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.