| Comment Number: | OL-10510370 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 9:15:01 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:
The civilian pay, performance, and hiring process has been long overdue for an overhaul, therefore I commend DoD for taking action. However, I have a couple major concerns: 1. Veteran's Preferences--I believe that it is crutial to preserve the veteran's preference process; this is a major benifit that veteran's have earned by serving their country in the military. With outsourcing becoming more prevelant, civilian jobs are going away. This it is a critical benifit when it comes to RIFs and priority placements. 2. I generally feel that supervisors working directly with the civilian employee knows best how the employee is performing, therefore can judge whether the the employee is deserving of a performance raise or should be retained for future employment. However with the number of untrained and unequiped military personnel supervising civilians in todays OPTEMPO, they should not have direct authority to make such crucial descisions when it comes to someone else's career. 3. NSPS does not have enough safeguards in place to ensure that a supervisor/employee conflict or the "good-ol-boy system" is not reflected in the performance/pay process. It is imparative a "checks and balance" is done to ensure an impartial and fare process is conducted. In fact, I believe that parts of the new system promote the "good-ol-boy system" by allowing certain personnel so much power and control. 4. Disciplne: The NSPS gives employee representatives only a conferring role. Management no longer has to negotiate or even listen. Third parties would only be allowed to review cases when management was wholly and grossly negligent. Even then, the third party could not reverse management. Even if an employee was in the right and without fault, the third party could not reverse his/her results. Again, this is not fare to the employee when the third party may very well be in the chain of command and part of the problem.