Regulatory filings yesterday showed that Toll Bros. CEO Robert Toll's salary slumped along with the rest of the housing market. The filings revealed that the housing sector CEO received only $29.3 million in salary, options, and benefits this year compared to $41.3 million in 2005 and $50.2 million in 2004. The executive, who ranked among the nation's highest-paid CEOs, agreed to the pay cut after the board felt it was "too big of a number" given the slowing of the economy for home building. Many investors continue to criticize the executive, however, as the company's shares were cut in half earlier this year before making a slight recovery during the past few months. Are these complaints justified? Well, let's take a look at Robert Toll's pay versus performance...

ExecutiveDisclosure.com reports reveal that the Robert Toll is still being paid far more than his peers. The actual numbers show that during 2003-2005 he was being paid 273% more than other in the housing industry. Here is a chart from ExecutiveDisclosure.com comparing Toll's salary to that of his industry peers:

If there is a problem, who is to blame? Ultimately, it is the board of directors that is responsible for executive compensation. The most important function in today's compensation environment is tying executive compensation to stock performance, giving management a "stake in the success" of the company. ExecutiveDisclosure.com can also make these comparisons via a compensation vs stock trend chart:



It appears as if the company's board of directors has done an excellent job of tying compensation to performance. So, the real question becomes whether this compensation "premium" over other industry executives is justified given Toll Bros.'s market positioning and Toll's influence on the company...