Executive pay
Top five PNM officers could earn $8.66 million in total combined compensation
PNM Resources’ top five executives could earn $8.66 million in total combined compensation for 2016 if they meet all performance goals, following approval of new salaries, benefits and incentive pay at the company’s annual shareholders meeting Tuesday morning.
That’s down from about $10 million in total combined compensation approved for 2015, but up from $7.48 million in 2014.
PNMR Chairman, President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn could earn $4.118 million. That compares with $5.24 million last year and $3.35 million in 2014. Only $792,000, or 23 percent, of VincentCollawn’s compensation is base pay. The rest is in stock options, incentive awards and benefits, most of which she would only receive in future years if she meets performance goals.
Ratepayers are responsible for just a small percent of base pay, said PNM spokesman Pahl Shipley. Shareholders pay for all the incentive-based compensation.
Meanwhile, shareholders also voted against two climate change-related proposals at the meeting, held at PNMR headquarters Downtown. That included resolutions requiring the company’s local utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico, to prepare a report on transitioning away from fossil fuels to help meet climate change goals, and a risk assessment on potential for stranded costs from PNM’s carbon-emitting generation as the grid shifts to renewable energy.
The PNMR board said its transition plans are already available through the company’s triennial integrated resource plan, or IRP, which PNM will file with the state Public Regulation Commission in July. It said the risk assessment would be too speculative to be useful.
The resolutions came from PNM Shareholders for a Responsible Future, a small group that acquired stock in recent years to attend annual meetings and introduce proposals.
This year, the meeting included some passionate comments by those stockholders, and from the traditional New Mexico Utility Shareholders Alliance, which opposed the resolutions.
Vincent-Collawn said PNM’s new IRP already calls for making PNM coal-free by 2031, completely shutting the San Juan Generating Station near Farmington by 2022, and abandoning PNM’s 13 percent stake at the nearby Four Corners Power Plant a few years later. In addition, the company continues to add renewable resources to the grid.
“Transformative change will shape the future,” Vincent-Collawn said in her annual speech. “The way energy is produced and how customers use it is quickly evolving ... We all embrace this revolution and continue to address it in our business plans.”
As in past years, environmental groups and clean energy advocates demonstrated outside PNMR’s offices. During the meeting, protest drums echoed up to the shareholder conference.
“We’re providing moral support for the shareholders proposing the climate resolutions inside,” said NM350.org co-coordinator Tom Solomon. “We appreciate what they’re doing.”