In an era where ceo compensation is hotly debated, one sport is keeping tabs on the overpaid, but not overworked. So proxy advisor Glass Lewis has come up with a list of the most eggregious examples that it calls ‘Pay Dirt,’ which focuses on “the best examples of boards and compensation committees that have failed in their fiduciary duty to link pay with performance.”

The 42-page report slices and dices ceo pay and performance several ways, but we noticed that King Pharmaceuticals ceo Brian Markison shows up on the firm’s ranking of the S&P 500 Overpaid 25, a dubious distinction. To be specific, Brian ranked No. 23 with about $8.6 million in total compensation, while King stock fell about 36 percent and earnings per share growth plummeted nearly 37 percent.

On average, the stocks on this list fell almost 33 percent during their 2007 fiscal years, compared to an average gain of almost 43 percent for Underpaid 25 stocks. Average return on equity was a dismal negative 24 percent, compared to a 35 percent return on equity for S&P 500 companies in the Underpaid 25. All the S&P companies on the Overpaid 25 received a pay-for-performance grade of F.

Over on the Russell 3000 Index, the boards at several smaller pharma companies seem to have difficulty calculating pay for performance - Theravance, Nektar Therapeutics, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Neurocrine Biosciences and Idenix Pharmaceuticals.

On average, the stocks on this list fell 46 percent during their 2007 fiscal years, compared to a 71 percent average gain for the stocks of the Underpaid 25. Average one-year return on equity was negative 44 percent, compared to a return on equity of 44 percent for their Underpaid 25 counterparts.

Glass Lewis uses the analysis to inform its research and recommendations on the compensation-committee members and executive-compensation matters that arise on proxies for U.S.-based companies. In effect, the grade acts as a measure of the compensation committee’s performance during the previous year.