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PHS top executives made up to $186,000 a year, deserved it because they worked so hard, said board chair

March 20th, 2014 · 56 Comments

There’s so much to ponder in the audit reports on PHS Community Services, but one paragraph that stood out for me was the response from board members when asked if they knew and approved of the fact that the top five managers were making far more than their contracts stipulated.

The salaries for those five (Mark Townsend, Liz Evans, Dan Small, Kerstin Steuzbecher, and Tom Laviolette) were so high because they not only got their salaries as stipulated in their employment agreements, but some of them would get paid a “vacation payout” of up to $20,000 since they were always on call during their regular vacations, along with extra pay for working statutory holidays. As well, they had extra money thrown in for RRSPs, childcare, and other benefits. As a result, actual T4s from 2010 to 2012 for those top managers ranged from $104,000 to $186,000 a year.

The responses of board members when asked about that were, from chair Jack Bibby:  “I’ve never met 5 people who work harder in my entire life. No doesn’t cause me concern. I know how hard they work.” And from another board member, Cordell Drayers: “I knew they had the potential for these things but not the actual amount. I’m with Jack — no concerns.”

Those comments are at the heart of what is going on here. The people working at PHS and the board members all felt like they were doing a hard, hard job. And they were. I’d listened to stories about PHS over the years and you couldn’t have paid me any money to do that work. Staff were sometimes jabbed with needles and had to wait for a few weeks to find out if they’d been infected with AIDS or Hep C. Liz once had a psychotic patient grab her neck chain and try to strangle her. They felt like they were doing battle against the world. And so they deserved perks, after lots of long years in the trenches where they didn’t get many. (And, to be fair, they didn’t restrict the perks to themselves. Staff got spa treats; residents got presents of clothing and tickets; etc etc etc)

But a lot of what we see here came from the mentality of, “We’re doing a really tough job. We deserve the pay.” And they were surrounded by others who agreed with them. Not that different from how a lot of people in top government and corporate jobs think. But it’s not what people expect of those who do the kind of work they were doing.

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  • jenables

    Foghorn, this lieberal govt has thrown millions and millions of dollars into attracting foreign investment and… I think it worked. Did you think less people would become homeless when the political conditions are set to accelerate speculative investing and gentrification? I would say most people are in worse shape. Also, I wish you’d rethink your sentence about people overdosing. It implies that it isn’t a good thing that lives have been saved by insite. Like it or not these people have just as much value as you or I. Look at the inedible greed of our politicians and think about the fact that their addiction to money or power can have a negative effect on huge amounts of people. I’d say these kind of addictions are far more damaging to society, but people think it’s par for the course!

  • Don D

    Well, I am a poster “on the left”, and am not even remotely inclined to defend these folks. Who cares whether those in the for-profit private sector are equally sleazy? I hold “my own” to a higher standard, and I am sorely disappointed.

  • Silly Season

    @jenables #50

    +1

  • teririch

    @Jenables #50:

    I understand what you are saying, but there are a lot of people in the DTES that have migrated to BC from other provinces and or the US for various reasons. Climate being one.

    Back in the 90’s, the at that time BCNDP made it very easy for people in BC to collect welfare. At one point we had the highest rate of persons on welfare in Canada. The poli’s finally woke up and figured out it was an unsustainable model. (financially)

    The current model operating in the DTES is not sustainable.

    We can’t just keep increasing the size of the problem and not expect something to give, somewhere.

    Vancouver has become Canada’s catch all city.

  • Dan Cooper

    @Foghorn. In order to commit “slander” you have to identify a particular person, a few particular people, or a specific organization. You also have to say it; if you write it that is libel. In this case I did not identify the specific organizations I know of that are in this same boat – largely because my impression is that it is fairly universal to one degree or another, so why bother? Anyway, for these reasons I did not commit slander, or even libel.

    Now, on the other hand, you have specifically written that a defined small group of people have committed theft. You have also implied that I, personally, have committed slander. Something to ponder.

    As for your writing that people are not expecting those working with the poor to do so not for gain (like everyone who works for a company that depends on government contracts) but out of the goodness of their hearts I refer you back to Everyman’s comment above (#5 currently) and many other similar ones on this site and elsewhere: “When you work for a non-profit you go in knowing you’re not going to be making private sector wages.”

    Actually, that was the kind of attitude I faced when I worked for a government agency [note – completely unnamed and unspecified] in the U.S. Indeed they – on behalf of the voters [in that unspecified jurisdiction] – quite openly despised us all for being so evil as to do their work for them. Aaaaand, that’s why I picked up myself, my degrees and experience, a fairly large amount of money, not to mention my fabulous son who is gonna rock the world some day – told them to take their job and attitude and put it where the sun don’t shine – and moved here, where I was offered a job as soon as my resume hit the first hiring manager’s desk. Of course, that government agency down in The States had 100% turn over every three or four years – and provided crummy public services because of it. Then again, that was no skin off the government’s nose since they on behalf of the public also hate the poor and are perfectly pleased to see them suffer.

  • F.H.Leghorn

    @Dan: If they have done nothing wrong why are they gone?

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