After church today I hit the office for a few hours then came home to mow the grass (for maybe the last time this year) and wash the truck (long overdue). I have to get packed tonight and take care of a few things around the house since I will be gone most of the week in Harrisburg. I read some of the news articles from around the state today. The bonus ban bill took a hit in the Tribune Review over the PHEAA situation. I think that we did the best we could to address the situation where performence payments are made to people who manage financial assets. Coming from the insurance industry myself, I am accustomed to people being paid based on their performance, either with commissions or a combination of salary and sales goals. It appears to me that most contracts in the financial asset management world are done on a performance basis. I don’t have a problem with that per se, as long as the contracts are made public, that they have clear and objective benchmarks (so that no one is arbitrarily deciding if someone deserves extra money at the end of the year) and that everything is done up front (again, so that no one is arbitrarily deciding what to do at the end of the year). My bill addresses these concerns. And let us not forget that the two state retirement boards have performance based contracts. The bottom line to me is that PHEAA can never again pull the stunts that they have this year. Their secret deals must be made public and the benchmarks therein must be objective. I wonder how many of the 23 people who recieved “bonuses” this year at PHEAA had contracts with performance payments. The staff payments are just one problem at PHEAA, there are many others that need to be addressed. We need to have some public hearings on this subject.
- John
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