Wichita ? Despite losing $880 million last year, Protection One Inc. will pay its five top executives a total $5 million in salary and severance bonuses if they lose their jobs when the security company is sold.

Protection One officials said the financial package was needed to keep the company’s management team in place through the sale. They said it would maximize the price Westar Energy Inc. could get when it sold the company.

But the amount of the package — details of which were included in an annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission — angered consumer advocates who see it as a reward despite the poor performance of the alarm company.

“I wish I could get paid that much for running a business into the ground. The rest of us would be fired and out on the streets begging for unemployment,” said Niki Christopher, a lawyer with the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board, the state advocacy agency for residential and small-business utility customers.

The sale of Protection One is a key part of Westar’s plan to pay down its $3 billion-plus debt.

“I would think a company that just lost $880 million would be conservative with the compensation when the company prepared for a sale,” said James Zakoura, a lawyer for industrial utility customers.

Protection One officials said all but $25 million of its 2002 net loss could be attributed to changes in accounting practices and a drop in the value of intangible assets such as goodwill and customer accounts that predated the current management.

The five executives covered by the new employment agreements are company president and chief executive Richard Ginsberg; executive vice presidents Mike Sands, Darius Nevin and Peter Pefanis; and Steve Williams, president of Protection One’s subsidiary, Multi-Family Security Corp.

If the executives lose their jobs because of the sale, all would be entitled to a payment of three times their annual salaries plus any bonuses they received in the previous year.

All the agreements were put in place March 18, seven days after the Kansas Corporation Commission gave Westar permission to continue funding Protection One while looking for a buyer for it.