Rick Wagoner's Pay, er, Change

General Motors, which is in the midst of a turnaround plan that involves layoffs and plant closures and other unpleasant news for the rank and file, has announced that its top executives will "continue" to draw "reduced" salaries this year. It's a way to share the pain.

Nice. But reduced from what, exactly?

Turns out it's not reduced from what the salary he made over the last 12 months. It's reduced from what he made before $3-a-gallon gasoline turned G.M.'s high-profit sport-utility vehicles into gas-guzzling white elephants.

When the company was forced to take drastic measures to remain afloat, Wagoner agreed to halve his $2.2 million annual salary, effective March 1, 2006. He has been making $1.1 million a year since then.

What, then, will his "reduced" salary be from now on? Uh, $1.65 million a year. Strictly speaking, 50 percent more than he made last year.

And, as the company's annual proxy statement notes, Wagoner's salary comprises only 17 percent of his total compensation.

The remaining 83 percent of his $10.1 million annual pay package comes in the form of stock awards, option awards, pension sweeteners, and $769,566 in "other" compensation (life insurance, financial planning, personal travel on the corporate jet, bodyguards, and dividends on restricted stock).

Bottom line: Wagoner's total compensation last year, including the reduction, was about twice what G.M. paid him in 2005, according to company proxy statements, and a bit more than it did in 2004.

Reduced, indeed.

by Mark Stein