20150728AVU to Staff 27.doc

AVISTA CORPORATION
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 07/17/2015
CASE NO.: AVU-E-15-05/AVU-G-15-01 WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Annette Brandon
TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation
REQUEST NO.: Staff - 027 TELEPHONE: [phone]

REQUEST:

For each officer of the Company, please provide the total dollar amount of remuneration for 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 amounts included in the rate case with the amounts separated by year, salary, incentive pay, options, benefits, and other. For each officer, please provide the percentages of his or her total remuneration that are allocated to other subsidiaries along with the basis for that allocation.

RESPONSE:

Please see Avista's response 027C, which contains TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY or CONFIDENTIAL information and exempt from public view and is separately filed under IDAPA 31.01.01, Rule 067 and 233, and Section 9-340D, Idaho Code, and pursuant to the Protective Agreement between Avista and IPUC Staff dated June 4, 2015.

The amount of executive compensation during 2012-2014 by executive officer is provided in Staff_PR_027C Confidential Attachment A. The data provided is for direct compensation, incentive payout (based on prior year incentive metrics), and paid time off. Benefits and payroll taxes are part of an overall labor loader and are not tracked at the employee level. Overhead rates are applied to the general ledger account where the direct labor charges originate. Please see the Company’s Pro-Forma adjustment no. 3.05 Pro-Forma Employee Benefits (including pension and medical) for calculation and 2.09 Restate Incentive for details of the incentive calculation.

The amount of overall base pay included in the Company’s filing is based on a survey conducted in December 2014 which asked each officer to estimate the percentage of their time which will be spent on non-utility operations. Each year officers provide an allocation percentage which takes into consideration a number of factors in the development their individual allocation percentage. Current and past job responsibilities, anticipated changes due to projects specific to the upcoming year(s), anticipated responsibility changes and/or overall upcoming strategic initiatives and associated roles are all taken into consideration when developing these allocations. Throughout the year, these allocations are reviewed and updates are made in the timekeeping system for any material changes. The overall non-utility allocation utilized in the 2012 rate case (include for 2013 and 2014) for base salaries was approximately 13%. The current estimate of total officer non-utility operation is approximately 11%. Please see Company adjustment 3.04 PF- Labor Executive for the utility Split for the allocation by individual utilized in this case.

The incentive information provided in the detail above reflects the actual payout based on the prior year’s plan. Incentive Compensation is part of a loader which follows the account where the direct labor was charged. Incentive Compensation for executive officers is allocated between utility and non-utility based on which metric is met. For instance, all payouts related to Eearnings-Per-Share are allocated to non-utility operations, whereas the metric related to O & M cost-per-customer is allocated to general ledger account 920000. Adjustment 2.09 in Ms. Andrews’ Pro Forma Study restates incentive compensation to reflect a 6 year payout average.

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 of 2