MONTANA STATE FUND EMPLOYEES TO GET PAYMENTS FOR MEETING GOALS

Montana State Fund employees will receive a one-time payment for helping the state’s workers’ compensation insurance company end the year on a profitable note.

For example, State Fund CEO Lanny Hubbard, already the highest-paid state employee, will receive a $41,000 payment in addition to his $179,000 annual salary.

Five company vice presidents get an average of $16,600, while the average payment for non-executive employees is $4,200.

The payments are the first to be awarded in three years and the first to reward all State Fund employees, not just management and exempt employees, for achieving and exceeding business goals set at the beginning of the fiscal year.

“This is the first time since everyone has been eligible we’ve had a good year,” spokesman Matthew Cohn said.

The State Fund established a gainsharing program in 1995 that initially awarded only executives additional payments for those years when the company met its financial goals. The program added exempt employees in 1999 and all employees in 2002.

This year, 12 percent of the roughly $1 million in the gainsharing pool is going to management, Cohn said. Last time, 34 percent went to executives.

The average payment comes to about 8.7 percent of an employee’s annual salary.