Congress Questions Pay Restructuring at GAO

Hit with tough criticism that he had misled Congress, David M. Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, yesterday said he regretted that he had not done a better job of explaining and keeping lawmakers up to speed on the agency's new pay system.

Walker testified before a rare joint hearing of the House and Senate federal workforce subcommittees, which are led by Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii). The chairmen said they called the hearing because of complaints they had received from GAO employees.

The hearing underscored the difficult nature of overhauling pay and personnel systems, especially when employees are skeptical of changes they see as putting annual raises and credits toward retirement at risk.

In their opening remarks, Davis and Akaka cited statements by Walker that promised an annual pay raise designed to protect GAO employees from inflation. But 308 employees did not receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) last year because a compensation study determined they were overpaid, Davis said.

Walker said he intended to provide COLAs when he testified on Capitol Hill in 2003 but learned the next year from the pay study that about 25 percent of GAO employees deserved an opportunity for higher pay and that about 10 percent were being paid more than the market rate. In November 2005, Walker said, he told GAO employees that some would not receive a COLA because of a restructuring of "pay bands," or broad salary ranges, and because of the findings of the compensation study.

"In retrospect, we should have advised the Congress and others sooner that we did not view my prior statements as applying to employees who were paid above-market levels. I'm sorry that we did not do that," Walker said.

He added that he also regretted that "there were certain expectation and communication gaps" when the GAO rolled out key parts of the new pay system. Walker said the GAO is taking steps to address shortcomings in the new pay system.

Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.) told Walker, "I think you made an honest mistake," but he stressed that he also thought Congress had been misled to believe that GAO employees would be receiving COLAs. He urged Walker to "hold these employees harmless."

This year, about 5 percent of the 3,150 GAO employees did not receive a cost-of-living raise, Walker said. He said that probably by 2015, as the top of the pay bands grow, all employees should be at the going market rate for their jobs and will be receiving COLAs. The GAO also provides performance-based raises to employees based on their job ratings and accomplishments.

In what he called "a good-faith gesture," Walker said he was considering permitting some employees who do not receive COLAs to be paid either a COLA or a performance raise, whichever is the highest.

Walker's handling of the new pay system has angered a number of employees who are calling for a union at the GAO and have undertaken an organizing effort with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. But not all GAO employees are displeased by the changes, including younger analysts hired in the past five years. Walker noted that the GAO was ranked No. 2 in the Best Places to Work index of government agencies, compiled by American University.

Still, the hearing suggested that a substantial number of employees question the fairness of internal procedures at the GAO. Some appeared at the hearing with "band together" stickers on their lapels and applauded the District's nonvoting House delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), for her sharp questioning of Walker.

At the hearing, Anne M. Wagner, general counsel of the GAO Personnel Appeals Board, said she had been prepared to show that the agency had improperly demoted 12 employees who contended they had been placed in the wrong pay band. No finding was reached in the cases, however, because the GAO settled with the workers.

Akaka disclosed that the 12 had been retroactively promoted to a higher pay band, received full back pay with interest and were eligible for another promotion. He also said 200 more employees have filed grievances because of the new pay system.

Ronald A. Stroman, managing director of the agency's Office of Opportunity and Inclusiveness, said the GAO has a strong commitment to diversity but said job performance ratings of African Americans "are unacceptably low."

Although promotions of black GAO employees have increased over the past few years, it is clear that GAO managers need to improve their feedback and coaching so that blacks have a chance to perform at the highest level, Stroman said.

Walker has called for a study into the factors that cause differences in job ratings between black and white employees at the GAO, Stroman said.