Comment Number: OL-10511657
Received: 3/16/2005 4:35:03 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 attended a briefing on this new system and the briefer was unable to answer most of the question presented to her and stated that many of the aspects of the new plan had not been worked out yet. Question: How can we effectively comment on a system that has not yet been identified. This seems like a backdoor approach to take away more rights of civil service workers without them being able to represent themselves. It will already be effective before we know what hits us! Pay/compensation-Allowing managers to determine whether a employee has lived up to job expections to determine whether or not they keep their pay or get further increases is putting too much power in the hands of individuals-You are developing a system where the "good old boys" will be able to run amuk with the livelyhood of civil servants. We have had systems in the past where employees performance was based on different criteria and they were graded from Outstanding to Unsatisfactory and managers were unable to do anything meanful with that system so they changed it to a sat/unsat. system. What has changed in management that they are now compentent enough to make meaningful changes in performancce appraisls and therefore bring about meaningful change in production? RIF-Taking away longevity requirements in determinging retention in a rif and going to performance base retention could amount to age discrimination. Any manager could set up an employee they like and give them work that would excel at in the face of an upcoming rif where a person who is older and been a long time could be given all the hard assignments and while still perform them satisfactorly may get a lower grade. Again, this is a nice way that managers could abuse their power in determinging who stays and who goes and may not have anything to do with real job performance or abilities. In Conclusion: I believe you are opening up a Pandoras box of problem without fully realizing the potential of your actions. This program is being pushed through too quickly without adequate thoughts to the ramifacations of these actions on the civil service workers and the work they perform. If they is such a good program why is the entire federal government being changed? I don't see how these measures really help protect our national defense or give us a leaner, meaner civil service employee. Thank you for considering my input.