Familiar Issues Could Fill the New Year

For federal employees, the new year might turn out to be much like the past year.

The government's 1.8 million civil service employees can expect to see resistance to pay raises that are not linked to job performance, pressure for job competitions to determine whether certain kinds of work should be turned over to contractors, and a renewed push to overhaul the personnel systems at the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

These Bush administration initiatives sparked controversy in 2004, and federal employees can expect to see more controversy in 2005. Congressional Democrats and union leaders, in particular, will try to blunt or undercut the administration's initiatives.

Although the administration's efforts played out unevenly at numerous agencies and even appeared to slow because of the presidential campaign, officials believe that this year will deliver more solid results, in part because agencies have much of the preparatory and planning work under their belts.

Still, it is uncertain what kind of traction PresidentBush's administration will get this year. The war in Iraq, the reorganization of the intelligence community and the coming and going of political appointees for the second term may leave less time available for internal workplace issues.

Hanging over all this, of course, are fears that the fiscal 2006 budget could impose spending cuts. Agencies without direct ties to homeland security and national defense may spend much of this year pinching pennies in an attempt to more easily manage through leaner budgets in the future.

Budgetary limitations may influence the debate over the 2006 federal pay raise. Over White House objections, Congress last year stuck with its tradition of providing "parity" raises to the civil service and the military. That stance led to a 3.71 percent pay raise for Washington area federal employees, effective this month. Congress also balked at the administration's proposal to set up a central fund that would be used to reward the government's best workers, deciding that performance raises should be left to each agency.

Defense and Homeland Security, the two departments preparing to overhaul their personnel systems, also may influence the debate on how far the government should go in abandoning the 15-grade, decades-old General Schedule in favor of pay systems that give more discretion to managers.

Homeland Security officials have signaled that they probably will spend several months trying to create a performance management system that is seen as fair and credible by the 110,000 employees who fall under it. The department appears on track to publish regulations this month that would revamp labor relations and employee appeals of discipline but would take a slower approach to implementing a new pay system.

The Pentagon is running on a faster track. It has designated about 60,000 employees to participate in the first wave of changes -- including the shift to performance-based pay -- that probably will start in July. Pentagon officials plan to adjust their plans as they get feedback from managers and employees.

But details of the personnel overhaul await publication this month in a proposed regulation. Labor leaders in the United Department of Defense Workers Coalition are unhappy that the Pentagon will not share the regulation with them in advance of publication. The Pentagon's decision has drawn a protest from 127 House members, who signed a letter written by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.).

The administration also plans to pay more attention to its competitive sourcing initiative, partly through requests to agencies to better track their projections of cost savings. A cursory survey of large agencies found that many are still drawing up plans for job competitions this year. Most plan to assign four to 10 employees to oversee the projects, and several said they plan to put at least two types of federal work up for bid against the private sector this year.

Unions contend that the job competitions rarely produce long-term savings and plan to lobby Congress for restrictions. Many members of Congress dislike putting federal jobs at risk in their districts, but the administration fought to the wire last year to protect the competitive-sourcing initiative.

Some restrictions, however, were placed on the Defense Department, which does most of the government's contracting out. That may be where the new round of battles begins when the White House announces new budget plans in February.

E-mail: barrs@washpost.com.