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Return to Article: Drop General Schedule system by 2009, report says

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  Any of you remember the GM-13 and above Management series enacted in the "80's? Sounds like pay banding will have the same effect - underfunded and overpromoted. I lost money for years by not being in the GS series and, then, GM just disappeared quietly. When I returned to GS, I had to wait a few years to reach Step 10, and here, I remain. We are not a manufacturing company, but in the business of providing service to the American public caught between changing administrations and Congress, people who have forgotten about or never been salaried employees. We are the taxpayers.

  A Reality Specialist

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 14, 2004 3:17 PM
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  The concept of pay banding in itself is not bad. I speak from experience though when I say that it will not work if there are not enough funds to give the deserving employees merit pay increases. I worked in industry when my employer changed over to pay banding. I got the highest rating any employee could get 5 out of 5. I also got employee of the year for one year in a fortune 500 company. I only got a 3% pay raise because there were not enough funds to give me more. Granted, other employees got nothing. In our present system we get a small raise every year or two (step) plus COL increases. Although I do not make what the civilians in my job description make I could always count on more money on an annual basis. The incentive for me to stay with the FAA will weaken if I am to rely on a system of pay that has proven bad in my past work history is brought into effect.

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 3, 2004 4:29 PM
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  I sure hope I win the lottery BEFORE Mt. St. Pay Band erupts!!!!

  Career Federal Employee Posted June 3, 2004 9:25 AM
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  Who turned on the Time Machine? Here we go back to the patronage system, where your pay will depend on being part of the right club, the right church, the right political party, the right sexual orientation, the right friendliness factor, and satisfying today's whim of your boss, whether his whim is Mission related, or part of his personal agenda. There are four rules. 1. The boss is always right. 2. When the boss is not right, rule 1 applies. 3. When things go wrong it is my fault, never the boss's. 4. Everybody gets a turn at being the scape goat and the whipping boy. President McKinley was shot by a government employee who was fed up with the patronage system, and then the system changed. With the weakness of the unions, caused by the ordinary employee being aloof from membership, all the gains of the 20th Century will evaporate in the name of "efficiency" which reads "cheap." Good luck.

  Dan Zimsen Posted June 2, 2004 12:14 PM
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  I want to make a comment made by the Revenue Agent. You mention a red pay band of GS 11-13. I am currently a GS-12, step 6. Luckily, we have not gone to paybanding. Our agency is in paybanding, but our union at our office has fought it off. I don't expect that will continue. I fully expect to be in paybanding within the next year or two. Problem I have with it is the same issue you bring up. However, at our agency the GS 11 and 12's are in one band. So, I can't go too far. But, a GS 11 can come up to my pay level. I have no hope to go to a GS 13 under the system my agency has developed. What I find even more interesting is that at other agencies I can go to a GS 13. Why are there different pay band models being developed at different agencies. Not a fair system wherein employees in identical positions at different agencies can not have the same potential to move upward! If you are going to institute paybanding, it needs to be the same across the board. Furthermore, no one should be excluded from moving up just because they are at the top of a band. Rather, every employee should have the 'potential' to move up an equal % based on their performance.

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 2, 2004 6:01 AM
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  Again we see another comparison with the private sector- i.e. the private sector doesn't have entitlements and across the board pay increases. So what? I just wish for once that these academicians would stop comparing apples to oranges.

  As federal civil servants we give up some very substative rights to work for Uncle Sam. When was the last time an employee of Verizon lost their job because they decided to run for Congress and raise money in a partisan election? If I did the same, how long would it take before OSC nailed me to the wall?

  Take a $26 gift or an honorarium for writing an article in your field of expertise and see how long you last as a federal employee.

  And in a pay for performance system exactly how do you measure accurately a federal attorney, engineer, or accountant's performance when the agency's performance/i.e. service to the American people cannot be measured quantitatively?

  So to all these academicians living in the clouds who don't live and breathe the federal government on a daily basis, just stop trying to make applesauce from oranges.

  HR Specialist

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 28, 2004 5:02 PM
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  Having spent 20 years in the private sector (after 20 in the military), I am accustomed to pay structures similar to the pay bands. At TSA, we are already in the band system. But, unless there is adequate annual "merit pool" money to give everyone the "opportunity" for an increase, which, from my own experiences, is the case in the private sector, you're going to wind up with a lot of very disgruntled employees. Right now, as I understand it, TSA can only give merit (performance) money to 3 in 100 (3%) employees, and it's not much. This is totally unacceptable.

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 28, 2004 1:55 PM
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  Emulating the private sector in pay would be great if we could also emulate them in reviews and being able to fire people, when appropriate, without 6 years of red tape. Yes, pay the people who work hard. But get rid of the people who can't do their jobs. You can't have a private-sector pay band with public-sector job protection.

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 28, 2004 11:40 AM
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  The major problem is replacement of a one-size-fits-all pay system (GS) with another one-size-fits-all pay system (paybanding). Currently, all the agencies with paybanding have different systems. They will have to change too, and unless they do, there will be discrepancies between agencies, and pay administration will be a nightmare (for example, Homeland Security merged many agencies with different pay systems into one, and people doing similar work are being compensated differently - is this fair?). When you look at private sector pay as a model for government, this just doesn't make sense - every corporation has a different pay system.

  The benefit of the GS system is everyone understands it, and it provides protection to the vast majority of the employees who do a good job and deserve regular raises. It also reduces pay disparity between men, women, and minorities. It is easier to modify the GS system to deal with the few employees who have poor performance. If the government wants a private sector pay system, it should make government salaries reflective of the private sector. The cost will be enormous, and given the current budget and future deficit forecasts it will not happen before 2009. Changing the GS system will happen slowly because of high cost, lack of sufficient human resource staffing, and supervisors who don?t understand how to evaluate employee performance.

  The government is not a business; it is a public service. Government employees work for compensation below the private sector because of a sense of duty to the country and the satisfaction that what we do is not driven by profit; the least the government can do in return is provide stable, fair, and reliable increases in compensation so that public servants can focus on serving and carrying out the will of the American people.

  The Federal government is not the sole haven for slackers with low intelligence, poor work ethic and a misplaced moral compass. We are bombarded daily with the evidence for ineptitude, fraud, and greed in the private sector. I believe that the private sector pay system encourages this behavior because people value competition and short term financial gain more than sound decision-making, teamwork, quality, and service. Do we really want to encourage this type of behavior in public servants?

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 28, 2004 11:20 AM
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  Here's another way for the favorites to get ahead of all the other hard working civilian servants who have been stuck at the GS13 level 10 for several years. This just gives Management a way to reward their favorites. I think this is a stupid idea, just like the reorganization was. All that did was create a whole new level of grade 14s in management. It also allows uses all our budget with managers traveling all over the US. This too was a big waste of taxpayer money.

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 28, 2004 10:59 AM
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  Who funds this National Academy? Follow the money trail.

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 28, 2004 10:40 AM
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  I got a great idea! Let's have pay banding rather than the GS schedule.

  GS 11,12 and 13 will become a group in payband red. The average pay for the red band will be the GS 12 average pay and the band will go from step one of the GS 11 to the step 10 of the GS 13. Boy what an improvement. Now we will have pay band red that will run from GS 11 step 1 to GS 13 step 10. This does nothing for those at GS 13 step 6 or above - they remain stuck in the rut!

  tax payer Posted May 28, 2004 8:49 AM
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  So, we civil servants get to work our tails off doing work out of our "pay band" in the hopes that maybe, by chance we might get a manager who is unbiased and rewards for a job well done. Is someone on drugs here?

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 27, 2004 7:05 PM