Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined certain employment arrangements the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) entered into under personal services contracts to: (1) compare the TVA Office of Nuclear Power manager's salary with that of executives in other utilities; (2) compare the manager's employment contract provisions limiting his personal liability for his actions with liability provisions contained in other TVA personal services contracts; (3) identify other contractor personnel employed by TVA under arrangements similar to the manager's; and (4) describe the organizational and functional changes made to TVA's Nuclear Safety Review Staff since the manager's employment.
GAO found that: (1) the manager's rate of pay was within the range of the salaries paid to utilities' top executives and was over 2.5 times the average salary paid to executives whose positions appeared to have responsibility for managing the utilities' power or nuclear power operations; (2) the manager's contract liability provisions were similar to those of other TVA contracts for personal services; and (3) TVA employed 25 additional persons under similar arrangements, but those employment arrangements were questionable. GAO also found that the manager has: (1) made the Nuclear Safety Review Staff into an organizational component of the TVA Office of Nuclear Power, and it no longer reports directly to the TVA Board of Directors and General Manager; (2) renamed the review staff the Nuclear Manager's Review Group; and (3) relocated the staff in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
