| Comment Number: | OL-10504879 |
| Received: | 3/10/2005 11:48:51 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:
Everyone inside the government recognizes the need for more flexibility in hiring and firing. Junking the current GS system is a ridiculous way to achieve it. Why not adjust the current system, make the step increases more dependent on high achievement, and give managers more flexibility to hire and fire? Pay banding will be a return to the good ol' boy/patronage system. Bluntly, know what to kiss and when. Good bosses will be able to make NSPS work, bad supervisors will be a disaster. Working in an office where there is pressure to dodge legal requirements? The GS scale protects your salary when you make an unpopular decision. Pay banding makes bucking bad decisions or poor supervisors a liability. Finally, GS salaries are public information. The public knows what I make and I know what my coworkers make. This provides Federal transperancy critical to open government and public service. Pay banding will encourage the creation of secret pools of pay, with supervisors and agencies reluctant to disclose salaries in-office or publicly. Pay banding may also have stong negative pressure on professional salaries. If a GS5 and a GS11 are lumped in the same band, what incentive does the government have to lure quality employees at the upper part of the pay band? Again, agencies under pressure to do more with less, work smarter not harder (add your own mindless slogan), will press the job description and pay downward. With professional salaries in the government average to below average, the mediocre talent willing to take lower salaries - and replacing numerous retirees - could have negative consequences for the public we work for. Adjust the GS system, dump NSPS before it is a debacle.