| Comment Number: | OL-10511866 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 5:54:54 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:
Comment on Subpart B - Classification, Section 9901.212 I have been an employee in the Air Force’s LabDemo program since 1997. Overall the program is excellent, but having fewer, broader salary ranges as shown in Table 1 does have one drawback. Under a system with more grades, it is much easier to see progression in one’s own career. I was hired as a GS-07 and was subsequently promoted to GS-09, GS-11, GS-12, and GS-13. As a result of the numerous grades in the GS system, I saw tangible evidence of my career progression. Now that I am under the LabDemo program, I still compare my salary with the GS pay scale to measure my career progression. Under a system with only three pay bands, that tangible evidence will be largely absent. In the proposed system, a worker could be hired in pay band 1 and retire after a very successful career spanning 45 years (from age 22 to 67) having earned only one promotion. While the flexibility to move workers through the pay scale to reward them monetarily for higher performance is important, it is also important to give workers the much needed tangible measure of accomplishment that comes with promotion at far more frequent intervals than will occur under the proposed system. A potential solution to this weakness of the proposed system is to use steps within each pay band as markers of progression while giving supervisors and pay pool managers the same flexibility to compensate workers within each pay band as if the steps do not exist.