May 3--Last year's falling profits and tumbling stock prices still didn't put a dent in the bosses' pay.

Despite the tough times that hit the Buffalo Niagara region with full force last fall, top executives at the publicly traded companies based in the area still managed to increase their median pay by 3.9 percent last year to more than $818,000.

But there were clear signs that the weakening economy and the struggling stock market were beginning to take a toll on the pay of the region's top executives.

The pay of the 53 executives included in this year's analysis by The Buffalo News grew only slightly faster than the 3.1 percent growth in the average local worker's wages last year -- a marked shift from a year ago, when executive pay grew three times faster than a typical employee's earnings.

"It takes an economic downturn of this type for this to happen," said Jerry Newman, a University at Buffalo management professor and compensation expert.

Even so, the median total compensation for those executives reached $818,207 last year, another all-time high for The Buffalo News annual analysis of compensation trends at the region's publicly traded companies.

Yet the number of local executives earning more than $1 million dropped for a third straight year to 14, down from 16 in 2007 and a peak of 20 in 2005.

Seven local executives -- led by National Fuel Gas Co. President and Chief Executive Officer David F. Smith's $3.2 million pay package -- topped the $2 million mark in total compensation.

While the Buffalo Niagara economy avoided the early stages of the recession, the paychecks of local executives also avoided the downward pressure that began to be felt in the CEO's office nationally in 2008.

"The pay that you're looking at is based on a fiscal year that concluded last September, before the economy really started to fall, and was a year of record financial performance for us," said Julie Coppola Cox, a spokeswoman for National Fuel, which had three of the region's four highest-paid executives last year.

Median pay levels at 200 of the nation's biggest companies, which remain far above anything seen at the local level, fell 3 percent to $7.6 million, according to a survey by compensation consultant Hay Group.

The changes in CEO pay trends last year, "will likely pale in comparison to what's to come," said Irv Becker, who heads Hay Group's U. S. executive compensation practice.

The executive pay data, gleaned from proxy statements filed with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission, shed light on how top managers get paid and highlight the elements that push their compensation to levels that are far above what the average worker is paid.

Top local executives not only earn hefty salaries and bonuses, they also receive a smattering of more lucrative perks, ranging from enhanced pensions to company-paid autos and club memberships.

Meanwhile, the average worker in the Buffalo Niagara region is getting by on only a little more than what he or she earned a year ago. The average weekly earnings of workers in Erie County grew by 3.1 percent to $736 from October 2007 to September 2008 -- an increase that amounts to about $22 a week, according to figures released last month by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As a result, there remains a yawning gap between what top executives earn and what the average worker makes. The median pay of top local executives is 21 times the $38,272 earned by the typical local worker, who in most cases is also being forced to shoulder a greater portion of soaring health insurance costs.

No raises at M&T

Still, local executives weren't immune to the nation's economic pain.

With the banking industry struggling and bank stocks tumbling last year, most of M&TBank Corp.'s top executives went without a raise in their base salaries last year. Chairman Robert

G. Wilmers also didn't accept the bonus he was entitled to receive because of the weak banking market. M&T's board of directors already had decided in January 2008 to cut the size of Wilmers' bonus in half from his 2007 payout because of the difficult banking market.

Financial Institutions, the Warsawbased banking company that runs Five Star Bank, lost money last year, so it didn't come close to meeting its earnings target that would have triggered bonuses for its top executives. But the company still paid its top executives a "special" bonus "to recognize the overall performance of their respective functional areas of responsibilities." The bank also is freezing base salaries this year for most of its top executives.