Lawmakers are furious at top officials of Utah's school trust lands administration, saying they received double bonuses in June to get around a prohibition on bonuses in the current lean budget year.

"In my opinion it's inexcusable and reprehensible," Sen. Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

House Speaker Dave Clark joined in the criticism.

"Every agency in state government is taking budget cuts. Part of SITLA's budget cut was the quarter-million dollars in bonuses they get each year. To have them accelerate the payment by two months to avoid our policy direction is inexcusable," Clark said in a press release. "They are supposed to be managing state resources in the best interest of school children."

According to payroll records on the state's transparency Web site, the top officials at the Utah School and Trust Lands Administration each received two incentive awards.

Kevin Carter, SITLA administrator, received awards of $35,000 and $36,000, on June 30, the last day of the 2009 budget year.

Asst. Director Tom Faddies received awards of $23,460 and $20,200 that same day.

SITLA spokesman Dave Hebertson said he believes that the reporting of the bonuses was an accounting tactic, not done to skirt the Legislature.

"I think Senator Killpack doesn't know which way is up," he said.

The total $71,000 in bonuses to Carter was the same amount he received the previous

SITLA bonuses had already been called into question by the Legislature, which reduced the SITLA budget and prohibited bonuses in the 2010 fiscal year when it was cutting agency budgets last February.

"This is one where folks should be held accountable. They clearly were trying to find a way around the policy," Killpack said in an interview.

Sen. President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, agreed that SITLA appeared to be shirking its responsibility.

"We have a quasi-governmental agency that would do something like that when there's such a struggle in the economy, leaving people without jobs and trying to pay bills ... I just find this totally inappropriate in the timing it's coming forward," Waddoups said.

In February, a legislative fiscal analyst recommended that the state should do away with SITLA's bonus program, which was awarding nearly $20,000 a piece to the agency's top managers.

The six top executives received bonuses ranging from $13,200 to $35,000 and totaled $269,000 in the 2008 budget year.

SITLA officials defended the bonuses at the time, saying they were an important incentive for the land managers.

"We're not bankrupt, OK? We're not like the private sector where you get a bailout and then you go celebrate," John Ferry, chairman of the SITLA board, said at the time.