The $15.5 Million Federal Agency CEO — At the Tennessee Valley Authority

During 2019 and 2020, the new CEO of a federal agency was paid $15.5 million over two years, while outsourcing 120 technology jobs to foreign workers.

In 2004, Congress removed a 71-year-old provision that previously capped the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) executives’ pay at the salary of a Member of Congress (then $136,900, today $174,000) and told the TVA to hire competitively.

It just took a few years for the previous salary cap to transform into a multi-million windfall for Jeffrey Lyash, who moved from Canada to Tennessee for the job. His compensation amounted to $8.2 million in 2019 and $7.3 million in 2020. 

Unlike Dr. Anthony Fauci, who earned $434,300 last year, TVA employees do not receive taxpayer-funded salaries. 100 percent of the TVA's operating revenues are customer generated.

The TVA is a federally-owned utility and holds a competitive advantage that is funded by American taxpayers. For example, the TVA does not pay state, local or federal taxes and its debt—currently more than $20 billion— counts as debt to the federal government.

Plus, taxpayers paid $1.3 billion for the TVA dam and other steam power plants from 1933 to 1959.

In April 2019, the TVA hired Lyash and agreed to pay him $8.2 million. The package included a $445,846 salary; a $380,00 bonus; $480,085 in recruitment/relocation incentives; 401K retirement contributions; and millions in “other” compensation and deferred pension earnings.

Then, in 2020, Lyash got $7.3 million in compensation. The CEO received a $1.1 million salary; a $2.4 million “annual performance incentive;” a retention award incentive of $338,000, and $1.092 million in “other compensation,” including part of his “recruitment/relocation incentive award.”

President Trump was asked about the TVA CEO’s compensation last year and said, “It’s ridiculous. I don’t know the gentleman, but he’s got a heck of a job. He gets paid a lot of money.”

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.