Is the market tanking? Not according to the personal bank accounts of Washington Mutual executives.

Bonuses tied to a company’s performance, for the most part, tend to make sense: If the company does well, the employees share in the rewards. When times are leaner, bonuses are scaled back (or temporarily eliminated) until performance picks back up.

But Washington Mutual’s playbook’s a little different.

Rather than let the continuing fallout from the subprime meltdown affect executives’ annual bonus checks, the company has instead edited its executive bonus plan to keep those yearly payouts as fat as possible.

Now the cost of any bad loans or expenses that arise from foreclosures won’t be factored in when the company calculates its net operating profit.

The real kicker’s in the explanation, though – company spokesperson Libby Hutchinson claimed that the updated bonus plan covers “almost 3,000 WaMu executives, many of whom are not directly involved in lending.”

Because those execs aren’t directly involved in the financial lending fiasco, the company feels their bonuses shouldn’t suffer.

Let’s flashback to a few years ago: When the subprime-outperforming dollars were overflowing WaMu’s coffers, did we hear any complaints about how annual bonuses shouldn’t be increased because most execs had nothing to do with lending?

* Update: After the most recent Washington Mutual shareholders meeting, the bank’s decision to disqualify its lending division’s numbers from factoring into all managerial bonuses was reversed.

A company spokesperson stated the “program is designed to align compensation with the company’s current and long-term business strategy and goals. As a result, management is held accountable for total company performance.”

Now that executive pocketbooks are hurting as much as everyone else’s, perhaps the company will make other sacrifices to help repair the subprime meltdown.

We won’t hold our breath.

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Tags: bonuses, Compensation, WaMu