Music: {allcanada} Firing Pan Am head will cost taxpayers $500K

Friday, January 31, 2014

{allcanada} Firing Pan Am head will cost taxpayers $500K

TORONTO — The decision to fire the head of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games organizing committee last month will cost Ontario taxpayers more than half a million dollars.

The committee says Ian Troop will get a cash payment of $478,200 plus $27,300 in retirement benefits, $10,000 in "outplacement payments," $3,500 in legal fees and medical benefits of $15,800.

Pan Am board chair David Peterson says the severance package "will be absorbed" into the overall budget for the Games, which he puts at $1.4 billion, even though it’s closer to $2.5 billion with the cost of building the athletes’ village.

Peterson, a former Liberal premier of Ontario, said in December that it was his decision to get rid of Troop as CEO of the Games and replace him with Saad Rafi, a former deputy minister of health.

At the time, the Pan Am board gave no reason for Troop’s departure, but sources said there were key operational issues that were not being decided, creating a schism between the organizers and the Ontario government.

There was also an outcry from the opposition parties when Troop, who was paid $477,000 a year, billed taxpayers 91 cents for parking, $1.89 for a cup of tea and $8,561.19 for a Mexican hotel and cocktail party.

The Ontario government also came under criticism when it was disclosed there was a $7-million bonus package for TO2015 executives, including Troop, who was eligible for a $780,000 premium if the Games came in on budget.

The Opposition was up in arms after the province announced the total budget for the Toronto 2015 Games, including transportation and security, would be at least $2.5 billion — far above the $1.4 billion the province originally stated.

The transportation budget alone will be up to $90 million to shuttle athletes and officials to the various venues around southern Ontario, which stretch from Niagara in the west to the Orillia area in the north, and as far east as Oshawa.

Even though three levels of government are contributing funding for the Pan Am/Parapan Games in Toronto, Ontario is putting in the lion’s share and will be on the hook for any cost overruns.

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