The Price of Public Service
SEC chief accountant takes big pay cut

Donald Nicolaisen earned $3.1 million in his last 21 months at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, taking a 90 percent pay cut to become the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's chief accountant. Nicolaisen, 59, is paid about $180,000 a year to be the SEC's top accountant. That puts his monthly SEC salary at $15,000 compared with a $148,000 monthly average when he was at PWC.