Comment Number: OL-10504528
Received: 3/9/2005 3:56:25 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:

I Overall, I am in favor of the NSPS changes for several reasons.s, and employees I am a retired federal employee and was in the civilian personnel field for over 20 years. Thanks for the opportunity for a retiree to voice an opinion. I been retired quite a while, but keep up through many friends in the personnel career field. This old personnelist just couldn't keep quiet! Pay for performance was given as one of the reasons for implementation of the Performance Management Program with the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 - and the lowered burden of proof at "substantial" was instituted. Even with that, the MSPB took too much authority away from management when it started second-guessing the standards, and many an unacceptable performer continued to waste taxpayer money as a result. Over the years I have heard just as much complaining from employees about poor performers being allowed to stay on as I have about favortism. The government needs to be able to weed out the unacceptable performers and those quilty of continued misconduct without the process requiring full-time attention of 3-4 people for several months. Speaking of favortism - it has always been with us, and will continue to be....until we can take the human element out of supervision. My hope is that supervisors, INCLUDING THE MILITARY, really will be held accountable for NOT taking care of problems. Now it is as though all your subordinates must get awards (deserved or not) for you to be considered outstanding. Awards are consistently given to those who are essentially performing their paid duties. Give me a supervisor who has some outstanding employees, some average and does something about the remainder! In other words - they perform the hard parts of their supervisory duties. The labor portion - it is ridiculous to be forced to negotiate whether we have Coke or Pepsi franchises on a base. It also does not make sense to negotiate DoD-wide policies and impact of new methods of performing work at each installation. I believe employees need someone to represent them as individuals, but the current negotiation requirements are stupid! I particularly like the concept of pay banding - again as long as supervisors and managers are controlled and held accountable. Too many times the old classification standards do not take into consideration the over-and-above, ongoing contributions and expertise of many workers.........and fail to deal with those who do just enough to get by. Again - pay for performance. I am concerned about the potential RIF implications. Just as all those with seniority are not necessarily those who give the taxpayers the biggest bang for their buck, neither are the vets. I sincerely appreciate the vets, and their selfless contributions to our nation, but a vet who has a combat-incurred disability is very different from one who has hemorrhoids along with other combinations of health issues. There should be some kind of balance - weighted towards performance. Finally, I see this standardization as a prelude to contracting out much of the civilian personnel system. Not that that is such a bad thing if it really saves taxpayer money. Good management is the key to NSPS success, and accountability has to be across the board - military and civilian, supervisors, managers, and employees. Thank you.