WSJ: FAA Dispensed Bonuses in Midst of Budget Cuts

While the Federal Aviation Administration was implementing budget cuts that would cause massive flight delays last month, it apparently was handing out bonuses to its workers, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.

An internal FAA document, obtained by the Journal, showed that on Jan. 14, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told employees the agency soon would give bonuses.

One bonus lifted salaries by 1 percent and another by 0.6 percent to 1.8 percent. Most workers had a chance for the bonuses, according to the Journal.

"Allegedly short of cash, the FAA would subsequently impose its version of 'organizational success' [the name for one of the bonus programs] on departure terminals across the country," the editorial states.

"Agency staff began receiving their expanded paychecks in February, a mere two months before the flight delays that Mr. Huerta would claim were the unavoidable result of the federal budget sequester."

Making matters worse, the FAA ignored a memo from the office of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood instructing agencies not to award bonuses.

"So much for that," Journal editors write. "Mr. Huerta and the FAA appear to have ignored the directive, shoveled out the bonus money, and then turned a budget cut of roughly 4 percent into a furlough of air-traffic controllers on 10 percent of their scheduled workdays."