| Comment Number: | OL-10507036 |
| Received: | 3/14/2005 7:55:29 AM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| Attachment: | Regs.doc Download Adobe Reader |
Comments:
Executive summary: The proposed regulations were unnecessary; based in on partially false premises; inadequately detailed; and they will create a non-transparent, destructive working environment that neither promotes the efficiency of the service nor furthers the national security mission of the DOD. The proposed regulations are too vague and incomplete to provide the required adequate public notice; too many significant provisions of the regulations are “to be published” to permit informed, involved public comment. - The alleged “town hall meetings”, were not designed for constructive dialog, but were pre-conceived briefings without details or answers. The proposed regulations take a relatively open, transparent, easily understood system that was designed to preclude cronyism, and creates a complex, non-transparent pay and hiring system that will be easily subject to abuse, misuse and cronyism. While the current system needs some fine tuning; the proposed regulations are the equivalent of an “extreme make-over” when all that was needed was a haircut. - The role of the civilian workforce is to provide stability, continuity and specialized expertise in support of the uniformed warfighters. The current system supports that role. The proposed regulations, with an emphasis on changing duties, task changing, equating behavior with performance, autocratic decision making, and destructive monetary competition will undermine workforce stability and continuity and may or may not obtain specialized expertise. The premise that the regulations is based on, that the current personnel system rules for pay, performance, and adverse actions are inadequate, was never substantiated – all that was provided to Congress and later parroted in the regulations were some “buzz phrases” and a few anecdotes. - Under the current system, performance awards are available to reward the highly motivated worker; personnel can be reassigned on a temporary basis to meet emergencies or changed priorities; and personnel can be disciplined for misconduct or eliminated for incompetence – the only current requirements are that supervisors get involved and document the file, and that the Constitutional “due process” rights of the individuals be respected. - Under the current system, there were only annual promotions for the initial three lowest grades; and those, as with all other promotions were subject to satisfactory job performance. Any other “annual pay raises” were not related to promotions, but rather were cost of living adjustments necessary to keep up with inflation and to keep federal civilian salaries in some reasonable proximity to their private sector counterparts. The proposed rules do not guarantee any such across the board scheduled cost of living payments, which in the long run will make Government service non-competitive and instable. p. 7578: The proposed regulation does not provide for “equal pay for equal work.” It does the opposite. An illustrative example came up at a townhall meeting. Two experienced Government civilian employees work in the same office on the same projects at the same pay level and one employee quits. Because of the expertise needed, the position is hard to fill. Eventually, a new employee is recruited at 1.5 times the pay of the original employee. The remaining original employee, however, is retained at his current pay level and is thus earning one-third less than the new hire for the same job. - Similarly, if the pay pool manager of Organization A is cheap, while the pay pool manager of a similar group in a co-located Organization B is extravagant, employees doing the same job can easily wind up getting different pay. Comments are repeated and continued in the attachment.