Pay for directors at Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies rose to a record average of $251,000 last year, the sixth straight year of increased compensation since federal rules began requiring disclosure.

Boards have boosted pay for their members a total of 15 percent since 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Fidelity National Information Services Inc. topped the list after handing out a $9.5 million retention bonus. News Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp., which awarded some directors more than $1 million in consulting fees, came in second and third.

The average conceals a wide range: Directors at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made the least, at $3,800, while 19 companies paid their directors more than Buffett’s $423,923 compensation as CEO. The average pay for directors is almost six times the $42,7000 average salary for private-sector workers holding down full-time jobs.

“Who makes decisions about director pay? The directors,” said Paul Hodgson, director of corporate governance researcher BHJ Partners in Portland, Maine. “Shareholders can sit back and say ‘These directors are being paid so well that I can’t see them ever questioning management on anything because this is a gig they would hate to lose.’”

Reputation Risks

Employees in the private sector make their salaries working an average of 34.4 hours a week, or 1,789 hours annually, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Directors typically work 250 to 300 hours a year, according to estimates by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International.

The pay increase reflects rising hours of work annually for directors and risks to their reputations from activist shareholders’ campaigns, according to Joel Koblentz, who helps companies hire new directors as senior partner at the executive recruiter Koblentz Group in Atlanta. Rebounding stock prices in the economic recovery also play a role.

The rise since 2007 trails the 33 percent gain in S&P 500 CEO compensation, which averaged $10.7 million last year, according to executive-pay data provider Equilar Inc. It still trumps the 2.8 percent gain in per-capita disposal income for wage earners over the period, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Pay Conundrum

“It’s kind of a conundrum,” Koblentz said. “Trying to find board members who are willing to step up and play their roles is a difficult task and you want to balance that out with appropriate compensation.”

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