Bonuses for Government Brass

August 6, 2007
Bonuses for Government Brass

Senior lawmakers want a closer look at bonuses for government bigwigs, after a recent study showed two out of three federal executives were awarded hefty bonuses last year.

"This is beginning to look a lot like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

Dorgan and Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine the awards, which averaged more than $13,000 per executive.

By comparison, the average bonus for a non-senior executive service government employee was $969 last year, according to a government spokesman.

The bipartisan trio asked GAO to see what safeguards protect the executive bonus award system from "politicization and/or mismanagement."