Most IT execs are just happy to have a job after this tough, volatile year.

But there are many big time CIOs doing quite well, thank you. CIO Magazine has just published its annual list of the highest paid CIOs at public companies for 2008, including their salaries and total compensation packages. That includes stock, incentive payouts, perks, pension contributions and other benefits.

Despite the dizzying numbers, the magazine says there has been a decline in top pay. There's also plenty of evidence that IT pay is stagnating.

Discretionary pay has plummeted with 37 of the 52 on the list earning no bonuses, according to CIO magazine.

There's also been a lot of turnover. Seventeen CIOs on last year's list weren't on it this year. Some of them got promotions, such as Barbara Desoer, who earned $10.5 million at Bank of America, who was promoted president of the bank's Mortgage, Home Equity and Insurance Services business.

Others remained but dropped out of the circle of top five highest-paid officers at their companies, such as Robert Carter at FedEx, Dave Kepler at Dow Chemical and Thomas Kingsbury at Kohl's. At the top of the list is Randall Mott, the executive vice president and CIO at Hewlett Packard. His salary was $690,000. His total compensation: $28 million--wow!

Running far behind him in second place is Larry Kittelberg--the senior vice president for technology and operations at Honeywell International. His base salary is $713,000. His total package: $8 million

Boston Scientific pays Sam Leno, its executive vice president for finance and information systems and its CFO, $622,000 a year. His total package: $6.3 million.

Following these three top executives is Steve Squeri making $600,000 a year with a total package of $6.2 million, and Bill Chenevich, vice chairman, technology and operations service at US Bankcorp, making $538,000 with a 5.3 million compensation package.

The big question here is how did these executives get there and what does it take to stay there?

The bigger question is would you want all of their headaches in a year that saw such great contraction and uncertainty?.

For a full list of who's at the top of the CIO salary list:
- See this cio.com article

For more on the best paying IT jobs:
- see this computerworld.com article

Related Articles:
Survey: Tech's high-end salaries shrinking
IT's go-go days are gone