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09-18-2007, 09:04 AM
By Stephen Barr
Monday, September 17, 2007

Defense Begins Transition to Merit-Based Pay

The Pentagon will divert money that would have been paid out across the board to these employees and use it instead to give performance-based raises and bonuses, Gordon R. England, the deputy defense secretary, said in a Sept. 7 memo.

That will make more money available to reward the best workers in the NSPS, England said. He called the reallocation "a major opportunity to emphasize that performance is the primary factor in progressing to a higher salary under NSPS."

Although Defense officials have repeatedly said the NSPS will seek to more rigorously link pay raises to job ratings, England's memo prompted concern among some workers when it reached field offices and military bases last week.

Some employees are confused about how the new pay system will work; some are skeptical that their managers will administer the system fairly.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which opposes the NSPS as an effort to contain or reduce payroll costs at Defense, said the employees should be worried.

"They are going to be shocked that their [cost-of-living adjustments] are coming to an end," said Brian J. DeWyngaert, chief of staff at the AFGE, referring to the annual general increase in pay.

"The Defense Department is hurting for money in lots of places, including for Iraq. Their maintenance is being squeezed; their purchases are being squeezed. They are going to squeeze employees, and siphon that money off for other purposes," DeWyngaert said.

Defense officials dispute contentions that the new pay system will financially penalize employees, and have told Congress that arrangements have been made to wall off payroll accounts from the rest of the department's budget.

The private sector has long used merit pay and bonuses to reward high performers or employees in certain occupations, but the practice has been adopted in only a few agencies in the government. The government's major pay system, the General Schedule, passes along the pay raise set by the Congress to about 1.6 million workers in a predictable fashion each year.

The salary scale, which goes back to 1949, has 15 grades and 10 steps. It has been faulted by Bush administration officials for tending to reward longevity and for burdening personnel decisions with red tape.

Full story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601300.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

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