The beat goes on.  The on-again, off-again attempt to revolutionize (or merely stir up) how government employees are evaluated and paid continues to march forward.

Karen Rutzick informs us of the emerging details behind this system, one that has enjoyed, if that’s the word, considerable attention in Union halls and the Courts. 

[As an aside, I spoke with Karen the other day and she told me about her October 26^th article, which reported that a survey about NSPS was conducted and the results were favorable.  For those in the Defense Department, did you know about it?  Did you take the survey?  Are employees in your agency generally pleased with NSPS features?  Please let us know!]

Although I realize how sensitive and important are issues surrounding compensation, I hope the User Guide for this process is relatively brief.  Why can’t the guide be one or two pages long?  Simply state that people will be evaluated on how well they perform their assignments, explain the metrics for grading such performance, which should be mutually determined in advance by the manager and employee, provide a couple examples to reinforce the desired philosophy, and then just stop. 

In fact, one example is excerpted from the User Guide in Karen’s October 24^th article.  It looks good.  It is clear, measurable, and prescribes an acceptable employee error rate.

Make the guidance as short, clear, and direct as possible.  Inevitably, disagreements between affected parties will ensue as NSPS rolls out.  I doubt that a one-page or 100-page User Guide would affect the level of litigation, although I suppose one could make a good case that the longer document, the more “loop-hole” opportunities exist for litigants to exploit.

How do you see all this folderol finally finishing up?

Even if you want to talk with them, the IRS doesn’t want to talk with you.  That seems to be the finding of a recent Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report.

Stephen Barr reports that TIGTA placed 36 random calls to the IRS’s 400 walk-in offices, so-called Tax Assistance Centers (TACs), to set up appointments.  Only five (about 14%) resulted in a scheduled meeting.  Of the reminder, four calls were never returned, and of the other 27, IRS staffers would not agree to an appointment.

Although detailed logs apparently are not kept for such phone calls, IRS reports that about one million of the seven million visitors to TACs annually are the result of scheduled appointments.  Interestingly, that tracks neatly with the TIGTA test results, i.e., approximately one in seven (about 14%) visitors had scheduled their meetings ahead of time.

There’s a 14% chance of getting in to talk with an IRSer in person.  What sort of conclusion should taxpayers draw from this?  Does IRS want citizens to contrast that 14% with their chance of being audited when they decide how persistent to be when setting up a meeting?  Of course not, but it makes one wonder why it seems so difficult to arrange a meeting with your friendly IRS employee.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

Legislators recently removed a key provision in a proposed law that affected contractors competing for government work. 

Let’s hear from our contracting and procurement readers on this one. 

There was some movement to pass legislation that would have eliminated the competitive advantage contractors may receive in soliciting government work due to their lower retirement costs; however, that never came to pass.

This is relevant when it comes to federal agencies “competing,” via OMB’s Circular A-76, with private companies to prove that their government offices can do the job better and cheaper than those on the outside.

If government folks have to include the cost of implicit retirement benefit expenses into their cost formulae and competitors in the private sectors do not, well… you can guess the rest.

How much of a problem is this?  “Forum” readers will benefit from hearing the thoughts of those who have worked in the procurement arena, prepared MEO (Most Efficient Organization) analyses, or understand how these dynamics play out in practical terms.

We await to hear from our resident experts.

Government employees have long complained about the gap between their pay and that of their counterparts in the private sector.  That perceived gap was based on research by the Department of Labor that omitted benefits in making the comparison.

Now comes a study from the Department of Commerce that includes benefits and shows a startingly different pay gap:  the average government employee makes $106,000 a year counting benefits compared to $53,000 for the average private employee.

What's more the government employees have much greater job security than those in the private sector.  And, although they complain about the pay gap, they have a much lower resignation rate, indicating that many of them know they have a good deal.

Still we all know that there are examples of underpaid government employees.  Just last week we mentioned here that contracting officers make an average salary of only  $50,000.  We would like to hear from you about other examples of the truly underpaid jobs so that we can get an effort going to get better pay where it is really needed

"Contractors Rarely Held Responsible for Misdeeds in Iraq" (The Washington Post 11/04/06) and "In Iraq Just Signing the Contract is No. 1" (The New York Times 10/25/06).  A discussion of these and other contracting abuses follows:

A little known truth about Washington has become more evident through recent news about three seemingly unrelated subjects:  Iraq, Katrina, and the nation’s richest counties.

