| Comment Number: | OL-10510726 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 11:35:14 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:
I am writing to express my opposition to the proposed NSPS personnel system. This system will destroy the civil service by encouraging favoritism and cronyism. I have listened and read a tremendous amount of information about NSPS since the concept was first introduced. It has been reported that DoD needs a new personnel system in the interest of national security. I cannot disagree more with that statement. If provisions for federal employees like the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act had been followed, DoD would not have a problem attracting and retaining talent. The current pay system does have provisions included that guarantee an agile and responsive workforce. It also includes methods to reward top performers through strategic compensation. Some of which are quality step increases, awards, incretion of duty actions, and promotions. I work at a Navy component where the employees are classified as “Emergency Essential.” What this means is that our employees are deployable in much the same way as the military. The can be issued side arms, gas masks, military uniforms, as well as sleep, eat and drink with the military. We can be deployed at a moments notice and our employees have found themselves stuck on ships, Air Force bases and Army camps in hostile areas as well as a variety of other unusual circumstances. During the first Bush administration, our employees were forward deployed in the Middle East to support the war fighters. Within just a few weeks of the first strikes of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, our employees were deployed to set up a field office in Bahrain. The delay of a few weeks was because the military members were not ready for us not because we did not have the agility to respond. From the field office, our folks were deployed to assist various ships to make repairs. Due to insurance concerns, the employers of the contractors supporting our facility could not be deployed with the team. Every member was a career civil servant. When the USS Cole was attacked, it was civilians from a Virginia Naval Shipyard that were sent over to recover the bodies of the military. They left within 24 hours of the attack. Again the delay (if you can cal it one) was not because of our personnel system but due to the logistics of shipping support equipment for the divers and getting airline tickets, hotel reservations, etc.. Within a week of the attack, a team of approximately sixty civilians was dispatched to bring back the Cole. Again, the delay was not caused by the lack of responsiveness or agility of a personnel system. The delay was caused by the logistics. Developing a plan and contracting one of two vessels in the world large enough to carry a ship caused the delay. This team not only brought back the Cole but during the return voyage, they conducted repairs to critical engineering systems and accomplished a complete assessment of the damage. They forwarded this information back to key activities so that the work package could be developed before the ship arrived at the shipyard for repairs. This is the type of job that could only be accomplished with civil servants. Neither the military nor contractors have the experience or flexibility required to take on such a remarkable task. Neither the current personnel system nor the fact that these workers were unionized stood in the way of getting the job done in as expeditious a manner as humanly possible. This facility again sent a forward deployed team to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. The field office was operational from the first day of strikes. It should also be noted that contractors deployed with this team but had to be replaced because the contractors refused to be dispatched anywhere close to hostilities. The job was left to career civil servants and nothing in the current personnel system prevented their swift deployment. These federal employees also did not have the option to refuse to be dispatched into hostile territory. They were classified as Emergency Essential and each and every one accepted that responsibility and they took pride in supporting their country. In consideration of the above, claiming a need to change the personnel system in the interest of national security is just plain rubbish. The three examples above prove that we do have the ability to respond swiftly to a national crisis. Civil servants perform these duties with little extra compensation out of a sense duty. Contractors are motivated by greed. The current personnel system is viewed as broken because the government has failed to train managers and supervisors on how to effectively use the tools available to compensate reward and discipline employees. Although we have heard promises from Secretary Rumsfield concerning training of management, this has not proven to be true. DoD is already behind the training curve for the new system. In addition, training is frequently considered a luxury in today’s shrinking budgets. Operations take priority over training. Without the safeguards of the current system, the failure to keep managers trained will have an unbearable effect on the employees. Once the government is no longer the example of how to treat employees, government will no longer be able to attract new talent. People will no longer seek a career in the DoD if the employer is not perceived as being fair, free from favoritism and cronyism even if they are offered a one-time employment bonus proposed in NSPS. What attracts people to a career in Federal Service is a sense of duty to their country, a fair personnel system free from corruption, merit system protections, fair pay and the ability to continue to get raises as their career progresses. The NSPS cannot meet those expectations. To give DoD the right to establish an internal review system will only propel the already existent but somewhat controlled cronyism and favoritism. It is a slap in the face of merit system principles especially since the Secretary has the authority to ignore the Merit Systems Protection Board and implement his desire while pending judicial review. It is also ridiculous to not hold DoD to third party review by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Would anyone grant a private sector employer an exemption from accountability to the National Labor Relations Board based on that employer setting up an internal review board? Of course not. There are not adequate safeguard against management abuse. There are some DoD facilities that a handful of managers awarded themselves eighty-five percent of the awards money and only fifteen percent went to the employees. This is a travesty when one considers the employees outnumbered