By Stephen Barr
Friday, March 28, 2008
The agency that maintains the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile is undertaking a five-year project to overhaul pay practices so it will be more competitive in hiring scientists, engineers and other professionals.
Under the pilot project, the National Nuclear Security Administration will leave the government-wide pay system -- the 15-grade General Schedule -- and replace it with up to four broad salary scales, or pay bands, designed to reward the best workers based on job performance rather than length of service.
Employees will be rated on the work they do and their level of accomplishment, and will earn "shares" that will be converted into a raise. The shares will vary in value year by year because of budget constraints or other factors. Employees who do not meet expectations may not receive a pay raise, though they will continue to be eligible for small bonuses linked to achievements for specific tasks.
The pay project should give managers greater leeway to provide higher pay for employees through promotions and job evaluations and make it easier to offer higher starting salaries to attract top talent, the agency said.
Like other parts of the government, NNSA has an aging workforce. The average age for senior engineers is 49, and many will soon be eligible to retire, Michael C. Kane, the agency's associate administrator for management and administration, said yesterday.
The pilot project will cover about 2,000 of NNSA's 2,500 employees. The other 500 have been in a pay-for-performance system because they were appointed to jobs that do not require regular civil service competition for openings.
Experience with managing that system and insights learned from the Defense Department's new performance-based pay system should help, Kane said. Officials will pay particular attention to feedback from employees and managers, and Kane said he expects changes will be made to the system during its five-year test run.
If the project succeeds, the NNSA would be able to adopt it as an alternative to the traditional General Schedule system.
Changes at the TSAThe Transportation Security Administration is moving to streamline its merit-based pay system for more than 40,000 airport security screeners.
In a message this week to TSA employees, Kip Hawley, the agency head, said the Performance and Accountability Standards System, called PASS, "has become far too complicated."
The system, he added, "has distracted the workforce from its primary mission as they continually struggle with its burdensome administrative and testing requirements."
Effective Tuesday, screeners will no longer sign a "fitness for duty" pledge when they come to work, job ratings will be simplified and paperwork to administer the system will be sharply reduced, Hawley wrote.
Gale Rossides, deputy administrator at the TSA, said yesterday that reducing paperwork chores will permit supervisors to spend more time as mentors and coaches to front-line employees at airport checkpoints. The TSA is conducting an analysis to determine how many hours spent on paperwork will be saved, she said.
Federal unions have criticized the TSA's workplace practices and pay system since it was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The unions do not have collective-bargaining rights at the TSA and have lobbied Congress for approval to represent airport screeners and negotiate on their behalf.
Mark Roth, general counsel at the American Federation of Government Employees, said the TSA modifications "confirm AFGE's unease with PASS as an inherently flawed and subjective system that lacks fairness and credibility."
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said that "the small changes TSA is making will provide partial relief to employees caught in a byzantine system" but that they fall short of treating screeners fairly.
Rossides said front-line employees and supervisors suggested the changes in focus groups and advisory meetings that began last year. The unions "had nothing to do with the inputs we received," she said, adding that "we felt no pressure from any of the unions to do this."
Talk ShowsJohn Euler, rule of law counselor for the Justice Department, will be the guest on "FedTalk" at 11 a.m. today on Federalnewsradio.com and WFED radio (1050 AM).
Patrick F. Kennedy, undersecretary for management at the State Department, will be the guest on the IBM "Business of Government Hour" at 9 a.m. tomorrow on WJFK radio (106.7 FM).
Stephen Barr's e-mail address is barrs@washpost.com.
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