| Comment Number: | OL-10503389 |
| Received: | 3/5/2005 10:32:21 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:
Dont be fooled: It's all about RETIREMENT COSTS. I've read a lot of the comments in here, but nearly everyone is missing the point -- this new pay system is a systematic way to reduce the Federal Government's long term cost to fund pensions of retired Federal employees. THIS IS THE REAL LONG-TERM GOAL OF THE NEW PLAN. Performance pay will be a combination of a PERMANENT pay raise and a ONE-TIME BONUS. Permanent pay raises WILL COUNT toward retirement pay, and one-time bonuses WILL NOT. Each payband will have a point, probably the MIDPOINT, at which employees below that point will receive most of their performance-based compensation as a permanent pay raise, and employees above that point will receive most (or ALL) of it as a one-time bonus. IF YOU ARE ABOVE THE MIDPOINT, YOU MAY NEVER SEE A PERMANENT PAY RAISE AGAIN. That means that your BASE PAY will STAY THE SAME FOR A LONG, LONG TIME. When you retire (if you stick around long enough to retire -- reducing the number of actual retirees is another long term goal of this plan, because eventually people will realize it is economically unwise to remain a Federal employee), YOUR RETIREMENT WILL BE CALCULATED BASED UPON YOUR BASE PAY, which probably will not have increased substantially in years. Remember, the plan takes away all step increases, COLAs, locality pay,annual pay raises, and exceptional performance awards. No more Quality Step Increases. If you want to know what your base pay is most likely going to be at retirement, look at the midpoint of the pay band. That's it! The long term effect of the plan is that the base pay of long-term employees will ERODE because of inflation, despite the probablity that most employees will receive performance based compensation is the form of one-time Bonuses. NO COLA. EVERYONE, whether they receive a bonus or not, loses in this scenario. Let's don't squabble among ourselves about favoritism and discrimination. WE ALL LOSE UNDER THIS PLAN.