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Return to Article: Inspector general says TSA doled out unequal awards to employees

• 6739
  

  Everyone needs to open up their eyes and vote November 2nd. Listen to the Unions, they are our friends. If we don't stand together, we are all going to fall divided. We have power in numbers!!! LET'S STICK TOGETHER ON THIS.

  A WORKER BEE IN KC WHOSE BEEN GETTING THE SHAFT FOR YEARS!!!!

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 19, 2004 7:39 AM
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  I left TSA MSP in July 2003 because of this and very substandard management. The MSP roll-out was abhorrent, poorly managed, over dramatized and purposely stressful. SASR - Strategic Airport Security Rollout (Lockheed Martin) was an overpriced JOKE. But all this will come out in the wash... keep watching.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 18, 2004 8:45 PM
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  Check out the Sept 8th item regarding Union opposition to pay for performance. Maybe now all those who criticized the Union opposition will better understand why that opposition is so vehement. The TSA experience with awards will be the tip of the iceberg under pay for performance. And note that TSA has no Union thanks to W.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 18, 2004 3:27 PM
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  I work for US Dept of Commerce. I rec'd bonuses in the past regularly 2 times a year. They were not substantial bonuses. Maybe $500, but I certainly never complained. I was glad to receive anything. Everything changed when a new supervisor was hired 4 years ago. He continually receives bonuses and does not give us any. He told us in an email that he will never give us promotions, QSIs or bonuses because he feels that we already make enough money. I don't see him turning his bonuses down though. We had one lady in our office who did a huge project over the course of a year. He told her that he was excited about how it looked because he would get a good bonus for it! Just to think that management is trying to push the idea of paybanding on us. They have got to be joking with this type of mentality!

  Goverment Employee Posted October 17, 2004 9:14 AM
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  This has been going on in DFAS since its formation. Upper management takes 5 or 10 grand and the "little people" might get a couple of hundred dollars. DFAS has volunteered its employees to become lab rats for the pay for performance/pay banding DOD wants. I can see the same thing happening with even more in your face attitude by upper DFAS managers (Arlington and Cleveland in particular). We DoD employees better get the Vaseline ready.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 16, 2004 10:53 PM
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  Pay for performance, now you see it actually working. I have not seen a monetary award in three years working for ICE and now I see as one of the worker bees that I will never see one again. As usual all the money goes to the NONPERFORMING MANAGEMENT. GOOD SHOW DHS PERSONNEL SYSTEM, YOU HAVE REALLY JUMPED INTO BED WITH THE MANAGEMENT TEAM. I JUST CAN NOT WAIT TO BE DOWNSIZED AND RIGHTSIZED, IT'S A COMING, WATCH OUT WORKER BEES

  DHS ICE WORKER BEE SPOKANE, WA

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 16, 2004 8:37 AM
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  Martha Stewart goes to jail for what amounts to $40,000 of insider trading (not a fan, but I feel for her). The TSA continues to rape the taxpayer and then gets awards. A liar is nothing more than a thief with words and the TSA is full of them.

  It's called Criminal Intent or Criminal Neglect. It is the screeners that are doing the work not the party goers.

  There are many hardcore Republicans where I live who will not vote for Bush this time including myself. The continued corruption in the TSA is enough to sour even the most loyal of us.

  Shame on you Loy, Ridge, and Stone...(and a few others)!

  WATCHDOGS 1005

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 16, 2004 8:09 AM
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  I don't want to talk about the awards per se other than to say that such a program is not unusual in the private unregulated sector. Especially for sales meetings where a company sends a group of salesmen to France or Japan for a week at company expense.

  What I do see here is the IG's statements. The IG basically states that the program was within all legal constraints. Then why is the IG second guessing management? If the operation meets the audit standards the IG should keep his mouth shut concerning other aspects. If the IG is to be an armchair quarterback, the report should be totally private and only shared with the management involved, not the world and the Congress. This "report" basically says the management was wrong and should change but they followed all the rules and laws. If the IG is so qualified as to make this decision then they should be running the operation. They certainly are not auditing it properly!

  tax payer Posted October 15, 2004 8:31 AM
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  Everyone in the DoD should look at their future personnel system in action!

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 15, 2004 6:02 AM
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  And this is only the tip of the iceberg, ICE didn't have money to give QSI's or cash awards to their employees, due to a mismanaged budget, but TSA does?? Surveys conducted on government employees reflect that a majority are happy with the current General Schedule pay system, however someone, somewhere, feels that paybanding is the right way to go?

  Why bother???

