The Presidential Rank Awards were established in 1978. Winners are selected by the White House from a pool of agency-nominated candidates collected by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Selected winners receive a one-time bonus award between 20 and 35 percent of their salary, which this year can range from just under $120,000 up to $179,700.

News of the suspension comes in the wake of other federal agencies receiving public scrutiny for awarding bonuses to their employees: the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has reportedly awarded $92 million in bonuses since 2009, and the General Services Administration (GSA) was revealed to have handed out questionable cash “Peer-2-Peer” awards to senior executives.

While the association representing federal senior executives opposes the suspension of the Presidential Rank Awards, an administration official cited “reduced budgetary resources” as a reason for the suspension and revealed the administration’s intent to find “means to acknowledge excellence in non-monetary ways.”