Letters
Continuity and experiential knowledge is needed during the coming wave of retirements in the executive branch. Many retirement-eligible SES members and senior staffers still have plenty to offer and may want to work-but only part time-during a phase-in to full retirement. Senior workers will be needed to pass on knowledge to new, young employees who must begin arriving in large numbers, and for whom there will be a real need for mentors to bridge the generation gap. A senior mentor who works part time could be fresh and enthusiastic and certainly better than no mentor at all. But there are serious financial impediments for senior workers.
A major disincentive to part-time work lies in the fact that an employee with pre-1986 service disproportionately loses credit for pre-1986 full-time service if he switches to part-time employment. A pension penalty occurs because all pre-1986 service is counted as part time, even though none (or only some) of it was part time. So, the longer a senior employee works part time today, the more his full-time work before 1986 is devalued by annuity calculations to the part-time level. This pension reduction can be far in excess of the pro rata reduction and thus is a penalty against part-time senior workers.
The removal of this penalty would help to maintain a wiser and better federal workforce.
Richard Emory
Attorney
Environmental Protection Agency
Rocks Beat Feathers
"Restore and Renew" (November) was in line with my own observations.
However, I think you missed a key element in the section headed "Poor Performance Problems." The main reason for poor performers in our organization is that the union will protect and fight for an employee no matter how egregious his or her behavior. Management gets worn down by the time and cost of documenting an employee's behavior and combating all the grievances that result from any action. So, many times, management just settles and lets the employee stay, which is just what the union wants. The added result is that the union files grievances on any and every frivolous thing.
This will never change until the scales are more balanced between employees' rights and management's authority to discipline and dismiss. Right now the employees' scale is filled with rocks and our side with feathers.
Name withheld by request
Correction
The January 2002 article on biometrics ("Bureaucratic Battles Bog Down Biometrics") misstated who denied funding for the Immigration and Naturalization Service's border crossing card readers. The story should have said that the Office of Management and Budget denied the funding.