TVA boosts year-end bonuses for employees to $11,400

John Thomas of TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority will distribute $131 million in performance bonuses this week to employees who helped the federal utility surpass all of its key goals for safety, performance, reliability and income during fiscal 2014.

The average "winning performance" payment for each of TVA's 11,500 employees will be nearly $11,400 this year.

Last year, TVA paid its 12,612 employees a total of $127 million in its "winning performance" payments, or just over $10,000 for each worker. TVA employees should receive the yearly bonus payments in their paychecks this week, officials said today.

TVA Chief Financial Officer John Thomas said TVA achieved 122 percent of its winning performance goals.

The utility paid down its debt $1.2 billion while investing a record $2.8 billion in capital improvements. TVA also continued to deliver power more than 99.999 percent of the time to its customers without interruptions and TVA removed its nuclear power plants from the NRC's watch list during the past year. TVA also helped recruit a record $8.5 billion in investment to the region.

TVA also had its highest net income in four years.

"This was a strong year financially for TVA and we made very good steps in reducing our expenses," TVA CEO Bill Johnson said today, praising "the extraordinary work" of TVA employees.

In addition to the winning performance payments being paid this week, TVA said today it granted managers, engineers and other white-collar workers an average 2.9 percent increase in salaries as of Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Increases varied based upon the performance and evaluation of each worker. Not all workers got raises, TVA said.

Kathy Black, human resources director for TVA, said TVA benchmarks its wages with other comparable utilities to set wage levels.

TVA wage increases were greater than what most workers received in the past year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The federal government said wages and salaries for all civilian workers increased an average 2.1 percent in the 12 months ended Sept. 30.