William Esrey received a $125,909 raise in 2001, but the salary, bonus and other compensation for Sprint Corp.’s chairman and chief executive still fell far short of his pay two years earlier.

According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Esrey made $1.52 million in 2001: a base salary of $1.08 million, a $213,020 bonus and $234,749 in other compensation.

In 2000, Esrey’s total compensation was $1.4 million. In 1999, when Esrey was trying to engineer Sprint’s $129 billion sale to WorldCom Inc. a sale that never happened his total compensation was $2.55 million.

Sprint released the salary information as part of its proxy statement, filed in preparation for the company’s annual shareholders meeting. The meeting will be held at the company’s Shawnee Mission Parkway headquarters at 10 a.m. April 16.

Since October, the Westwood company has laid off more than 10,000 employees. Along with much of the telecommunications industry, Sprint reported disappointing 2001 financial results. Sprint had a net loss of $1.4 billion for the year after writing off $1.8 billion in losses on its ION system, which was designed to provide high-speed data and voice service.

Ronald LeMay, Sprint’s president and chief operating officer, made $1.24 million in 2001: a $951,525 salary, a $148,541 bonus and $143,796 in other compensation. LeMay received total compensation of $1.04 million in 2000 and $1.7 million in 1999.

Both Esrey and LeMay also received more than 4 million stock options last year.

Esrey received options to buy 2.39 million FON shares and 2.39 million PCS shares. LeMay received options to buy 2.05 million FON and 2.05 million PCS shares.

Included in each executive’s stock options were 1.5 million FON and 1.5 million PCS options. As part of new employment contracts, both Esrey and LeMay accepted those options in place of annual executive stock option grants in 2002 and 2003.

The executives still may receive options as part of their long-term incentive plans in those years. They also are still eligible for a program that allows them to take part of their bonuses as stock options.

According to the SEC filing, the options Esrey received in 2001 will be worth $188.75 million if the company’s stock prices increase 10 percent each year until the options expire in 2011. Under the same scenario, LeMay’s options would be worth $160.78 million at the 2011 expiration date.

Currently, however, all the options awarded to Esrey and LeMay in 2001 are “underwater” meaning the stocks’ prices would have to rise for the options to be worth exercising.