Pay Czar can't adjust pay before 2009 so he just makes the current pay NEGATIVE

Kenneth Lewis gets to pay for the honor of working for BofA the last year. Is this serious?

Kenneth Lewis, outgoing chief executive of Bank of America Corp., will get no salary or bonus for 2009, according to people familiar with the matter, the biggest Wall Street name thus far to come under the thumb of the government's pay czar.

In fact, Mr. Lewis will have to repay the North Carolina-based bank more than $1 million in salary he has already earned.

The move was demanded by Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury Department's special master for compensation, and was agreed to by Mr. Lewis and the bank. Mr. Feinberg's rationale is based largely on the fact that Mr. Lewis will leave the firm with a package of retirement benefits and other stock awards worth between $69.3 million and $120 million, these people said. . . .

Mr. Feinberg doesn't have the authority to adjust compensation awarded before 2009, which would include Mr. Lewis's retirement package and the various stock holdings amassed during a four-decade career at the bank.

But the pay czar didn't want the CEO to take any more money, and used his leverage over pay instead, people familiar with the matter say. Mr. Lewis' base salary for 2009 is $1.5 million.