IRS asked to pay bosses more than workers

A federal managers' organization wants the IRS to make sure that its supervisors are paid at least 15 percent more than the highest-paid employees they manage when the agency implements a new personnel system.

In a letter written earlier this month, Federal Managers Association President Michael B. Styles urged Office of Personnel Management Director Janice Lachance to ensure that managers don't get shortchanged if and when IRS revamps its personnel system.

"FMA recommends that [supervisors'] pay at the IRS should be set at a minimum of 15 percent above the highest paid employees they supervise," Styles wrote. "It would represent fair and adequate compensation recognizing the additional duties supervisors and managers assume when they join the ranks of management."

FMA legislative director Mark Gable said 15 percent is the approximate difference between grade levels on the General Schedule, the current governmentwide system of classification and compensation. For example, the difference between the base pay of GS-13, Step 10 and GS-14, Step 10 in 1999 is 15.4 percent.

The IRS is considering a broad-banding proposal, which would simplify the classification system into several bands, or pay ranges, rather than the GS system of 15 grades and 10 steps within each grade. Congress authorized the IRS to consider a broad-banding system in the 1998 IRS Reform and Restructuring Act (P.L. 105-206). The act also instructs OPM to oversee the IRS' broad-banding efforts. OPM must "establish requirements for setting the pay of a supervisory employee whose position is in a pay band or who supervises employees whose positions are in pay bands," the law says.

OPM may push legislation in 1999 authorizing all agencies to use broad-band systems rather than the GS scale. Many human resources specialists say broad-banding (also known as pay-banding) gives managers more control over employees' compensation and strengthens agencies' ability to tie pay to performance.

In May, FMA asked OPM to give supervisors similar pay guarantees if all agencies are given broad-banding authority.