| Comment Number: | OL-10501636 |
| Received: | 2/27/2005 1:57:10 PM |
| 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:
Comments concerning - Federal Register: February 14, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 29) Proposed Rules: FR Document 05-2582/NSPS (National Security Personnel System) Page 7573: "The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 provides that the development and implementation of a new HR system for DoD will be carried out with the participation of, and in collaboration with, employee representatives." Please note that PL108-136 requires DoD and OPM to collaborate (definition: to work together) with employee representatives. That, obviously was not done. "The Secretary and the Director must provide employee representatives with a written description of the proposed new or modified HR system. The description contained in this Federal Register notice satisfies this requirement." DoD and OPM seem to think that this FR notice is sufficient despite the past months of stonewalling Congress and employee representatives about NSPS . "Any recommendations must be given full and fair consideration. If the Secretary and Director do not accept one or more recommendations, they must notify Congress of the disagreement and then meet and confer with employee representatives for at least 30 calendar days in an effort to reach agreement." Please note that this section states that DoD/OPM will confer, not collaborate with employee representatives as Congress intended with PL108-136. "Among the NSPS design requirements is to build a system that is competitive, cost effective, and fiscally sound, while also being flexible, credible, and trusted. NSPS will bring many flexibilities and modern HR practices, including a movement towards market sensitive pay, pay increases based on performance rather than the passage of time, and the flexibility to offer competitive salaries. This requires striking a balance among the values of pay flexibility, valuing high performance, fiscal constraint, and credibility. While these flexibilities will improve DoD's ability to attract and retain a high-performing workforce, it is expected that actual payroll costs under this system will be constrained by the amount budgeted for overall DoD payroll expenditures, as is the case with the present GS pay system. DoD anticipates that accessions, separations, and promotions will net out and, as with the present system, not add to the overall cost of administering the system." If DoD can not project the cost for Iraq and needs supplemental appropriations, how can the cost for NSPS be known? If this system is to net out, how can high-performers be rewarded at market sensitive rates, unless many employees' pay is cut since government salaries are at only roughly eighty (80%) percent of market salaries? Lastly, Congress must authorize and appropriate sufficient funds to cover the DoD budget requests for salaries. If there is a single budget shortfall for salaries, NSPS, presently under suspicion, will not be a trusted system at all. The only flexibility remaining will be to cut employees' salaries, high, low, and moderate performers alike. Is this a system that rewards anything at all? "The implementation of NSPS will, however, result in some initial implementation costs, which can be expressed in two basic categories: (1) Program implementation costs and (2) NSLRB startup costs." The costs incurred by NSPS will be a duplication of efforts extant. Extra training for management (supervisors and HR personnel) and employee to understand and use NSPS will be much more that DoD suggests. This will result in a lack of training for all resulting in distrust of the system, ending in the failure of NSPS itself. Any modification of existing HR/payroll systems will be done by contractors under very poorly written contracts (remember any number of these like FERS) at a cost much greater than DoD claims to need.