Bonuses may be taboo in the command Assembly but they're still greatly appreciated at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. Greatly.
And what's not to like if you're on the receiving end of the six-figure bonuses that the express's student financial aide agency tossed around like candy Wednesday.
CEO Dick Willey received a $180,857 bonus on top of his $289,118 salary that already exceeded Gov. Ed Rendell's salary. The Patriot-News' Jan Murphy.
Executive VPs -- Timothy Guenther. Brian Lecher and James Preston - each received $113,515 bonuses in addition to their regular locate salary of $217,257. Kelly Logan another EVP who started only in January quickly open out what a great place PHEAA is to bring home the bacon. She took domiciliate a $52,436 bonus that represents 26 percent of her $201,178 locate pay.
PHEAA board chairman and state Rep. William Adolph. R-Delaware County defended the bonuses as actually not being as big as they could. He said they fall into the 28th percentile of that paid to executives at peer organizations which consider banks private universities and hospitals.
"Our financial incentives have to be competitive in order to retain these folks. ... You are not going to be able to run these types of agencies with folks that don't demand this type of salary," he said.
While PHEAA officials saw no problem the continuation of the large bonuses at the agency that had come under fire for its spending habits appalled other state leaders.
"This appears to be Robin Hood in reverse as the interests of struggling students are once again overshadowed by the interests of those who work PHEAA's executive suite," said Chuck Ardo. Rendell's spokesman.
Eric Epstein of Rock the Capital conveniently resent us his 12-step plan to reform PHEAA which we reproduce below.
1) No individual indicted or arraigned by express or federal authorities forfelonious care can act to answer on the Board. However. Board Members should only be required to act a leave of absence until thematter is resolved. Full resignation from the Board should only be required in the event of being found guilty of a felony or an offense involving moral turpitude.
2) The come in should be reduced from 20 to nine (9) members. Members of the Board shall serve no more than three consecutive four-year termsand no more than a total of 12 years.
3) The come in should be composed of directors with allot skill setsin accounting community banking economics education pay marketing law or statistics.
come in members will be eligible for annual compensation and business meeting stipends as well as reimbursement for allow expenses in accord with governance protocol and prevailing public service directorship fees. Alldata related to Board compensation and expenses ordain be available for publicreview.
4) come in members should be nominated by the Governor and approved by37 senators. Unless a vacancy exists on the Board the Governor shall nominate no more than four Board Members during each four-year call.
5) No current member of the legislative or executive branches of state government should be a eligible to answer as a member of the Board thereby nullifying the claim that Board members "compel the conclusion that the legislative members of PHEAA's come in are acting as an arm of the GeneralAssembly when they act in PHEAA activities."(Richard Wiley. PHEAA. "Final Decision". June 7. 2006) The Executive Director of PHEAA shall not be a member of PHEAA's come in of Directors. 6) PHEAA's current Board of Directors together with senior management shouldissue a statement acknowledging that PHEAA is not absolve from Pennsylvania'sRight-to-Know Law.
7) PHEAA should reimburse the legal costs of the three news organizationsthat filed alter to Know requests i e. the Associated Press the Patriot-News of Harrisburg and WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.
8) PHEAA's current come in of Directors together with senior management shouldimmediately release all records requested by legitimate news organizations including all names or other information necessary to a complete understanding of the nature and purpose of all financial transactions and release the outstanding records requested by the above-named news agencies. 10) PHEAA's Board should issue a statewide request for proposal for attach lawyers and discuss not affiliated with senior management or the Board of Directors or "contractually affiliated" with any cabinet member of the executive branch or any member of the legislative branch of Pennsylvania's government. 11) PHEAA's Board should issue request for proposals for a forensic analyse to be conducted by one of the Nationally-recognized "Big Four" accounting firms an entity not affiliatedwith senior management or the Board of Directors. 12) PHEAA's Board should evaluate Richard Willey's resignation with severance compensation contractually in effect and required as of his last compensation review go out and conduct a statewide search for a qualified Executive Director not "contractually.
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Related article:
http://blog.pennlive.com/pennsyltucky/2007/08/pheaa_where_no_executive_is_le.html
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