The Ontario government can't explain why a former deputy minister of health was paid $761,000 last year when he left government the year before.
The salary for former Deputy Health Minister Ron Sapsford was listed under Hamilton Health Sciences in last week's sunshine list of public sector workers earning over $100,000 a year.
Sapsford quit government in 2009 after the $1 billion eHealth scandal, but he still earned three-quarters of a million dollars from Ontario taxpayers in 2010.
Health Minister Deb Matthews says she can't explain it because she wasn't part of the team that negotiated Sapsford's deal.
Former eHealth boss Sarah Kramer, who was fired in 2009, also made the 2010 sunshine list at $107,000.
The New Democrats have introduced a private member's bill to rein in what they call excessive compensation and sweetheart severance deals for public sector executives.
The NDP bill would require public sector employers to also disclose severance if the total payment is $100,000 or more in a year.
The government had promised to stop hiding salaries of ministry staff in other budgets, but Sapsford was one of more than 120 workers whose salaries were listed under -- and paid by -- local hospitals or school boards.
Matthews said the salaries were not hidden because they were also published in a separate sunshine list of staff seconded to other agencies, a list even the premier's staff were unaware of Monday.
