Consumer advocate Ralph Nader and other members of Citizen Works' Corporate Reform Commission today criticized members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCOAB) for voting themselves an extravagant $452,000 a year salary at their meeting yesterday. The chairman of the board will receive $560,000 a year.

By comparison, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission earns $142,500 year. Members of the cabinet, like secretaries of state and defense and the attorney general, earn $171,900 a year. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan earns $166,700 a year.

"This sets a contagious precedent," Nader said. "If this is allowed to stand, soon other officials with significant oversight responsibilities will start demanding salaries that are also equivalent to what they would earn in the corporate sector. But salaries for corporate and accounting executives have skyrocketed above any reasonable assessment of their performance, not to mention the disgracefully corrupt behavior of some of these 'overpaids.' Senator Sarbanes and Congressman Oxley should immediately amend the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and put the customary cap on the salary of members of the oversight board."

Ralph Estes, emeritus professor of accounting at American University, past president of Accountants for the Public Interest, and member of Citizen Works' Corporate Reform Commission, also strongly questioned the salary decision. "By setting salaries at this level, they're sending a message of the kind of people they want on the board, and clearly the kind of people they want are establishment, corporate, or accounting types, people who have a history of going along and not rocking the boat," Estes said. "If they wanted Arthur Levitt, Lynn Turner, Doug Carmichael, or Abraham Briloff, they wouldn't have to pay a half a million to get them. Anybody committed to the public interest should not require a salary greater than that of the President of the United States."