Skip to main content

Comments on TVARS Amendments

I voted against the amendments scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2016 because they reduce earned benefits the board has determined are vested.  They also authorize TVA to inadequately fund the remaining benefits for the next 20 years.  They reduce benefits by about $700 million.  Even after this reduction, actuarial projections indicate that the 20-year funding requirements will not be enough to fully pay the remaining benefits.  In addition, these amendments transfer significant stock market risk to the plan’s beneficiaries while giving the board the authority to suspend TVA’s contributions to the plan for any reason. TVA will still be able to terminate the plan at any time.

TVA’s agreeing that the remaining COLAs are vested gives the beneficiaries nothing because the rules clearly state that the retirement board determines what benefits are to be paid.  The board has already determined and informed the court hearing the pending lawsuit that COLAs are vested benefits.  Passage of these amendments could benefit TVA in defending against the lawsuit because it makes the board appear weak and inconsistent.
  
Without these amendments, a funding requirement averaging $353 million over twenty years would be required per our actuary.  I do not believe this level of funding would be onerous to TVA and its rate payers.  That averages $53 million dollars more a year than is contained in this proposal, and I was more than willing to negotiate the timing of these payments from TVA.  Unfortunately, this process was about meeting TVA’s demands and not about negotiation and compromise.  

I made several suggestions a few years ago to better protect lower income beneficiaries if a majority of the board insisted on reducing vested benefits over my objections.  These included reducing COLAs only on pension payments above adjusted core amounts, eliminating COLAs completely for those receiving the separate executive pension, and suspending COLAs for retirees while they are receiving payments from TVA for contract work.  Unfortunately, these suggestions were dismissed by a majority of the board and were not incorporated in these amendments.  I am pleased that a suggestion I made a few years ago to increase the maximum COLA was incorporated in these amendments.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Task Assigned to the TVARS Board

The TVARS board is required to recommend a contribution from TVA to be made in fiscal year 2014 prior to the end of the current fiscal year.  (See Section 9B on pages 51-53 of the rules here .)  Since TVA sets its budget months before the end of the fiscal year, it is imperative that this recommended amount be: decided upon by the TVARS board as quickly as possible; sufficient to adequately fund TVARS; and consistent with the amounts charged to ratepayers for pension expense. All seven TVARS board members have an obligation to come together to accomplish this.  (See TVARS board members here .)  I sincerely hope we will be able to accomplish this without further rule changes suspending TVA contributions, or further claims that legitimate accrued benefits are not really vested and must be reduced.  I hope we will be able to put an end to our failure to insure that amounts paid by TVA ratepayers for pension expense are used for their intended purpose.  As a TVARS board member, I
Post a Comment
Read more

Why do TVARS board meetings remain closed?

Within the next couple of months, the TVARS board must vote on a contribution amount to recommend that TVA make in fiscal year 2014. In conjunction with the contribution amount, it is possible the vote will include amendments to the rules. In conjunction with the contribution amount in 2009, the rules were amended to: suspend contribution requirements and related actuarial valuations for four years (Section 9B9); suspend the requirement that part of the contribution go to the “excess COLA account,” which was designed to accumulate and grow funds to be used for payment of future COLAs (Sections 9B9, 10D1 and 10D2); and reduce legitimate accrued pension benefits (Sections 6I, 7L and 18C3). The vote in 2009 was not open to observation, and unless the TVARS board takes action, neither will the vote this year. Not one of the six other TVARS board members would second the motion I made in December to open TVARS meetings to observation. All that is required to open future boa
18 comments
Read more

Introduction

This is my personal blog to facilitate communication among TVA employees, retirees and beneficiaries who are members of TVARS and who wish to preserve their retirement benefits. Please join my site and post your comments.  I have been an elected member of the TVA Retirement System (TVARS, or the system) board of directors since 2003. I am not speaking officially for the TVARS board of directors or TVA management. TVARS is an entity legally independent of TVA. Three of the board members are TVA employees (including myself), three are appointed by TVA management (currently all TVA executive managers), and the seventh is generally a retired TVA employee (appointed by the other six). As TVA employees, we all have a duty of loyalty to carry out directives issued by TVA management in our regular TVA jobs. However, each board member has a fiduciary duty to all the members of the system when performing TVARS duties. This fiduciary duty legally supercedes our duty of loyalty to carry out direct
21 comments
Read more