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Bill Johnson is president and chief executive officer of the Tennessee Valley Authority.Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority didn’t violate the federal Sunshine law when they hired Bill Johnson as chief executive last November without a public meeting, the utility’s internal watchdog said Monday.
The TVA inspector general said the TVA board was within its rights to hire Johnson using a notational approval from each of the members of the then six-member board. In a 10-page report released Monday, TVA Assistant Inspector General John Brennan said the board didn’t deliberate among members over the hiring selection and therefore didn’t violate the requirements of the Sunshine Act to conduct board deliberations in public.
“Notational procedure [with each board member casting votes without board deliberation] is not prohibited by the Sunshine Act, and the board followed that process,” Brennan concluded.
Garry Morgan, a member of the Bellefonte Efficiency and Sustainability Team who asked for the inspector general investigation of Johnson’s hiring, said he was disappointed in the secret process used by the board in making one of its most important decisions.
“The TVA has taken the route of ignoring openness and instead supports secrecy and reneges in its responsibility to display openness in a major federal action which involved the final selection of its CEO,” Morgan said Monday. “Increasingly, the TVA is turning its head and ignoring openness in its meeting process.”