Bush administration developing governmentwide personnel reform bill

[The Straight Story]

Bush administration developing governmentwide personnel reform bill

By David McGlinchey
[e-mail]

The Bush administration has drafted a civil service reform bill that proposes governmentwide implementation of a new system based on reforms that are being implemented at the Defense and Homeland Security departments.

The legislation is known as the 2005 Civil Service Modernization Act and a draft letter addressed to House and Senate leaders that accompanies the bill is signed by Dan G. Blair, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM officials said Tuesday that the bill is still being refined and has not yet been sent to Congress.

In the draft letter, which was obtained by Government Executive, Blair called the General Schedule pay framework a "failure" and proposed its complete removal by 2010.

According to a draft of the legislation, OPM proposes to implement a new civil service system with occupational pay groups, pay bands within those groups and pay for performance across the federal government. Agencies would be required to have a plan developed by 2008 for the implementation of an OPM-certified performance pay system. If agencies cannot meet that deadline, they would be required to adopt a standard OPM system.

Under the proposal, the General Schedule system that has governed the federal civil service since the late 1940s would be eliminated by 2010.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0605/060705d1.htm

[Fridays Child]

1. Looks like another nail in the Labor Movement's coffin.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

2. Patronage, here we come!

Competence is not an requirement for advancement, loyalty is.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. My first thought, too.

[Spectral]

6. It's worse than that. Please read my post below if you get a chance

Thanks

[scarletlib]

3. jebbie did this in florida

[Spectral]

5. I recommended this because it is extremely important to average Americans

Most of the work of the Federal Government is done by civil service employees. Over the past 30 years they have been losing protections and benefits. 1985 was a big year in which the retirement system changed, putting lot sof federal employees' money in the stock market. This is the same sort of ideology behind the Social Security "reform." Going back further, during the Carter era, heads of agencies (Bureau Chiefs and the like) became political appointees instead of careerists.

As the Federal employment system becomes gutted, and protections for workers taken away, the American people will be left at the mercy an overly politicized bureaucracy.

For example, consider your average cost analyst--GS 12, 13 or 14--at a federal or military (civilian employee) agency like NavSea or DISA. A secure employee without political pressure can do an honest analysis of a cost--like the cost of a jet--and bring it to his or her boss without the risk of being fired. This cost estimate is the basis of the bidding process that is supposed to occur. Even if the higher up political appointees give the contract to someone they play golf with, the cost analyst's job is still protected. And that cost analyst is there to save TAXPAYERS money.

But what happens in a highly politicized environment? An honest cost-analyst could be fired for the wrong figures. Talk about leaving behind the "reality based community"!

Think of how certain agencies have already been forced to change their true statistics into ones more acceptable to the people in power: GAO, EPA, and there is a thread now on DU about changing figures to hide the effects of global warming.

We have to fight this. We need to write to as money congress people as we can and say we are against this. We will no longer be able to trust ANYONE, even careerist government employees if this happens. The corporations will be able to do exactly what they want.


This, by the way, was the goal of the neocons: to gut the Federal Government and its watchdog function. To put the American people completely at the mercy of corporations.

That is what this change in the Federal employment system will do.