| Comment Number: | OL-10509373 |
| Received: | 3/15/2005 2:50:03 PM |
| 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:
I oppose the proposed NSPS system. I urge serious reconsideration of all aspects of this system and its impact on civil service personnel prior to implementation. I believe that the presentation of the NSPS is full of fluff and rhetoric. I do not believe that any valid justification exists for changing the current GS system, one which is above board and open to scrutiny, to the proposed NSPS system. Pay I believe that it is a myth that a new pay system is needed in order to reward the top performers adequately. The current GS system allows for rewarding top performers with monetary awards, time off awards, and Quality Step increases. The current GS system also provides all employees with the ability to pay increasing prices (e.g. gas, bread, milk, lumber, property taxes) by way of cost of living increases and locality pay, and the assurance of step increases. Top performers should not take away the compensation of satisfactory performers. Everyone is not a top performer, that does not mean that they should be penalized. The price of goods rises the same whether the purchaser is a top performer or a satisfactory performer. It is also a fact of life that supervisors will subjectively view the same employee differently. The proposed NSPS system is too subjective and provides management with too much control over the pay of employees. In response to the NSPS system, employees will seek to please management and will look out for ways to ingratiate themselves at the expense of their coworkers. The NSPS, by its nature, is a secretive system which in itself will create conflict, tension, stress, and suspicion in the workplace. In contrast the GS system is considered fair and equitable. If there is no cost of living wage in any year, at least you know that all GS employees are being treated the same, instead of a select, unknown few receiving limited dollars under NSPS. Agile and Responsive Let me say that the possibility of my deployment is abhorrent to me. When I came on board some 26 years ago I do not remember being informed that I could be reassigned to a different location, in case of war, etc. I can only speculate that the possibility of deployment under the NSPS system is a new type of back door draft – that of civil service personnel. Funding I believe that the cost of implementing the proposed NSPS system is money that would be better spent elsewhere. The money which would be needed to train managers and employees in the NSPS system, should be used for the war effort or tsunami relief. All Government Agencies I believe that there is something inherently wrong with replacing a personnel system which applies across all agencies with a personnel system that only applies to DOD. In conclusion I urge you to reconsider doing away with the current GS system, which admittedly may need a tweak here and there, instead of implementing the proposed NSPS system at the expense of the rank and file civil service employee.