California’s two biggest public employee pension funds handed out millions of dollars in bonuses last year to their top executives and investment managers, despite losing billions of dollars.

The biggest bonus check, $322,953, went to Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. It nearly doubled his base pay of $330,000 for fiscal 2007-08.

Ailman’s counterpart at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Russell Read, received a $208,677 bonus to his $555,360 base pay in August, more than a month after he had resigned from the fund’s top investment job.

Retirement fund officials say bonuses like those paid to Ailman and Read help attract and retain top talent.

Since closing their books last year, both funds have lost dramatically more money with the stock markets’ meltdown. CalPERS’ holdings have fallen from $239 billion to $175 billion, a loss of more than 25 percent. CalSTRS’ assets have dropped nearly 30 percent, from $162 billion to about $114 billion.

Yes, you read that right, the guy who FAILED MORE got the bigger bonus. I definitely have the wrong line of work planned.

Tags: bitch bitch bitch, no really we're really fucking fucked this time

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 12:32.