Re: Charlie Replies to Joe

by Joe on Sat 08 Apr 2006 06:19 PM EDT  |  IP: 24.252.200.38

I have done much research into other pay for
performance systems including the one my former boss was on in the late
seventies and early eighties.

That particular pay for
performance program ended after a GAO investigation revealed that none
of OPM's exuberant claims of success could be verified. They used the
euphemism that they were not “verifiable” rather than just say the
evidence was falsified.

I am a little put off that civil
servants continue to be demonized as incompetents in the
administration's drive to push through a program with a labor relations
scheme that has been declared illegal by two federal judges.

I do agree with you that incompetent personnel will no longer be rewarded under the pay for performance programs.

What
few people seem to understand however is that even the superior
employees will cease to be rewarded when they reach the top of their
pay bands. That will essentially result in a freezing of their
retirement benefits even if they get cash awards.

What I would
ask of the administration or anyone else who wishes to sell the civil
servants the benefits of pay for perfomance is exactly that: tell us
about the way it will benefit us and the Ameican people - cease and
desist the relentless campaign to demonize us. Sell it to us. Don't
tell us how incompetent we are and how badly we need to be downgraded.

Some
of us can still read, and when we use our reading skills to peruse the
regulations of the NSPS for instance we see little good or reward
coming from it.

Read the regulations carefully. You will find
that for every reward there is a reason given for not giving it. No
reward may be given to anyone if the budget needs to be used elsewhere
or if the “market” conditions don't permit.

On the other hand if you are a civil servant - don't read the regulations. You may be better off that way.