Let’s start with the last first.  America’s three richest counties are all in Washington’s suburbs.  The Wall Street Journal offers a two-word explanatin for this phenomenon:  government contractors.  They have wealth courtesy of the United States taxpayer and these counties are where they live.

As for how they became wealthy, two words again tell the story:  Iraq and Katrina.  Enormous sums have been appropriated by Congress for reconstruction in Iraq and Louisania and Mississippi.  Yet one report after another has described how little evidence there is on the ground that this money has accomplished its mission.  Where, then, is the money?  You guessed it.  A very considerable portion of it is lining the pockets of these contractors.

I recently received the following e-mail, which may be of interest: 

”Please consider contributing to this Call for Proposals for the 2007 Excellence in Government conference.  The conference will take place April 4-5, 2007 at the WashingtonConvention Center in Washington, DC. 

Proposals are due October 23, 2006.

You will receive a confirmation of your submission. Each submission will be reviewed by a team of volunteers and staff, and you will be notified of the status of your submission.”

A recent Associated Press (AP) story provides a grim report card on computer security performance.  Nearly a score of federal agencies lost personal information either through shoddy security practices or theft/hacking.  You’ll recall the widely-reported case of the stolen Veteran Affairs laptop containing data on nearly 27 million people.

Treasury owns the dubious honor of most incidents – 340 – since January, 2003.  Commerce (297) is not too far behind.

If you are a federal employee, depending on whether you work in the Information Technology (IT) field or are in the Civil Service Retirement System, (CSRS) of Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), your career options may be materially different – and better – than ever before.

No longer are federal employees considered civil servants for life.  A big reason for this is the creation about 20 years ago of FERS, a system which doesn’t especially entice people to stay with the government forever and ever, amen.  CSRS design could have that effect, and I confess that in my case it did.  Many times during my nearly 35 years in government I considered leaving for private sector employment.  In every case, I ultimately decided to stay put, as government retirement under the CSRS was too good to pass on.  Besides, once retired, I could always explore subsequent employment with McDonald’s, the local library, or volunteer work at the community soup kitchen.  Or, I could join the potentially lucrative ranks of the so-called “Beltway Bandits.”

This sounds like a great idea.  Create a learning institute for public servants, which parallels what West Point does for the military.

Karen Rutzick’s article in Government Executive covers key highlights of this proposed legislation. 

A few of my friends, former federal co-workers, are quite impressed with this concept.

Is this a good idea?  Will it work?  Would you like to enroll in “The Public Service Academy?”  

Government may not sell as many hamburgers or as much merchandise as McDonalds or Wal-Mart, but its workforce far exceeds both of these behemoths combined.

What do you think of when you hear “Big Government?”  Do you imagine the number of bonafide government employees?  In 1990, there were 2.4 million feds.  Now, there are about 1.9 million. 

Big government has gotten smaller.  Or has it?

Well, as it is with most everything else in life, it’s how you look at things?  Government is so big, as in extensive and affecting so many portions of our lives, that you need to examine how many folks are employed somehow, someway in the activity of government.

Recent reports have noted that President Bush, as a member of the Republican ”we’re for small government” Party has actually increased the size of the Executive Branch.

Christopher Lee’s article in the October 6^th edition of The Washington Post recounts some interesting data compiled by New York University professor Paul C. Light, who has been studying this phenomenon for many years.

Light’s conclusion?  Big government has become much, much bigger, mostly due to Department of the Defense build-ups related to the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). 

What won’t surprise readers is that the bulk of the increase can be attributed to the growth in private contractors hired through contracting devices to perform services for government.  [You may recall our sharing Stephen Barr’s article on Monday, October 9^th, which cited a 65% jump in contracting dollars between 2001 and 2005.]

In addition to addressing the usual suspects, i.e., “regular” government employees and contractors, the Professor also includes members of the military, Postal Service, and those performing work through federal grants.

So, the final count and amount:  a government of 2 million employees?  Nope.  Try 14.6 million.  Looks like a large part of the country (about 5% — roughly the same percentage as the unemployment rate.  Strange coincidence, eh?) is on the so-called government dole.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor