It seems that corporate executives accustomed to lavish perks and bonuses just don’t get it.

A case in point occurred last week when Wells Fargo & Co. defended, then canceled a 12-night luxury junket to Las Vegas for its top employees. The outing caused an uproar because Wells Fargo had just received $25 billion in bailout funds from the federal treasury.

The company announced it had decided to cancel the event “in light of the current environment,” but felt compelled to point out that it had never planned to use taxpayer bailout money for the trip.

OK, so how about if you take the money you were going to spend on the trip and use it for the stuff you are going to use the bailout money for and give that much money back to the taxpayers? We didn’t realize that you had a special vacation fund that couldn’t be used for anything else.

It’s not that we don’t want to reward your top executives for losing more than $2.3 billion in the last three months of 2008, but Vegas? Do you really think that’s a good idea?

To bring the issue a little closer to home, additional scrutiny also was focused last week on Kansas City Power & Light, which is seeking a 17.5 percent rate increase for its Kansas customers. As part of the rate proceeding, the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board, which represents Kansas consumers on utility issues, decided to take a look at the KCP&L ledger.

There it found $4.3 million in annual bonuses for senior utility executives and an additional $4.7 million bonus program, along with $200,000 for Worlds of Fun tickets and $188,000 for golfing fees and tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals games. CURB also questioned $572,000 spent on movie tickets, gift cards and flowers as well as banquet fees at The Elms Resort & Spa in Excelsior Springs, Mo.

Company officials said some tickets were for employee appreciation events, which may be canceled this year because of the economy, and that many tickets went to charities. In defense of the requested rate increase, a top company executive said, “We do not relish requesting a rate increase during these difficult economic times,” and pointed out that the requested increase was about $23 million less than it would have been without savings the company realized by purchasing Aquila Inc.

Presumably that means the requested increase could have been about $32 million less if the top company officials hadn’t received their bonuses. KCP&L is seeking $71.6 million in additional revenue in Kansas and $102 million in Missouri.

At least KCP&L isn’t going broke and asking for taxpayer bailout funds, but the experience of Kansas consumers with former Westar CEO David Wittig, who now is serving time in prison, raises our awareness of how utility money is being used by top executives.

There’s nothing wrong with sponsoring an employee picnic, but it’s time to call companies on the perks and bonuses they pay to their executives while seeking large public rate increases or taking taxpayer bailout funds.