Federal executives will gather Thursday night in Washington to honor the 1998 winners of the highest award for civil servants: the Presidential Rank Award.
Fifty-seven career senior executives will be awarded the Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive at tonight's black-tie banquet, sponsored by the Senior Executives Association and held at the State Department. The awards come with a bonus of $20,000.
Senior management officials at federal agencies nominate executives for the awards. Panels of private citizens select the winners. The panels' selections then go to the President for his signature.
An additional 252 senior executives will be honored with the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive, an honor that is accompanied by a bonus of $10,000. Those awards are typically presented at individual agency ceremonies.
Starting next year, bonuses accompanying the awards will be given as a percentage of salary. Distinguished executives will receive a bonus worth 35 percent of salary. Meritorious executives will receive a bonus worth 20 percent of salary. Congress changed the formula in the fiscal 1999 Treasury-Postal appropriations bill.
Top government officials will attend the banquet honoring this year's distinguished executives, including Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti, Office of Personnel Management Director Janice Lachance and Deputy Transportation Secretary Mortimer Downey.
The accomplishments of this year's winners include modernizing the computer systems that manage the nation's nuclear arsenal, overseeing the investigation of the July 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, and running the largest employer-sponsored health insurance program in the world-the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.