As far as public sector and public sector adjacent jobs go, being a PCAOB director is a pretty lucrative gig. Currently, the PCAOB’s Chair makes $673,000 and the other board members make $574,000. If you think that’s a lot of money, you’re not the only one – SEC Chairman Paul Atkins thinks so too. In fact, he thinks it’s too much money.  In a July 2025 statement soliciting PCAOB board candidates, he criticized the growth in the PCAOB’s budget in recent years and set his sights squarely on board member compensation, noting that “an evaluation of Board member compensation will be among the items the Commission considers in connection with its review of the Board’s 2026 budget.”

According to an article in Friday’s WSJ, the PCAOB appears to have gotten the message in preparing its fiscal 2026 budget:

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed a 20% cut to the salaries of its board members as it faces scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission over compensation levels.

The cut was part of a preliminary 2026 budget the U.S. audit regulator submitted to the SEC in recent weeks, people familiar with the matter said. The plan suggests shrinking the overall budget by roughly 10% from the anticipated 2025 amount. This year’s spending is expected to come in below the $399.7 million the SEC approved last year.

The SEC, which oversees the PCAOB, has until Oct. 31 to propose revisions to the preliminary budget, followed by an audit-board vote in November and SEC vote in December, according to SEC rules. The process could be delayed by the government shutdown.

Is this cut big enough to satisfy Chairman Atkins & his colleagues? I don’t know, but it is worth noting that even with the proposed cuts, the WSJ article says that PCAOB board members would still be much more highly compensated than their counterparts at the SEC. It cites 2022 figures showing that Atkins’ predecessor, Gary Gensler, earned about $168,000, while commissioners Caroline Crenshaw and Hester Peirce earned roughly $158,000.

All things considered, I think I’d prefer to be the head of the other SEC – the Southeastern Conference. According to media reports, that SEC Chairman, Gary Sankey, earns $4 million a year.

– John Jenkins