A full and open Westar accounting is long overdue.

A paragraph in a Wednesday Journal-World article about Westar Energy Inc. expressed the feelings of thousands of Kansans: “Topeka-based Westar has been under fire for its dismal financing performance while its top executives have enjoyed huge salaries and perks.”

The focal points of the controversy are chief executive David Wittig and other Westar officials who many feel have been, and still may be, overcompensated for their worth to the operation. Why should they keep profiting so handsomely while the business is struggling?

The company says it has restructured the packages for executives in regard to whether they stay, leave or are fired but gives precious few details about it all.

All this comes on the heels of recent revelations about outlandish and obscene pay, benefits and perks that executives of other failed or failing corporations have had. There are the WorldCom and Enron scandals and then there was the lopsided retirement layout for Jack Welch of General Electric. The latter might not have come to light except for divorce proceedings from Welch’s departing wife. What will be the breakthrough here?

Westar in Kansas does tell us that contracts for executives have been changed to:

 Limit the amount of compensation an officer receives upon termination or retirement from the company.

 Eliminate the company’s obligation to purchase an officer’s home upon termination.

 Prevent former officers from getting certain stock. The company also says it has started a review of its “governance structure.”

Putting it bluntly, where’s the beef? How about complete details for an agency that continues to struggle?

Wittig reportedly has been paid $32 million in the past four years, including a life insurance policy he can cash in at any time. During Wittig’s tenure, the company stock has nose-dived and its investment grade has been reduced to junk-bond status. Hundreds of employees have been laid off. Stockholders are edgy and even frightened.

The big complaint is that the contract for Wittig, et al, did not reflect pay for performance but merely protected (overpaid) senior-level managers from any change with the company.

Removing the requirement that the company buy the homes of executives would probably save Westar about $2 million in Wittig’s case, according to the attorney for the industrial customers. Wittig has renovated the home of former Kansas political leader Alf Landon in Topeka. What if he is fired? Does he benefit?

Again, where’s the beef, the meat and potatoes of the hard facts and figures that put things squarely on the table?

Perhaps Westar has taken some steps in the right direction, and it could be that the siphoning off of funds by executives, despite their results, is changing. But how much and when?

It’s high time that all publicly traded businesses such as Westar come clean, pay their officials on the basis of performance rather than flim-flam and window-dressing and let the public and the employees know exactly what’s going on.