| Comment Number: | OL-10506005 |
| Received: | 3/11/2005 10:19:28 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:
Pg 7553: Currently, ‘...high performers and low performers are paid alike.’ Sometimes true, sometimes not. NSPS is ‘designed to promote a performance culture in which the performance and contributions of the DoD civilian workforce are more fully recognized and rewarded,’ and will ‘allow employees to be paid and rewarded based on performance.’ Since supervisors now in place would continue under NSPS, what would stop any current favoritism from continuing under NSPS? // Pg 7554: NSPS, ‘… must be consistent with statutory merit system principles and prohibitions against prohibited personnel practices.’ Yet how are employees protected against such practices with the same supervisory chains still in place? And how are the American people any better served? // Pg 7556: The proposal discusses ‘outreach to employees.’ In a commander’s call last year I asked the unit commander when employees would get NSPS details. His answer demonstrated that he already had considerable detail about NSPS. Yet the majority of civilian employees present had never heard of NSPS until the question was asked. Why were focus groups largely outside CONUS, thereby limiting the amount of information flowing to employees due to geographic distances involved? And why is NSPS - passed by Congress, signed by the President, and pushed through by the Secretary of Defense in 2003 - only now being rolled out to employees in 2005, with few even knowing it was coming? This is not the openness Congress was promised. // Pg 7557: ‘[T]he proposed regulations provide for an administrative process in which employees may seek reconsideration of their performance ratings ….’ And, ‘specific procedures … are not spelled out …; they will be established in internal DoD issuances.’ THAT IS A BLANK CHECK! How, in good conscience, can DoD implement a supposedly fairer system that retains the right to create appeal procedures not even part of the legislation?! Further, ‘… this process does not affect the right of the Secretary to make the final determination.’ What civilian employee could possibly believe s/he has a chance of being heard by the Secretary of Defense as part of an appeal process that is less protective under NSPS? // Pg 7650: Personnel cuts are sometimes necessary. But under NSPS, what will stop DoD from providing little or no pay pool to remaining employees, effectively balancing budgets on the backs of those surviving a RIF? Limiting the pay pool can also be used as a political tool by DoD, not the interests of its employees. For several years we’ve seen the battle between the President and Congress over civilian pay raises. Under NSPS there’s no battle - the Executive Branch (DoD) automatically wins, with no check and balance controls by Congress. // Pg 7565: Mandatory removal offenses are not yet even spelled out. The Secretary of Defense will determine them after the system is already in place. As with pay raises, the Secretary of Defense ends up with unchecked, unbalanced power. Further, under NSPS an employee can be separated in just five days, ‘if there is reasonable cause to believe the employee has committed a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed….’ Astonishing! Example: An employee is in an auto accident. The employee initially APPEARS to be at fault, so s/he is charged at the scene. If the charge potentially gives the judge even a one day incarceration option, the employee could - before a trial even establishes guilt (or innocence) - be terminated simply on the basis of appearance (‘reasonable cause’) and the *possibility* that jail could result, whether or not it would actually be likely even if guilty. This is territory ripe for abuse of employees. Constitutionally based laws have long been written specifically to protect citizens from such arbitrary action. Yet NSPS is so poorly constructed that such provisions (blank checks) are littered throughout the document. // NSPS should not be implemented!