Dollar General 2008 Annual Report Download - page 142

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help to attract and retain executive talent. Along with certain benefits offered to named executive
officers on the same terms that are offered to all of our salaried employees (such as health and
welfare benefits and matching contributions under our 401(k) plan), we provide such persons
with certain additional benefits and perquisites.
The named executive officers have the opportunity to participate in the Compensation
Deferral Plan (the “CDP”) and the defined contribution Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan
(the “SERP”, and together with the CDP, the “CDP/SERP Plan”). Our Compensation Committee
determined in 2008 to no longer offer SERP participation to persons to whom employment offers
are made after May 28, 2008, including newly hired executive officers.
We provide each named executive officer a life insurance benefit equal to 2.5 times his or
her base salary up to a maximum of $3 million. We pay the premiums and gross up such
person’ s income to pay the tax cost of this benefit. We also provide each named executive officer
a disability insurance benefit that provides income replacement of 60% of base salary up to a
maximum monthly benefit of $20,000. We pay the cost of this benefit and gross up such officer’ s
income to pay the tax cost of the premiums of this benefit to the extent necessary to provide
benefits comparable to the group plan applicable to all salaried employees.
Each named executive officer may choose either a leased automobile (for which we pay
for gasoline, repairs, service and insurance) or a fixed monthly automobile allowance. We
provide a gross-up payment to pay the tax cost of the imputed income for both programs. Since
the Compensation Committee believes that executive automobile programs are no longer typical
in the competitive retail market, the Committee determined in 2008 to no longer offer an
automobile lease or allowance program to persons to whom employment offers are made after
May 28, 2008, including newly hired executive officers, and terminated the program for existing
named executive officers as of July 6, 2009.
We also provide a relocation assistance program to named executive officers under a
policy applicable to officer-level employees, which policy is similar to that offered to certain
other employees. In 2008, we incurred relocation expenses for Mr. Dreiling in accordance with
this policy and his employment agreement (as discussed below in “Compensation of Mr.
Dreiling”) and for Mr. Bere in accordance with the policy. The significant differences between
the relocation assistance available to officers from the relocation assistance available to non-
officers are as follows:
• We provide a pre-move allowance of 5% of the officer’ s annual base salary (we cap
this allowance at $5,000 for other employees);
• We provide home sale assistance by offering to purchase the officer’ s prior home at
an independently determined appraised value in the event the prior home is not sold
to an outside buyer (we do not offer this service to other employees);