Charles H. Noski sure didn’t take much financial risk in 1999 when he left Hughes Electronics Corp. to become CFO at AT&T Corp.

In late December 1999, AT&T granted Noski 310,648 restricted shares and 117,513 restricted stock units to replace grants from Hughes, which were forfeited upon his termination from Hughes. The value of these awards at the time: $24.4 million, according to AT&T’s proxy.

Then in 2000, Noski earned $730,980 in salary, $233,000 in bonus and $591,051 in other annual compensation, according to the company’s just- released proxy. This package alone came to $1.56 million. The “other” compensation refers to things like payments of above-market interest on deferred compensation. It also includes $69,212 for Noski’s personal use of corporate aircraft in 2000.

But, this is not all. Noski also received $6,722,644 in other long-term compensation. This includes a $2 million signing bonus, special payments of $3,921,384 “to preserve forfeitures from his prior employer,” and another $204,996 towards COBRA payments.

This brings Noski’s total 2000 package to $8.3 million.

As a result, Noski wound up the highest compensated executive at AT&T in 2000. Chairman C. Michael Armstrong took home a total package worth about $3.3 million.

John Ziglis, chairman and CEO of AT&T Wireless, earned about $3.1 million in salary, bonus and other compensation. He also realized a total value of $4.66 million from exercising options. This brings his total earnings for the year to nearly $7.8 million.

In 2000, AT&T earned $3.1 billion on revenue of $66 billion, compared to $3.4 billion on revenue of $62.4 billion in 1999.