Nine-million dollars is a lot of money ("CEO's $9M Pay Draws Attention," Credit Union Journal, April 2, 2012,) Few of us volunteer board members or credit union staff members ever will receive that much money either in our paychecks or our retirement.
I think we can agree that the CEO should be the highest-paid staff member at the credit union. How much that pay should be is an open question.
Should the CEO's pay be based on the asset size or on the number of members or on the range of products and services? Should it be based on earnings? Should it be a certain multiple of the average salaries of the staff?
Should the CEO of a billion-dollar credit union be paid twice as much as the CEO of a $500-million credit union? Should the CEO receive 10 times as much as a teller? Or should it be 20 times as much?
So far, all we board members have to go on is how our CEO's compensation compares with that of other CEOs in compensation surveys.
Ben Freudenreich, Director
BMI FCU, Columbus, Ohio
