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By JENNIFER DUNVILLE
dunville.jennifer@dailygleaner.com

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Fredericton's public university presidents refuse to voluntarily disclose information on their salaries.

But Post-Secondary Education Minister Ed Doherty said change is coming.

"It's now time to implement some of the recommendations (from our post-secondary education review), but it's too early to say exactly what changes will take place," Doherty said. "It's an all-inclusive plan ... but accountability is part of it."

Doherty wouldn't say whether top-ranking university officials will be forced to make their paycheques public.

But St. Thomas University spokesman Jeffrey Carleton said he doesn't have a problem providing the information if all universities were asked to do the same.

"Traditionally at St. Thomas that information would be considered confidential and that's the norm within New Brunswick," Carleton said. "Given the discussions that were part of the post-secondary review, it's clear the province is heading toward circumstances where they'd like to see that kind of information made public."

Carleton said Michael Higgins, president of St. Thomas University, is used to having his earnings made public.

He had to disclose his salary when he worked at a university in Ontario.

"Presidents' salaries were publicized there and he had no difficulty with that," Carleton said. "Within the context of New Brunswick, though, contracts for presidents just have not been in the public domain."

A two-year freedom-of-information battle between a university and newspaper in Ontario over the release of university leaders' employment agreements kicked off a wave of salary disclosures in that province recently.

Provincial rules now require Ontario universities to release salary information for all employees who make more than $100,000.

Carleton University president Roseann Runte, for example, has a base salary of $320,000 and Allan Rock, president of the University of Ottawa, rakes in about $395,000.

At Laurentian University, where undergraduate enrolment and tuition is comparable to the University of New Brunswick, the president made about $291,000 in 2007.

Dan Tanaka, spokesman for the University of New Brunswick, said he recognizes other universities are releasing this information in an attempt to be more transparent and competitive. But it's not something UNB plans to do soon, he said.

"It may be something New Brunswick adopts as well down the road, but as of today, it is not public knowledge," Tanaka said in an e-mail. "That information has always been confidential in New Brunswick. We protect the confidentiality of the president's salary as we do all UNB employees' salaries."

Carleton said the fear about releasing salary information is that it will drive up the operating costs of post-secondary education institutions in New Brunswick.

It's already happening in Ontario, he said.

"What's happened is the publishing of salaries has actually put upward pressure on those salaries," Carleton said. "You see an escalation in the presidents' salaries in Ontario and we think part of that reason is because the salaries are made public."

Officials at Saint Mary's University in Nova Scotia don't agree.

They've voluntarily released salary information and haven't had any issues with it.

Chuck Bridges, spokesman for Saint Mary's, said he believes the public has a right to the information since universities are funded by the public.

"Responsiveness to community needs is one of our core values," said Bridges, vice-president associate of Saint Mary's external affairs, in an e-mail statement. "We try to satisfy all requests for information through routine channels rather than resorting to the formal access request procedure. We ensure they have easy access."

The Nova Scotia university pays its president about $205,000 annually - information that's available on the university's website.

But Carleton said an agreed-upon protocol would be needed in New Brunswick before universities would release salary figures.

"It wouldn't be fair for one university to supply the information and not the others, simply because it would mean there's no context to the information," Carleton said. "In other words, we're not in a position to release that information now because it's considered confidential by all New Brunswick universities.''