Poor, poor Ian Jarvis. The TransLink CEO was scheduled for an $8,000 raise this year, but instead, he’ll have to get by with his usual $319,244. If you want to start a telethon for the poor man, feel free. From 24 Hours:

According to documents obtained via the freedom of information process, the head of TransLink was expecting a 2.5% raise to keep with "projected increases in the general market for 2014." Jarvis's salary was $319,244 last year, excluding benefits. Prior to that, his salary had been $310,000 since 2010. But in January, according to the documents that ouline a March board of directors meeting, TransLink pointed to current economic conditions and said there would be no "performance merits" and "in-range adjustments" for 2013, and the salary would be frozen for 2014.

The documents say the salary freeze could be reviewed this year. It's unclear how, and if the freeze, would affect a short-term incentive plan where Jarvis was allowed up to 30% of his salary in bonuses.

That incentive - a potential $95,733 in addition to his salary - was lifted up to the current level from 20% in 2012 after a long-term incentive plan, which also allowed a potential 20% bonus, was dismantled that same year, the documents say. TransLink did not provide anyone for comment Sunday, though Marcella Szel, chairwoman of its board of directors, announced at a March annual general meeting that executive compensation has been frozen to 2012 levels.

Specific salaries of the other executive management were not mentioned, aside from that they can earn up to 85% of the CEO's salary. In 2012, the executive with the salary highest next to Jarvis was chief operating officer Doug Kelsey at $280,000, excluding benefits.

Of course, if TransLink was really serious about matching the “general market” for Jarvis’s pay, they’d slash his salary by at least $88,000 a year.

When you add in Jarvis’s incentives and taxable benefits, his pay package jumps to $394,730 a year. From a piece I wrote last year:

The Toronto Transit Commission, by no means a lean organization, paid its CEO Andy Byford $294,366 plus $14,000 in taxable benefits. That’s $88,000 less than Jarvis was paid, despite the fact the TTC’s total revenue is double TransLink’s.

Byford was hired away from Sydney, Australia, taking a 28-per-cent pay cut to go to Toronto. Clearly, there is enough value in living and running transit systems in Canada that taxpayers do not need to overpay to get people.

A little further east, the annual salary of Societe de Transport de Montreal director-general Carl Desrosiers is listed at $297,000. Interestingly, that transit system’s annual $1.3-billion budget is almost identical in size to TransLink’s, yet the Lower Mainland agency pays its CEO $97,000 more. Desrosiers was formerly second-in-command in Montreal, making $261,000 — a salary that wouldn’t crack TransLink’s top five.

In Seattle, King County Metro general manager Kevin Desmond’s 2012 salary was the equivalent of $191,645, an astonishing $203,000 a year less than Jarvis is paid.

Joni Earl, the CEO of Washington State’s Sound Transit, made just over $201,000, including a $6,000 bonus, in 2011. Amazingly, Jarvis’s bonus was close to ten times what Earl received. Earl also turned down a raise in January 2010 — something TransLink officials would be wise to emulate given their never-ending demands for more taxes and fares.

Portland, Ore., is a city continually held up as a great example of transit planning.

TriMet’s Neil McFarlane was paid the equivalent of $228,440, including a three-per-cent raise after a three-year pay freeze. Jarvis was appointed TransLink CEO in 2010, and his salary has jumped 10.8 per cent in just two years.

But don’t worry: Ian Jarvis and his allies on the TransLink Mayors Council will be asking you for more taxes next spring.