CHATTANOOGA, TENN. — The Tennessee Valley Authority paid many of its top executives substantially more in fiscal 2012 than in the year before.

TVA's fiscal year ended Sept. 30, and year-end figures were released Friday by the government utility.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press ( http://bit.ly/RYH5m1) reported TVA CEO Tom Kilgore's salary was down a fraction from the year before, but performance bonuses and deferred retirement benefits pushed his 2012 total compensation to more than $4 million - up nearly 2 percent.

The largest pay jump fell to Kimberly S. Greene, who oversaw improvements in fossil fuel power generation in the last year. Her salary went up 50 percent to $3.57 million.

Chief financial officer John Thomas earned 32 percent more for trimming utility expenses when power sales came in $800 million short. His compensation package rose to more than $2.2 million.

Preston Swafford, who heads TVA's nuclear power program, received 17.1 percent more than last year, increasing his compensation to $2.28 million.

TVA reported the availability of the utility's nuclear plants for power generation was in the top 25 percent of all U.S. nuclear plants in 2012.

A mild winter and weak economic performance led to a drop in power sales, but TVA reported a net income of $60 million for the fiscal year.

Although the utility is owned by the federal government, the TVA act states that workers should be compensated at a level competitive with the private sector.

"TVA generally seeks to target total direct compensation for executives at a competitive level with respect to the relevant labor market," TVA said in its annual report filed Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The utility will pay a total of $150 million in performance pay next Wednesday.