gillett’s present salary is more than $300,000 with the possibility of an added performance bonus of up to 20 per cent. According to the numbers obtained by the union for 2009, he was paid a salary of $263,400 with a bonus of $52,680.

“In 1996 the president’s salary was 1.9 times more than that of the highest paid professor, now it’s 3.6 times more and climbing,” Wilson said.

Dunlop said he was recently at a meeting for the chairs of the boards of governors that represent 24 colleges across the province and Gillett certainly wasn’t the lowest paid president – but he wasn’t the highest either.

In their search for a new president, he said the board would keep an eye on the bottom line and try and get best candidate for the lowest price possible.


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