What Recession? Big Bonuses For FDA Brass
5 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // June 26th, 2008 // 12:24 pm
At a time when the FDA is routinely criticized for awarding large bonuses to senior officials but measly incentives to underlings, the agency doled out more than $35 million in incentive pay for fiscal year 2007, a 29 percent jump from the previous year, according to a new analysis.
Seventeen of the top paid officials made more than $200,000, according to documents sent by Stephen Mason, the FDA’s acting assistant commissioner for legislation, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the FDA’s bonus system. Here is his letter.
To prevent FDA employees from going to pharma and other industries, which can pay double, Congress had expanded a cash bonus program to help retain government workers. “The agency employs a very knowledgeable, experienced and highly educated staff and has to compete with the private sector to attract individuals of the highest caliber to meet the growing demands on its scientific and regulatory mission both here and abroad,” an FDA spokeswoman tells The Wall Street Journal.
But Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigations panel, tells the paper that the increase in incentive pay for top FDA officials is “outrageous,” considering the agency’s “poor management” over the last year.
The extra $8 million spent on bonuses for top officials could have been “better spent hiring additional inspectors or improving IT systems, actions FDA acknowledges are critical to improving food and drug safety in this country,” he continues. The FDA’s recruitment pay nearly tripled to $284,000 from $72,000. The committee is focusing on employees making, generally, more than $150,000.
Terry Vermillion, the director of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, received total pay for the year of $208,000, including a $30,000 retention bonus and $11,300 cash award (please look here). Vermillion, a former Secret Service agent, came under fire from Democrats and Republicans last year after learning bonuses pushed his take-home pay for 2006 to $198,000, the Journal reminds us.
Ima Misfit
Nobody is more critical of the FDA than I am on the American Fraud blog - http://americanfraud.wordpress.com/
Nevertheless, I don’t have a problem with the size of the salaries and bonuses for top positions at the FDA. My problem is that the executives receiving these bonuses are incompetent boobs who are incapable of admitting the depth of the antiquated business model they follow, and that the FDA is a dysfunctional and corrupt organization.
I’d support much bigger bonuese, if they went to qualified FDA executives who were capable of protecting our food and drug supply.
Dr. Sal Giorgianni
I’m not sure if criticizing FDA for putting an aggressive professional staff retention policy and program in place is very useful. In the private sector these dedicated men and women would, and can, command much higher salaries, with much higher bonuses and stock incentives and in much better, less “public” environments. Many of the folks who work at FDA as career staffers do it because they believe the work is that important and they are idealists.
Yes, there are problems with what goes on in FDA, but there are also many complexities to addressing these problems. One of the potential solutions is not to lose talented people to the private sector. So I will certainly exercise my right to be critical of much that goes on there but doing everything that can reasonably be done to hold on to people with experience is not one of the things I would be inclined to criticize.
Ima Misfit
I agree that there are many very smart and dedicated men and women at the FDA that do more than what should be expected of them. The budget they have to work with is a joke. But when will the administrators and political apointees tell us the truth about the unsafe conditions within the food and drug distribution system, and when will they start working on building an FDA that works?
Margaret
If there are smart and dedicated people at the FDA, I have not met them. The control exerted upon them by the Administration and their entwined relationship with Pharma makes even the hidden smart ones buckle to political pressure every time. I have seen Dr. Thomas Laughren yawning and staring at his place mat, especially during public testimony, more times than I care to count. The agency is a wreck and its dysfunction has caused many deaths. Many of my friends, and I myself, have lost those most precious to us. I can only pray that a new president will actually pay attention and not have Pharma execs as buddies.
carrol
No wonder the USA is in a mess. This is a very good example why the poor will remain poor and the rich will get richer. The so called earned bonus is just a shame and a scandle.