  Government Issued Posted October 15, 2004 12:02 AM
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  Let's see. An average of $17,000 for each of the 88 well deserving "executive" recipients! Not bad at all!!!!!

  Wouldn't you love to see the "appropriate systems, processes and reviews" in writing for next time around to avoid the "substantial inequities" between the executive and nonexecutive employees?

  Rural CO Posted October 14, 2004 3:13 PM
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  Here is an idea, TSA, that half a million used to throw a great ceremony could have been used to reward the worker bees. The ceremony could have been replaced with a simple awards ceremony, costing a couple of hundred bucks. Oh yea, I forgot, different "colors" of money, can't be transferred. I really don't know how the people making such decisions can sleep at night, I guess they have no conscience.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 14, 2004 1:08 PM
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  I had glowing performance comments but my award was cut two years in a row. I met with my team leader and supervisor to find out why. I was told that the "high grades" needed a bigger share of the pot so I got less. Also I could like it or leave.

  Hogs! I say do away with all awards. They are just corrupt.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 14, 2004 12:31 PM
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  No surprises here! This is just like the awards program abolished in the late 80s becuase management was just rewarding management. I had thought it might take a little longer to show up so blatantly, but my, aren't "we" bold??

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 14, 2004 11:46 AM
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  Thank you for acknowledging some of the federal personnel's paranoia and proving it's a reality. This is what we have been talking about. Welcome to the National Security Personnel System. The system Mr. Rumsfield wants to implement in DoD on November 5th. Management taking care of themselves, not supporting or acknowledging or giving back to their employees. The employees that worked hard, made their management look so good, so good; they get a piece of a 1.5 million dollar pie.

  This is not how I want my tax dollars spent, and on November 2nd, I will have the right to voice my concern at the ballot box.

  Patricia Posted October 14, 2004 9:54 AM
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  I can't believe anyone is surprised at this. This is exactly how pay for performance works. Isn't anyone reviewing the books?

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 14, 2004 9:37 AM
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  Oh, thank you Gov't Exec. I needed a really good laugh this morning since it's been such a tough short week.

  TSA spent almost a half million dollars to give a few dozen management employees one and a half million dollars in award money.

  I'm laughing so hard it hurts. I'm sure one of their high cost HR contractor firms recommended such a ridiculous event and such crazy award money.

  And how much was spent awarding their rank and file inspectors???

  Oh, it hurts even writing this note because we need to get used to these types of abuses. As we crush federal sector unions there is no longer even an interest in hiding such abuses since there is no voice to oppose such lunacy.

  Now let's see the argument for TSA not allowing collective bargaining was based on National Security-- I wonder how much more National Security could have been purchased for the 1/2 million dollars wasted by TSA management. :-)

  HR Specialist

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 14, 2004 8:40 AM
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  This is what Bush calls fair. $1.5 million for 88 Executives. Just try and get a nickel of that money for a worker - not going to happen. Hope you all know where to vote, this cannot continue any longer.

  I note that all of this was done "within the guidelines", therefore you can't touch these shameful people.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 14, 2004 7:19 AM
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  To Public Sevice Group,

  Have you read this article carefully? I'm a disablity worker and have seen these common practices in my workplace. Rewarding favoritism in order to groom them into a higher Grade level. Our managment can say "Hey I have a disabilty worker". Actually, what they mean by this: Meeting the requirement by the law (Section 501), not as a person. And leave the issue out of my reach. Now you see TSA inspectors general found discepencies in rewarding just for only 1 agency. Will it open up a can of worms for other Federal agencies?

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 13, 2004 11:05 PM
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  Yet again, another shining example of why DHS needs to scrap the idea of a performance-based pay system. TSA proved to have "substantial inequity" in its awards distribution, rewarding many in upper management (of course) with disproportionately high awards compared to lower level employees. I can also guarantee that within the lower level employee group, there was extreme inconsistency between those who are close friends of management and those who are not. And here they are, forcing the entire Department of Homeland Security to convert to this type of a system.

  I can bet DHS will take one part of the report under consideration, though. The report indicated that the TSA spent too much money in its performance awards program, and you can bet that sure won't happen when we convert to the pay-for-performance system. Seeing as our future salaries will be constrained by our budget, and my agency (ICE) currently has no budget, I guess we can't expect much in the way of future earnings.

  With everything that has been ruined and that has gone wrong under the DHS transition, everyone responsible for this deserves to be publicly humiliated and fired. The rest of us are still stuck here with our agencies having been ruined and a choice of either dealing with it or finding other work.

  GovExec.com reader Posted October 13, 2004 6:56 PM