A motion to expose the names and salaries of Calgary municipal public employees was sent back for more work, after city officials outlined major gaps in the plan.

The Notice of Motion – Calgary City Employee Compensation Disclosure, put forward by Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston, and co-sponsored by Ward 12 Coun. Mike Jamieson was referred back to the originating councillor in a 14-1 vote.

Calgary currently has a compensation disclosure list, introduced back in 2015, that provides all City of Calgary positions, plus a salary range that job could potentially receive.

Johnston’s proposed motion only asked for the motion to be forwarded to a future meeting of city council and that a framework be built for the creation of a Calgary Employee Compensation Transparency policy, set at $140,000 of total financial compensation. In a social media post, he provided more details of what he was after.

“I’m filing a Notice of Motion to establish a Sunshine List for our city, requiring the disclosure of names, positions, and exact salaries for all employees earning $140,000 or more annually,” he wrote.

“This measure would eliminate the current vague pay band ranges, providing clear and precise information to taxpayers.”

He wanted it returned to the Executive Committee in two months.

Johnston, outside council chambers on Tuesday, said that all they were doing was opting into a framework that already exists.

“I think in 2015 they introduced the compensation framework, and all we’re doing is we’re beefing up that for the City of Calgary,” he said.

“Yeah, the salary pay bands is great, but for me, it creates more questions than answers. And so, for a council, this creates a big tool for us to be able to really isolate where a lot of the expenditures within the city are going to, and that is salaries.”

Johnston said that, unfortunately, when you become a public employee, you give up privacy rights.

“Part of that framework is your name is published, and all we’re doing is opting into what the province, AHS, Vancouver, all of Ontario already does. Nothing about this is new,” he said.

No consultation with city administration

Ward 6 Coun. John Pantazopoulos mentioned in council that there were several references to no business units being consulted in the creation of the Notice of Motion.

Typically, business units are consulted to aid councillors in the creation of motions before they appear at committee, avoiding any legal, administrative or resource issues in fulfilling the task.

“I recognize this is not debate, so I’ll just ask questions of admin, because in the Notice of Motion checklist, there’s several references that no business units were consulted,” Pantazopoulos said.

Pantazopoulos asked if any bylaws would have to be changed, and what diligence has been done to review the work required to make the changes.

City solicitor Jill Floen said that a new bylaw would have to be created. There are a couple of legal issues with the proposal, particularly around the compensation base that’s used. Municipal government’s minimum threshold for such a bylaw would be $159,676 for such a compensation disclosure, she said.

“Another issue is that the City of Calgary, as an employer, has obligations under both the common law as well as the Occupational Health and Safety Act with respect to safety for employees,” she said.

“There’s a number of considerations that would have to be made, and we would have to have some consultation with our peace officers, with Calgary Police Service, if that’s to whom those groups this would extend.”

She also said that it wasn’t realistic to meet the timeline of two months. She suggested April 2027.

GM Katie Black also said that she wasn’t consulted with regard to police or fire implications, with both unions covered under existing collective bargaining agreements.

GM Chris Arthurs said there are roughly 10 potential collective agreements that would need to be reviewed, along with the individual contracts of a significant number of employees.

Pantazopoulos also brought up the potential request for employees to have an exemption. GM Arthurs said that the City is required, as an employer, to provide a safe work environment.

“There are positions in the organization where there may be risk if a person’s specific salary was disclosed,” she said.  

“We also have employees who may be at personal risk if information about their personal salary was disclosed publicly as well.”

More transparency is better, Johnston said

In his social media post, Johnston said with 17,000 employees and taxes on the rise, transparency in public spending is critical.

“This isn’t about attacking or undermining our dedicated city workers,” he wrote.

“Instead, it focuses scrutiny on high-level salaries, which represent the largest portion of the budget and deserve careful oversight. There’s never a bad time to enhance government accountability.”

Some studies have shown that detailed compensation disclosure lists, while providing an additional level of transparency, can also result in driving up some public sector wages overall and result in lower pay for top performers.  It can induce a ‘compression’ effect, where higher and lower wage earners are brought closer together.

A 2025 article from CTV News Toronto shows a dramatic increase in the number of Ontario public sector workers making more than the $100,000 threshold. More than 77,000 names were added to the 2025 list – a roughly 25 per cent increase.  (Note: Most experts believe the $100,000 threshold is outdated for inflationary reasons.

In an interview conducted in December, upon questions around his own wage band, CAO David Duckworth also said that there’s a downside to detailed employee pay disclosures. He said first that the City of Calgary discloses every position, not just those above a certain pay threshold. However, they do only publish the salary bands.

“But an actual sunshine list with a name, you can look at the experience of British Columbia and Ontario. It actually leads to salary inflation, significant salary inflation, because what do people do? They look to see where they are versus their colleagues, and if they’re below, they will push hard to make sure they’re no longer below,” he said.  

“When you’re recruiting people, they’ll be at the top of the top of the top every single time. So, those are the negatives.”

Johnston dismissed the potential for wage growth.

“There’s always consequences to transparency,” he said.

“We can deal with it when it comes, but I’m not worried about that. If some of our employees deserve to get paid more, then they should get paid more. If they’re getting paid too much, then they should be scrutinized for that.”