WASHINGTON -- The multimillion-dollar pay packages that the ousted chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are due to receive could stoke a fresh round of election-year debate over executive compensation.

Freddie Mac's departing chief, Richard Syron,
could walk away with an exit package totaling as much as $14.9 million,
said David Schmidt, a senior consultant at James F. Reda &
Associates LLC, a compensation consulting concern in New York. That
includes a possible payment of $8.8 million to compensate for
forfeiting recent equity grants.

A Freddie spokesman quoted Mr. Syron as saying he doesn't
"anticipate receiving nearly that much." A person close to Mr. Syron
said he is unlikely to take the $8.8 million.

The exit package for Fannie Mae's Daniel Mudd, including stock he
already owns, could total $9.2 million, Mr. Schmidt estimates. Mr. Mudd
is discussing matters with the government, said Robert Barnett, Mr.
Mudd's counsel. A Fannie Mae spokesman declined to comment.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer said he is looking into what might be
done about the two CEOs' exit packages. The Treasury Department and the
Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie,
haven't discussed the matter. A representative for the agency said: "We
are working through the compensation issues and have nothing to say at
this time."

Many top financial-industry executives have lost their jobs amid the
credit-market turmoil. The size of the exit packages for departed
executives such as Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Stan O'Neal and Citigroup
Inc.'s Charles Prince also have drawn criticism.

Reducing the size of exit packages for poorly performing executives
is tricky, said Pearl Meyer, senior managing director at New York
compensation consultant Steven Hall & Partners. Employment
agreements typically lock in exit-pay terms unless the executives
commit crimes that hurt the company, she said.

Still, companies are increasingly tying pay to performance, which
could reduce the size of payouts. Much of Mr. Mudd's severance package
consists of a bonus and performance-based share grant, which he may not
receive, as well as accelerated stock awards whose value has been
torpedoed by the fall in Fannie's share price, said Mark Reilly, a
partner at Chicago-based 3C-Compensation Consulting Consortium.

If Fannie's board decides to slash the bonus portion of Mr. Mudd's
exit payout, the executive could get between $5 million and $6 million,
including an estimated $3.2 million in pension and a $1.98 million cash
severance payment, said Mr. Reilly. Similarly, it is unclear how
Freddie will handle the bonus portion of Mr. Syron's payout, which Mr.
Schmidt estimates at $3.9 million. Messrs. Schmidt and Reilly noted
that the two CEOs will leave with much less money than recent payouts
to Messrs. Prince or O'Neal, both of whom left amid huge losses at
their companies.

Presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain have both been
critical of high executive pay during the credit crunch. Monday, Sen.
McCain told a rally in Lee's Summit, Mo., that "we can't allow" the
Fannie and Freddie restructuring "to turn into a bailout of Wall Street
speculators and irresponsible executives."

Last year Sen. Obama sponsored a bill that would give shareholders
an advisory vote on executive compensation, dubbed "say on pay," but it
didn't go anywhere.

Write to Kara Scannell at kara.scannell@wsj.com and Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com