TVA CEO paid $4.6 million in 2014

Four executives at government utility earn over $2 million in past year

photo Bill Johnson
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TVA boosts year-end bonuses for employees to $11,400TVA CEO paid $4.6 million in 2014TVA boosts profits to 4-year high in 2014

The Tennessee Valley Authority paid its chief executive more than $4.6 million in the past year to run the government-owned utility, or more than 10 times the $400,000 salary paid to President Obama.

But without the initial incentives paid to lure Bill Johnson to TVA in late 2013, Johnson's compensation in fiscal 2014 was 26 percent less than the $6.2 million package he got during his first year with the utility in fiscal 2013.

But Johnson's $4.6 million compensation package in 2014, which includes a $950,000 salary and nearly $3.7 million in performance and retirement incentives, was still more than what was paid his predecessor, Tom Kilgore, and left Johnson the highest paid federal government employee in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

In a regulatory filing today, TVA disclosed that it paid four of its top executives more than $2 million in compensation in fiscal 2014.

Charles "Chip Pardee, TVA's chief operating officer hired last year from Exelon Corp., was paid total compensation of $2.3 million in his first full year at TVA.

TVA's chief financial officer, John Thomas, was paid $2.3 million, or 7.4 percent more than the previous year.

Mike Skaggs, who is heading up the Watts Bar Unit 2 construction project, was paid nearly $2.1 million in total compensation in 2014, up nearly 30 percent from the previous year.

In his first year as TVA's chief nuclear officer, Joe Grimes was paid total compensation of nearly $1.6 million.

The multi-million-dollar compensation packages at TVA have been repeatedly criticized as excessive and unnecessary by U.S. Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., Tennessee's most senior House member who represents the district where TVA is headquartered.

But TVA directors insist such pay is necessary to recruit and maintain top talent to ensure TVA is run effectively.

"I make no apology for what we pay," TVA Chairman Joe Ritch said at a recent TVA board meeting.

TVA nearly doubled its net income, paid down its debt by $1.2 billion and improved the operations of its troubled nuclear power program in fiscal 2014.

Read more in tomorrow's Times Free Press.

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