Compensation expert: more action needed. (Business Briefs).

The recent report issued by The Conference Board's Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise is "headed in the right direction, but does not go far enough," says Bruce Ellig, an executive compensation expert and author of The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation.

"Missing in the report is any comment about the needed restraint of executive perquisites," Ellig says. "Compensation committees should be focused on pay-for-performance plans. Perks are pay-for-position, and do nothing to create shareholder value."

Needless to say, news coverage of gold-plated perks given to executives like Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco International, and former General Electric Co. CEO Jack Welch have created a public uproar. While little of that happens at the CFO level, there was a marked escalation in perks during the 1990s as companies fought to attract--or steal away--top talent.

"Beware of supplementing a lavish lifestyle that might lead to a culture of greed," Ellig continues. "Treating CEOs like kings may lead them to act like kings... Perks promote distance from everyone else in the organization, something not consistent with gaining and sustaining employee commitment."

Furthermore, Ellig suggests:

* Requiring shareholder approval before repricing stock is a must, but this should apply only to those below the CEO and his/her direct reports. Top management should not have any options repriced.

* Requiring executives to hold on to the stock they acquire is critical to rewarding executives for creating and maintaining shareholder value. Certainly, such stock should be held as long as the individual is listed in the proxy, less the amount needed to pay taxes.

* The board's compensation committee should have the right to select the outside compensation consultant it wishes to use. Hopefully, this is the same one acceptable to management--otherwise, conflicting opinions might come from two different consultants.