Why more Windsor police officers are making at least $100K per year

The share of Windsor Police Service employees making six figures has jumped to more than 70 per cent, according to city documents.

Last year, 480 of the force's 679 personnel made $100,000 or more, the service revealed last month in a memo included in the agenda for a Windsor Police Service Board meeting.

That's 64 more employees than the year before, WPS director of finance Melissa Brindley wrote. She said the jump was "mainly attributable" to retroactive payments the service had to make as a result of the settlement of the latest collective agreement with the police union.

Brindley's accounting was based on the most recent provincial Sunshine List, which reveals the names of public sector employees who make more than $100,000 per year.

This year's share of staff on the list — 71 per cent — is the highest it's been in at least the last three years. That includes in 2022, when the service was forced to dole out extra overtime pay as a result of the Ambassador Bridge blockade. That year, 67 per cent of employees were on the list, while the figure dropped to 64 per cent in 2023 — "a normalized position," Brindley previously wrote.

With 71 per cent of the force's employees now on the list, "the relevance of the $100,000 reporting threshold should be examined," Brindley wrote in the April 10 memo to Chief Jason Bellaire. Brindley has made the recommendation in previous years as well.

Brindley argues the salary baseline has not been updated since 1996, when the province first created the list under the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, and therefore doesn't account for inflation.

"For example, a $100,000 salary at an average 2% inflationary increase would be approximately $170,000 today," she said. "With a threshold of $170,000 the list would contain 43 names compared to the current list of 480."

Brindley acknowledged that "it is completely out of the control of the WPS," but concluded that the law "should be amended [...] to generate more relevant data." 

I'd hate to see any kind of withholding of information.- John Deukmedjian, UWindsor associate professor

A police spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Brindley's comments or this year's salary data.

But a local policing expert says raising the list's salary threshold would weaken transparency around public spending.

"I'd hate to see any kind of withholding of information," said John Deukmedjian, an associate professor at the University of Windsor. "They work for the taxpayer, so they have to be transparent with such things as salaries, etc." 

A member of the police board at last month's meeting questioned the appropriateness of Brindley's argument.

"I'm not sure if it's the role of the police service to be editorializing about their legislative requirements for disclosure," board member Robert de Verteuil said.

"I'll address it with the author of the report," replied Karel DeGraaf, deputy chief for operational support. 

Deukmedjian, head of the university's department of sociology and criminology, said Brindley's recommendation could be indicative of a "deeper issue" — potentially increasing criticism from the public about how much officers are paid. 

The latest available government data on local income shows the city's residents typically make far less. 

The median employment income for individuals in Windsor was $28,800, according to the 2021 Census, while total median income — which can include government benefits and other payments — was $36,400. Median total income among people who work was $48,000, according to Statistics Canada data released the year after. 

Deukmedjian says he understands why people earning less than police "probably feel irked a little bit" when they see officers' salaries. "But then on the other hand, when you look at the scales for professionals, they're in line with other police forces," he said.

He acknowledged that the current economic climate in Windsor — which has already seen temporary layoffs as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on the auto industry — could also contribute to negative views around higher police pay.

"I don't necessarily think it's a fair criticism, but I do understand the criticism," he said. 

Bellaire's salary was $288,152 last year, according to a list attached to Brindley's memo, while hers was $190,566. 

The list also appears to include at least one suspended officer: Const. Joshua Smith, who in April pleaded guilty to two charges in a harassment case, and has since been hit with a fresh charge of uttering threats.

The list shows a Const. Joshua FA Smith was paid $125,320 in 2024.

Police chiefs in Ontario have long called for legislative changes to give them more power to fire or suspend officers without pay when they're accused of serious misconduct. Last year, a law that gave chiefs that authority in some circumstances came into effect, but Smith's original case dates back to 2023. 

More generally, though, police officers make higher salaries for recruitment reasons and to help prevent graft in the ranks, Deukmedjian said. If officers made significantly less, they could be more tempted to accept bribes. 

"There is a reason for why police make what they make, and it's around professionalism and anti-corruption and a lot of other issues," he said. "But also their job is not easy, I tell you that."

In any case, he said that with inflation and other pressures, everyone who works for the police will soon be making more than $100,000 per year.

"There's going to come a point down the road, maybe in five or ten years, I'm not sure exactly, where everybody who joins the police service is going to be on that Sunshine List," he said.