Where the bonuses are

Slightly more than half of federal executives earned bonuses last year. But that figure masks dramatic differences from agency to agency.

In fact, a review by the Office of Personnel Management has found that the number of executives who got bonuses in fiscal 2001 ranged from a low of 21.1 percent at one agency to a high of 87.9 percent at another agency.

The Small Business Administration gave the largest number of bonuses to members of the Senior Executive Service, rewarding 29 of its 33 bonus-eligible executives. The Office of Personnel Management came in second, rewarding 23 of its 27 eligible executives, or 85.2 percent.

OPM was the second-most generous agency in fiscal 2000 as well, following on the heels that year of the Housing and Urban Development Department. In 2000, HUD gave bonuses to 95.5 percent of its 66 executives. HUD was less generous in 2001, giving bonuses to only 36 of 67 executives, or 53.7 percent. That was a drop of more than 40 percent, the largest reduction in executive bonuses at any of the 23 federal agencies that OPM surveyed.

The Interior Department gave out the fewest bonuses in both of the last two years, 23 percent in 2000 and 21.1 percent in 2001.

Here's a roundup of who got how much in descending order according to the number of bonuses awarded at the agencies surveyed.

For more on executive bonuses and performance ratings, see the Oct. 9 story OPM pushes for lower executive performance ratings on GovExec.com.