Leonard Muzyn's TVARS Blog

ACTION ALERT-PLEASE PARTICIPATE  From: Mike Moseley, President, TVARC Subject: TVARC Action Alert: GAO Says Fully Fund TVA Pension Plan The Tennessee Valley Authority Retirees Coalition (TVARC) requests support from TVARC members, members of TVA Retiree Chapters, our Unions, readers and senders of Facebook and Twitter messages and other contacts to send a message to our Tennessee Valley members of Congress. Please read this message and then go to http://www.nrln.org/congress.html#/54 to respond to this important Action Alert. Background  The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked by Congress to review the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) plan for debt reduction and to make recommendations: the first was that TVA must better communicate its plans for overall debt reduction and second, the GOA specifically recommends that TVA take steps to have its retirement system adopt funding rules designed to ensure the pension plan’s full funding. (See the GAO’s R...

Recommendations for Executive Action  We recommend that the Board of Directors ensure that TVA take the following two actions: better document and communicate its goals to reduce its debt and unfunded pension liabilities in its performance plans and reports, including detailed strategies for achieving these goals. propose, and work with the TVARS board to adopt, funding rules designed to ensure the plan’s full funding. Click  here  to read the full GAO report publicly released on April 24, 2017. Additional Excerpts TVA agreed with the first recommendation and neither agreed nor disagreed with the second. GAO believes that action is needed as discussed in the report. TVA officials told us that the agency does not plan to contribute more than the TVARS Rules require and that it plans to continue to treat its unfunded pension liabilities as regulatory assets, deferring pension costs for recovery through rates in the future. However, the TVARS Rules do not ...

The March 2017 final order and judgment in the TVA pension lawsuit has been appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. See the notice here .