| Comment Number: | OL-10504791 |
| Received: | 3/10/2005 10:39:23 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:
My comments address Pay and Pay Administration. I have been a federal civilian employee since 1991 and have almost always received very high performance ratings. I say “almost” because years ago I obtained a position in another unit at IRS. The manager and I had a bit of a personality conflict because she seemed to only like the young girls who were too immature to have any opinions that may differ from hers. I had opinions and what I thought were good ideas regarding policy and work flow issues. Because this manager did not like me, she drastically lowered my evaluation. Luckily, the unit was disbanded and I was placed into another unit. Under a new manager, my evaluation went back up. With the poor evaluation that one manager gave me, I never would have made the best qualified list for vacancies I applied for and I likely would not have received a pay raise had IRS been under the NSPS system. The thought of a manager having the power to decide what type of pay raise I receive or even if I receive a pay raise at all is an unpleasant thought. NSPS leaves way too much room for managers to play favorites. It sounds like a really great idea to have a person’s performance judge the type of pay raise that person receives; however, will performance really be the determining factor or will a friendship or the amount of brown nosing a person does be the deciding factor? I’ll put my money on the later. If my performance were really the deciding factor, I feel very confident that I would receive adequate evaluations in order to receive adequate pay raises because I am a very good, hard working employee; but I don’t feel my performance will have as much to do with my pay raise as much as how much a manager likes me. Unfortunately, there are far too many managers that will use the new pay system to give their friends the larger pay raises leaving the others to get what’s left, if anything at all. I am against the new system. When writing new regulations on how pay and benefits should be governed, include pay for Congress in those regulations. I’ll bet they would be a lot different! Working for the Federal Government used to be a good thing. Over the past few years, agencies have been downsized yet the work still remains. People are doing more yet pay and benefits don’t increase. Quality employees are better off working in private industry these days. The Federal work force needs to make some changes if they wish to recruit and retain a quality work force but NSPS is not the answer. Agencies need more employees in order to accomplish their mission without over working the current staff. When my children graduate from college and hit the work force, I will discourage them from entering the Federal Civilian workforce.