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Satans Mark/Cashless Title: U.S. pays $400M in bonuses to federal employees in 2009 The Obama Administration handed out more than $400 million in awards to federal employees last year, up by more than $80 million from the prior year, according to new government data. The biggest winners were air traffic controllers and top managers in Washington, a review of fiscal year 2009 salary reports from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management showed. OPM's data, obtained by the Asbury Park Press through a freedom of information request, account for 1.3 million employees, or about 65 percent of the federal civilian work force. The $408 million given in awards excludes the departments of Defense and Treasury, security agencies such as the CIA and FBI, the White House, Congress and various independent commissions and agencies, such as the U.S. Postal Service. The defense department paid $92.1 million in awards in 2008, the latest year available. Awards were given to 100,000 of its 687,000 employees. And if you think a half-billion dollars in awards adds up to real money, think again: Merit pay in the federal government amounts to 0.3 percent of the $150 billion in salaries for civilian employees. The government's cash awards pale in comparison to the bonuses paid this year by just one financial giant, the Goldman Sachs Group. The New York-based investment banking firm shelled out $16.2 billion in bonuses to its 32,500 employees — an average of nearly $500,000 per worker. Therein lies the difference between public and private sector employees, said James Sherk, a labor economic expert at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. Awards in the federal system "are a very, very small portion of federal employees' compensation," Sherk said. Efforts under President George W. Bush to move the civilian employees in the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to a more merit-based pay system failed because of stiff opposition from government unions, he said. With fewer incentives, employees have little motivation to do a better job, Sh "They are human. We are all human. People respond to incentives," he said. "If your pay is based on your performance, you work harder." Jacqueline Simon, public policy director of the largest union in the federal government, said managers have always had ample power to reward employees for good work. It's just that there isn't enough bonus money to go around, she said. "Less than half of a percent (of the payroll) is a very small amount of money to play around with to provide awards," said Simon, of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 civilian workers. "It's not enough to really alter the incentive structure in the pay system." The list of civilian federal employees for 2009, 2008 and 2007 can be searched by name, title, agency or job location at www.DataUniverse.com, the Daily Record's public records site. Look under "What's New" for the link. There are 48 different awards categories, ranging from presidential bonuses to "administratively uncontrollable overtime." Not all awards are in cash. Individuals and group can be given time off for good work, which is still counted as compensation by OPM. When compared to the same government employee list for 2008, the total amount of award money was up by $80.8 million in 2009. President Barack Obama has eliminated awards for the last two years for employees in the Executive Office of the President, according to the White House. That's in addition to the pay freeze for senior White House staff that Obama initiated on his first day in office in January 2009. White House staffers who make more than $100,000 have had their pay frozen since that time. The average salary for all civilian employees was $72,200 last year, according to OPM. Elsewhere in the federal government, awards ranged from $25 to $94,200. The highest amount was paid to a senior foreign affairs officer at the Department of State in Washington. A total of 345,000 employees, or about one out of four workers, received some extra compensation last year, according to the OPM list. The largest single amount of award money, $31.4 million, went to air traffic controllers with the Federal Aviation Administration. Nearly 13,100 controllers received an average award of $2,398, up from an average of $541 in fiscal year 2008, according to the OPM data. A total of 19,000 air traffic controllers were paid an average of $111,000 last year. A spokeswoman for the FAA disputed OPMs numbers, saying the awards appeared to cover non-air traffic controller employees, as well as controllers. The spokeswoman did not respond to requests for what the FAA said it spent on award payments last year. The largest individual awards were reserved for some of the highest ranking federal officials. More than $11.6 million was awarded to 870 employees classified as "senior executives" — an average of $13,337 each. There are a total 6,400 senior executives, and their average salary was $163,449 last year. For those 870 receiving an award, the amounts ranged from $43 to $94,200. While Obama may be the highest paid federal official at $400,000 a year, several employees — all doctors or medical officers at the Veterans Benefits Administration — come very close to that top salary. A total of 23 medical officers were paid between $350,000 and $393,400 last year. Only one received a bonus — $650. Geographically, federal employees in the capital saw the most award money, but that may be because the largest concentration of federal employees work in Washington. Last year, $84.8 million in awards went to 55,300 Washington-based employees, according to the OPM list. That was a fraction of the $14.8 billion paid in total civilian salaries in the capital. Overall, federal employees on the OPM list — which excludes the Department of Defense and other security agencies — had a total base salary of $97 billion. The defense department's civilian employees were paid an estimated $44.5 billion. Federal civilian employees in New Jersey had a base salary of $851 million, 32nd highest among the 201 states and countries where government workers received a pay check from Uncle Sam.
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#1. To: WhiteSands (#0)
Anybody think they earned, let alone DESERVE this?
Just 10 days prior to the explosion, the Obama administration’s regulators gave the oil rig a pass, and last year the Obama administration granted BP a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) exemption for its drilling operation.
Eighty-five million split up among 55,000 employees - they was robbed! The Financial Times revealed that in December, just days before the Bank of America takeover, Merrill rushed through $4 billion in bonuses, which are typically given in late January.
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