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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:
  1. decided upon by the TVARS board as quickly as possible;
  2. sufficient to adequately fund TVARS; and
  3. 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 am very embarrassed that these things happened.

My recent recommendation to my companions on the TVARS board is consistent with what is stated above. (See my recommendation here.)

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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