Most managers even in the private sector couldn’t really pull this off because they would need someone to approve the requested salary. You’d have to have a who

Most managers even in the private sector couldn’t really pull this off because they would need someone to approve the requested salary. You’d have to have a whole pyramid scheme of kickbacks going all the way up to the top executives, but the top executives have no incentive to cooperate because they’re already pulling a similar scheme against the shareholders for their salaries.