management ten to one. This type of abuse will flourish under NSPS. The only safeguard that Congress has provided is for the overall payroll pot of money to equal what it would have been had NSPS not been implemented. This does not guarantee the employees will not loose ground while managers reap huge increases in annual compensation while the regular employees suffer lower than average or no increase at all. In fact this type of system is just too tempting to a manager to resist abusing. People are motivated by money and managers are no exception. They will cut the employees short in favor of their own personal financial gain. In today’s climate of shrinking budgets, the competition between management compensation, the cost of new technologies, ever increasing infrastructure costs, etc. will result in no additional monies being allocated to the rank and files compensation. Historically this can be seen in the amount of funding made available for training. Training used to be a priority in DoD but that pot of monies has eroded to pay for other programs. The same will be true for payroll under NSPS. The adoption of pay for performance is a mistake in federal service. A large number of fortune 500 companies have tried pay for performance only to revert back after causing considerable damage to the moral of the workforce and in the end hurting productivity and profits. Profit figures dictate decisions in the private sector. The Federal sector on the other hand, does not work for a profit. They provide a service that is dictated by the level of funding made available by Congress. At our facility, our employees are considered to be experts on the various Naval equipments installed on the ships of the fleet. The employees are a walking repository of knowledge and experience. We often find ourselves talking through a problem with our peers. These conversations are open and forthright only because there is nothing to be gained by withholding the information one has gained through experience. Under a pay for performance system this places the employees in competition with one another. It encourages the employees to hold knowledge gained through experience very close. Instead of discussing ideas with one another the experienced employee will be encouraged to hold the knowledge close to heart until he is dispatched to the job so that he can get credit for resolving the problem and get a boost in pay at the annual performance review. Meanwhile it cost the taxpayer and DoD more money to resolve the problem because the experienced employee was not willing to pass on his knowledge. DoD will claim they have planned for this by making teamwork a performance criteria. It sounds good on paper but could never be accomplished since no one knows for sure if the employees are fully cooperating in a team environment. No supervisor has a crystal ball that tells him if the employee is passing on everything he knows and contributing fully to the team effort. This brings me to the performance grading criteria of NSPS. In the current personnel system, performance is based on objective grading criteria. Under NSPS, supervisors are permitted to grade an individual subjectively. This in turn fosters a climate of abuse since subjective measurement is ripe with opportunity to be abused. Also under our current system, performance and conduct are treated separately. In the NSPS system, conduct becomes a performance element. This again fosters abuse by supervisors who just don’t get along with a particular employees. We have all encountered people that we just don’t mesh. In NSPS the supervisor/employee conflict is considered performance as a consequence of conduct. The supervisor being in a position of authority will win every disagreement because the employees will fear a conduct related bad mark and lack of monetary reward during the performance cycle. Employees of the Federal service should remain free from this type of influence. Even though the regulations claim protection from reprisal, whistle blowing will now be a conduct issue and affect an employee’s wages. Without employees ability to preserve a method of feedback that is free from reprisal, the government and the taxpayers will pay dearly. Federal employees and unions will no longer be in the “public interest.” The proposed regulations posted in the Federal Register is full of wording that should set off alarms to any law maker. This document is plagued by statements like “The specific procedures for this process is not spelled out in these proposed regulations; rather, they will be established in internal DoD issuances.” and “…this process does not affect the right of the Secretary to make a final determination as to the content of implementing issuances…” and “the decision to negotiate at this level rests with the Secretary and is not subject to review or statutory third-party dispute resolution procedures.” and, the Secretary in his/her sole and unreviewable discretion.” These statements do not represent a Government “for the people, by the people” as described by the founding fathers of this country. Even the President of the United States does not have sole and unreviewable authority. The President and Commander in Chief must win the support of Congress and if he does not then Congress may veto his decision. The proposed regulations are not written with enough specificity to determine the impact on the employees converted to NSPS. The proposed regulation should spell out clear requirements and boundaries. The words “they will be established in DoD issuances” has no place in a proposed regulation. These issuances should be written to provide guidance and procedures for implementation of clearly defined regulations. To have a regulation refer to a Department directive/issuance that does not exist does not meet the intent of posting in the Federal Register. Although the current personnel system does have areas that could be improved, the need for a complete replacement has not been demonstrated. Historically speaking and as detailed in the beginning of these comments, the current system has not hampered the ability to respond in an expeditious manner as claimed by the Secretary. The proposed system will give the Secretary authorities never before given to any single office in our Government. DoD should not be granted greater latitude than the office of the President. To do so may lead to an erosion of authority from the Commander in Chief to the military. As we have seen in other countries, this could have unconscionable ramifications. I for one see these proposed regulations as the beginning of the demise of our democratic form of Government. I hope our leaders in the halls of Congress will rethink their position and rescind Public Law 108-136 and stop this insane attack on the employees that keep the wheels of Government rolling.