As a general concept, this seems fine, but in this case they seem to be paying people a cash reward for ignoring management priorities:

> The ticket sits in a backlog behind feature work because feature work has deadlines, stakeholders, and OKRs attached to it. Cost optimization has none of those things.

It might be a general priority of management but it's often a less salient issue day-to-day. Putting in such an incentive can be a good way to make sure it does get prioritized despite this.