| Comment Number: | OL-10500815 |
| Received: | 2/22/2005 8:44:20 AM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
Re: 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 National Security Personnel System; Proposed Rule. The issues that NSPS attempts to address are indeed worthy of attention. Sadly, there are some government employees who consider themselves ROAD (retired on active duty), and the only way to motivate these people is through their paychecks; NSPS provides a means of doing this. It is difficult to mourn the lessened role of the union, as the union has been responsible for much of the difficulty in removing people who shouldn’t be working for the government. Changes in RIF procedures and work-force shaping are in keeping with attempts to increase overall efficiency. However, as it stands, the NSPS document will most likely fail to reward excellence in performance, and instead will reward the members and beneficiaries of the “Good Old Boy” system, for the following reasons: 1. Supervisors will have total control over who gets performance raises. 2. Supervisors will have total control over who gets performance opportunities. 3. Supervisors will be accountable to no one for their decisions. It is also questionable if this new policy will succeed in attracting a high-quality workforce. 1. If the rewards system is too narrowly applied, there will be only one or two lucky winners per unit/category in what will amount to a lottery whose potential winners will be named and limited by supervisors’ preferences. If only one or two people are rewarded, where is the incentive for any other high-burners to hang around? If only one of five good programmers is rewarded, where is the incentive for the other four to stay? 2. High-quality people who realize that rewards are being apportioned not according to excellence but according to rating in the Good Old Boy system will leave to work elsewhere. 3. If raises/promotions are predicated on extraordinary performance, many good, steady, possibly excellent people will never receive them because they will never have an opportunity to excel beyond the duties of their current positions. 4. When performance pay is tied to ratings, only the favored with get the best ratings. Without a good performance appraisal, it is impossible to qualify for jobs in other areas. Personnel unfortunate enough to work for the worst kind of supervisor will be dead-ended: they will be neither rewarded for their work nor allowed to transfer. This situation already exists, but will be exacerbated when performance pay is tied to ratings. My main objection to the NSPS is that it will allow the already-rampant nepotism and cronyism existing in the higher ranks of the Civil Service to flourish. As a case in point, a supervisor here hired the daughter of a retired colleague. Over a span of four years, he promoted her to a GS-12. Although she had no aircraft experience and wasn’t the right job series, he promoted her (by-passing qualified people) to a position where she was supervising employees with aircraft experience. At least one of those promotions was illegal and was grieved. The supervisor received a quiet reprimand, but neither the supervisor nor his protégé lost their positions or anything else. As I write this, the current edition of the Base newspaper notes that the same issue (with different players) was brought up at Commander’s Call, and was diplomatically side-stepped. If such abuse of power/position exists now, imagine the teeth the Good Old Boy system will have after the passage of NSPS. Some fifty-two pages have been written that address problems and propose solutions that will affect the lower ranks, but nothing appears to have been done to ensure integrity in the higher ranks. Far from anything being done to curb abuse and corruption in the higher managerial levels, NSPS encourages it to thrive and gives it the tools to do so. Any attempt to reform Civil Service without addressing nepotism and managerial abuse of power and position will fail. Hill AFB