Nashville Electric Service (NES) compensates CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin more than $650,000 annually for her services at the municipally-owned utility, a spokesman for NES confirmed to The Tennessee Star on Monday.
The company confirmed the compensation in an unsigned response to a Friday inquiry from The Star, which sought to confirm Friday reporting by WSMV-4 that Broyles-Aplin is paid $654,870.15 for her work at the company.
“The compensation provided is accurate,” the NES spokesman told The Star. “Executive compensation is reviewed annually by the NES Electric Power Board and benchmarked against similarly sized public utilities using an independent, third-party advisor.”
Weeks after the storm, Broyles-Aplin remains embattled, with calls for her to be fired or resign from NES by U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Tennessee Lt. Governor Randy McNally, the Metro Nashville Council considering a resolution to demand the utility board to fire Broyles-Aplin, and Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly considering steps that could see her removed from the company.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell also called a commission to investigate the response to the storm, but told The Star that it would have no direct authority over NES when asked about an apparent conflict of interests.
About half of NES’ 470,000 customers lost power during the storm, and thousands did not have power restored for more than a week. Annual reports and board meeting minutes revealed NES cut $7 million in spending on tree trimming in 2024, and that vegetation management was highlighted as a severe reliability concern last November.
NES board chair Anne Davis recently told The Tennessee Star that any decision regarding Broyles-Aplin’s continued employment would come following the completion of an independent audit.
Broyles-Aplin was recently asked about the effort to keep her job in an interview with the Nashville Business Journal.
“I take great pride in what we do as an organization and our employees are very mission-focused. I do this job because I love it,” she told the outlet.
The CEO told the Journal, “And outside of this storm, our reliability is has been top-notch,” and added, “I take great pride in trying to lead the organization through a very difficult time. … I feel the need to be here to support them.”
She was later asked multiple times to assess the company’s performance during the storm, as well as her own, but ultimately declared it was “not a fair question” to for the Journal reporter to pose.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
I hope the Tennessee general assembly will make new a coop and cut rates because it no longer pays a DEI president a high salary and gives metro 60 million a year!
I would love my job too if I received $650K for doing nothing.
Annual salaries of the following – As per AI:
Mayor of Nashville – $180,000
Director of Metro Nashville Public Schools – $385,000
Fire Chief of Nashville – Davidson County – $265,561
I want a commission on how the CEO of NES came to make an annual salary of $650,000
Not impressed, Nashville has lost it’s way.