OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – The Flatwater Free Press published a report on Thursday listing the large bonuses being paid to leaders of NPPD, in some cases doubling their salaries.
“John Dent, Nebraska Public Power District’s chief nuclear officer, made a base salary of $646,000 in 2023, an amount similar to other public power executives in Nebraska. But after a bonus of $640,280, his total compensation doubled his salary to $1.3 million,” the Flatwater report states.
His bonus alone is nearly double the salary of the governor, and his total pay pushes Dent into a pay bracket higher than even his boss.
While NPPD points out that the public utility budgets for its incentive programs so that it has no impact on customers, State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon tells Flatwater the bonus rates are shocking.
“Why would you double someone’s pay that hasn’t done anything that special when you could take that money and roll it into reducing rates?” he said.
But because Nebraska is the only state in the country served entirely by publicly owned utilities, NPPD says the high pay is necessary in order to be able to fill those key jobs — and keep them filled — while maintaining high performance for services that Nebraskans depend on.
“We’re looking at big numbers to the average person … but when you start looking at what Tom Kent, our CEO, could make if he went to Iowa or Missouri and worked for an investor-owned utility, his compensation would be in the millions,” said Dallas Beshaler, NPPD’s vice president of human relations.
Still, advocates say that those kinds of decisions — like making Dent’s 2023 bonus nearly 100% of his base salary, even if it’s awarded under a nuclear-focused incentive program — deserve transparency.
Setting the salary and giving out bonuses and those kinds of things ought to be fully disclosed to the public,” said Jack Gould, former issues chair for Common Cause Nebraska. “How do you justify that in the eyes of the public? What do you do in that job that warrants a bonus? That ought to be fully explained.”
Meanwhile, in a program rolling out this year, most NPPD employees below the supervisor level will be eligible to receive bonuses at either 2.5% or 5% of their salaries; and those at the vice president level will be eligible for a 30% bonus.
