Bill Would Prohibit Raises for Sub-Par Workers

In a move that seems likely to reinvigorate debate over how best to overhaul the civil service, a key senator announced yesterday that he will introduce a bill to tighten up the government's performance-appraisal system and deny pay raises to federal employees rated as less than successful.

"Employees should receive a rigorous evaluation, and their pay should be determined based upon their performance," Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs federal workforce subcommittee, said at a breakfast forum.

Under law, federal employees who are performing poorly in their jobs can receive the January pay raise approved by Congress and the White House. Voinovich's proposal would prohibit agencies from giving annual raises and within-grade increases to employees deemed sub-par performers.

Most federal employees receive regular job evaluations, as called for by law, but Voinovich's proposal would establish an explicit requirement that every employee receive a written evaluation. The bill would prohibit pass-fail systems, which some agencies use, and would link job evaluations to agency goals and performance plans.

Voinovich said his proposal would fold into the General Schedule, the largest federal pay system, and would require agencies to provide training to managers to help them better judge employee performance and communicate job expectations to employees. The bill would direct agencies to operate under the new appraisal systems for a year before using it to make salary decisions. The Office of Personnel Management would oversee changes made by agencies, he said.

The senator's announcement -- the first time Voinovich has publicly discussed his plan -- came at a forum sponsored by the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government and The Washington Post. The session was moderated by Patricia McGinnis , the council's president and chief executive.

After Voinovich described his bill, McGinnis turned to Linda M. Springer , director of the OPM, who was in the audience, and asked for a response. Springer said the Bush administration would support Voinovich's approach, calling it "great."

An aide to Voinovich said he had worked with the Office of Management and Budget and the OPM in drafting his bill and would reach out to federal unions and employee groups for advice. In his remarks, Voinovich said he hopes to win the support of Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), the ranking member on the federal workforce subcommittee.

Akaka said in a statement that he looks forward to working with Voinovich. Changes in pay systems, Akaka said, "must be done in a transparent, fair and credible manner and have sufficient funding, training and oversight to be successful."

Colleen M. Kelley , president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said she hopes to meet with Voinovich. "There is a lot of room for improvement in the current evaluation process," she said, noting that "employees do not trust that managers can and will make meaningful distinctions" when evaluating employees.

In a statement, John Gage , president of the American Federation of Government Employees, suggested that federal employees have more pressing issues, including morale, that deserve attention. "Unfortunately, there seems to be an over-emphasis on dealing with the less than one percent of federal employees who don't perform well," Gage said.

The Bush administration has called for abolishing the General Schedule because officials think it allows employees to automatically receive pay raises based on the length of their careers rather than how well they perform on the job.

But the administration's plan appears dead on Capitol Hill, in part because of bumpy rollouts of new pay systems for the Senior Executive Service and for rank-and-file employees at the Defense and Homeland Security departments over the past two years. Unions also have stalled the departments' plans to curb collective-bargaining rights through federal court rulings, which are on appeal.

Asked by McGinnis why he was not pursuing the administration's plan, Voinovich said the government needs to walk, rather than run, as it attempts to install rigorous performance-based pay systems. "I believe they don't understand how difficult this is," he said, referring to the Bush administration.

He added, "If we screw up . . . this pay-for-performance system, I think it is going to ricochet all over and make it impossible for us to move forward with some of the other things that we want to do."

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.