American CEO pay has gotten a bad reputation for being excessive, with annual salaries ranging into the millions of dollars.
But a survey by the San Diego Employers Association found the average CEO salary in San Diego was $256,000.
Keep in mind we're not talking about the Fortune 500.
Forty-six percent of the companies surveyed had fewer than 50 employees. Twenty-three percent were non-profits.
Wendy Patrick is a business lecturer at San Diego State. She said compensation for top executives varies dramatically from one company to the next.
"Are we talking about a family-run business on the corner, or are we talking about somebody who has 200 employees?" she said.
Patrick added that these days concerns about CEO pay are changing at companies big and small.
"I think we're seeing a trend toward not such much reacting to the outrageous amount of pay, but to how we can tie that to the profitability of the company, and the profitability of the individual shareholders," she said.
The employers association surveyed 119 San Diego companies, and it only examined base pay. It did not account for bonuses or stock options. The high end of CEO salaries in this survey was 1.2 million.
