Perks

Some nice perquisites were bestowed on this year's group. Robert Carter of FedEx (No. 3, with $5.5 million in total compensation) got $103,069 worth of personal use of a company plane and financial planning services, among other items. Randy Darcy of General Mills (No. 8, $4.4 million) got $14,341 toward a car allowance and $9,457 to cover flights and food for his spouse at business events. Dudley Sondeno of Southwest Gas (No. 38, $910,312) received $1,865 for club dues, $480 for cable Internet service and $240 for a cell phone. Honeywell's Larry Kittelberger (No. 10, $4.1 million), who has made this list for several years, got $50,000 under the company's "cash flexible perquisite program."

When you make the big bucks, you want to keep it safe. So home security services and equipment have become pretty common over the years. This year, Dave Kepler at Dow Chemical (No. 7, $4.7 million) received such a benefit, as did Bill Chenevich of US Bancorp (No. 12, $3.4 million), Desoer at Bank of America and Carter at FedEx, among others.

Bonuses

Just 12 of the 47 got cash bonuses, reflecting that penny-pinching (in this case, thousand-dollar-bill-pinching) is going on in corporate America. In past years, all but a handful of CIOs on this list received bonuses. Still, the dozen tech execs who got bonuses together received $5.3 million and Joe Smialowski, who left mortgage company Freddie Mac last December, got the highest bonus: $1.4 million. He's No. 14 on the list, with $2.8 million in total compensation. These bonuses are typically tied to short-term goals, such as the company boosting product sales by a specific percentage, says Hay Group's Milich.

Missing

Some stars fell off the list. A few CIOs didn't appear this year because other officers at their companies made more money than they did. At Sears, CIO Karen Austin, who made $1.6 million in 2006, is no longer among the retailer's five highest-paid officers. Her compensation was so large that year because of a long-term incentive payout of just under $1 million for hitting three years of goals. This time around, Austin wasn't eligible for such a payday and was edged out by a new head of customer strategy ($1.2 million) and a new CFO ($433,920). Longtime top-paid CIO Harvey DeMovick Jr., who made $4.7 million in 2006, was reported in Coventry Health Care's proxy statement to have been replaced by a new corporate general counsel ($2.7 million). These kinds of shifts happen every year, and DeMovick and Austin could easily return on next year's list.

Riding into the Sunset

Several CIO stalwarts among the current group of high earners retired recently. Unless they change their minds about hitting sandy beaches or the golf links, they likely won't appear on next year's list. High-profile retirees include Amazon's Rick Dalzell, Northwest Airlines' Philip Haan, and J.W. Ripley at Corn Products International (No. 25, $1.7 million). Home Depot's Bob DeRodes (No. 9, $4.3 million) has announced he'll leave the retailer at the end of 2008, but has yet to reveal his plans.