Starting Public-Sector Jobs With Parting Gifts in Hand

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/09/AR2009020903274.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

Generous Severance for Some Administration Officials

As part of his battle against excessive pay packages, President Obama has taken aim at golden parachutes -- those hefty lump sums that top executives cart away when they leave a job. But the practice is so entrenched that many of the president's own top recruits for White House positions are receiving generous severance packages from their previous employers.

While the lump sums pale in comparison to the startling amounts awarded to Wall Street executives in recent years, the payouts highlight the pervasiveness of the practice and further illustrate the growing pay disparity between ordinary citizens and the nation's elite.

Consider the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mary L. Schapiro reported that she is getting a lump-sum payment of $5 million to $25 million from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the brokerage industry's self-regulating body she headed before joining the SEC last month. An SEC spokesman Friday said the package was worth $7.2 million.

:snip:

President Obama's pick for Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, has disclosed a $434,668 severance from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Geithner, who worked overtime last year negotiating lifelines for storied Wall Street firms as the credit crisis deepened, will also get $50,000 to $100,000 in unused vacation time and comp days.


more at the link above --

[boobooday]

1. 50-100k in unused vacation time & comp days!

Comp days! I remember when we started getting this as an alternative to overtime. Leave it to the overprivileged to appropriate every pittance thrown to the workers and exploit/expand it for themselves.