The Tennessee Valley Authority board is undertaking a “broad review” of what it pays its CEO but has no plans to replace Jeff Lyash, according to TVA board chairman John Ryder of Memphis.

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Ryder commented after a TVA quarterly board meeting in Knoxville Thursday, Aug. 27, at which the board also approved a 2.5% reduction in what it charges its customers – local utilities and commercial and industrial users.

The meeting was the first since President Donald Trump removed board chairman James Thompson and Richard Howorth, another board member, and called for the board to fire Lyash.

Ryder, who was confirmed by the Senate to the board in February 2019, became chairman in the process.

Trump, at an Aug. 3 cabinet meeting, was reacting to TVA’s decision to outsource tech jobs and lay off workers during the pandemic. He was also critical of Lyash’s $8 million annual salary. Trump did note, however, that Lyash’s predecessor in the job, Bill Johnson, was probably responsible for setting the salary.

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“We’re getting rid of him, in one form or another,” Trump said of Lyash, according to Associated Press. “Either the board’s going to do it, we’re going to do it. But he’s gone.”

Ryder said Thursday he’s talked with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows since then in what he termed “very positive and very productive” discussions.

“I don’t think anybody has questioned the performance of Jeff Lyash,” he said. “I know it don’t.”

Lyash reversed the outsourcing of the jobs.

“Our execution wasn’t what it should have been,” Lyash said after Thursday’s board meeting. “We weren’t sensitive enough to the economic impact of COVID-19 and to some of the policy that the White House was setting. And we didn’t adjust our execution to match it.”

Republican U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander said TVA “may have shown poor judgment hiring foreign companies during a pandemic.” He also said the CEO’s pay is low by power industry standards.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, of Memphis – a vocal critic of Trump -- said the CEO’s pay is too high and agreed with Trump on firing the board members over the outsourcing.

Cohen tempered his praise by saying Trump should have acted earlier.

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The 2.5% reduction is for the next year and comes from $200 million in savings passed along to those supplied electric power by TVA. MLGW is TVA’s largest customer and Lyash estimated the annual savings to the city-owned utility at about $15 million.

MLGW is in the process of considering whether it should remain with TVA as its electric power wholesaler or leave and find a new supplier after 80 years with the agency.

An Integrated Resource Plan by Siemens consulting, commissioned by MLGW as part of the process, concludes that TVA is likely to raise its rates to utilities in the next 20 years as TVA seeks to have MLGW sign on for another 20 years.

“Siemens actually assumes our rates go up,” Lyash told The Daily Memphian. “All of that flies in the face of facts. Our rates in 2020 are lower than they were a decade ago. And not only are we maintaining rates flat, we are working to flow dollars back to customers.”

The 2.5% reduction is not a guarantee beyond the next year, although Lyash said the goal is to work toward maintaining it.

The cost reduction applies directly to customers like Nucor and Praxair that get their electric power directly from TVA. The same is true of large industrial and commercial customers that are served through MLGW.

The effect on residential MLGW customers is determined by MLGW. And the utility said Thursday residential bills will be reduced by about $2 a month effective in October and on a temporary basis.

“They have the ability to use that to lower customer price or to address uncollectable (bills) or any one of a number of things,” Lyash said. “That part will be up to MLGW.”