| Comment Number: | OL-10505726 |
| Received: | 3/11/2005 7:13:36 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 comment pertains to the overall NSPS. For years, maybe decades, we federal employees have heard all the complaints about the federal personnel system (e.g. too long to hire; too slow to change because of union negotiability issues; too hard to deal with poor performers because the process imposes huge burden on the supervisor trying to take the action; etc.). Those complaints often came from Congress and the Executive Branch---both of whom are largely responsible for the very federal personnel system they were criticizing. During that same period, those complaints were sometimes explicitly and sometimes tacitly used as the basis to privatize federal positions and functions. The unstated assumption was "It's too hard to change the federal personnel system, so let's just privatize it". That approach merely served to penalize the federal employees who were in those functions, not the Executive Branch or Legislators who were responsible for the personnel system. Now we are on the verge of NSPS which is intended to fix the problems cited above. If when NSPS is implemented we see an end to privatization initiatives, then I think all Civil Servants will see great value in what has been done and will understand that NSPS was implemented for all the right reasons. But if NSPS is implemented and we still see the mad rush to privatize, then it will be difficult for Federal employees and other taxpayers to believe that there was any real value in this initiative and it will be difficult not to question the true motivation behind this change.