PHEAA overseers consider ending 'offensive' bonuses

HARRISBURG - Officials overseeing Pennsylvania's student-loan agency are considering a restructuring of executive salaries and ending bonuses that have reignited criticism of the agency's spending practices.

Sen. Sean Logan (D., Allegheny), vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency's board, said the idea was under consideration before an executive committee of the board voted last week to award more than a half-million dollars to five top PHEAA executives. The bonuses have typically amounted to six figures.

"The amount of the bonuses, even though they weren't taxpayer dollars, was offensive to people, especially hardworking families who are working to pay tuition," Logan said in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

President and chief executive officer Richard E. Willey received the largest bonus, $180,857, on top of his annual salary of $289,118. Three executive vice presidents each received a $113,514 bonus. A fourth received $52,436.

Logan told the newspaper he voted for the bonuses because they had been established before he was elected to the board's leadership in February - even though he thought they were too high.

Any salary changes would have to be adopted by the executive committee, PHEAA spokesman Keith New said.

Sen. Robert M. Tomlinson (R., Bucks), the committee's chairman, and Rep. William Adolph Jr. (R., Delaware), PHEAA's board chairman, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment yesterday.

Logan could not say whether all base salaries would necessarily increase under a new schedule, but said they would not be adjusted by merely adding the total salary and bonus that each executive received.

"We need to set a salary, and if folks don't think the salary is fair then they need to look elsewhere," he said.

A spokesman for Gov. Rendell, Chuck Ardo, said yesterday that doing away with the bonuses would not by itself change "the culture of excess" at PHEAA.

The governor has said he will support efforts by Sens. Jane Orie (R., Allegheny) and John Rafferty Jr. (R., Montgomery) to change the way PHEAA operates. Orie and Rafferty introduced legislation earlier this year to limit the number of terms that lawmakers can serve on PHEAA's board and to require the agency to submit financial reports to the legislature.