Senate bill paves way for pay-for-performance

A senator highly involved in government reform introduced a bill Tuesday to heighten the federal government's focus on employee performance.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, offered the legislation as an alternative to the Bush administration's proposed Working for America Act, which would introduce pay for performance in every federal agency but failed to attract any congressional sponsors since being floated last summer.

Voinovich's bill (S. 3492), which he first publicly mentioned in May, stops short of linking pay raises to performance appraisals, as the administration wanted, but would deny annual raises and within-grade increases to employees who don't meet satisfactory performance levels. It also would link bonuses to ratings and require managers to give annual written evaluations according to specific guidelines monitored by the Office of Personnel Management.

Though Voinovich's bill falls short of the administration's proposal, OPM Director Linda Springer said Tuesday that she supports it. "[OPM] believes an effective federal civilian workforce can be encouraged and fostered by ensuring pay is commensurate with performance rather than longevity," Springer said in a statement. "This legislation will help achieve this goal by requiring managers to receive the training necessary to make sound, objective judgments on employee performance, ensuring fairness."

In remarks on the Senate floor, Voinovich, who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia, said he wants to layer stricter rules for performance evaluations on top of the existing General Schedule, instead of introducing broad paybands and other more drastic reforms.

"Instead of taking one giant bite at the apple," Voinovich said, "I believe it will be easier for federal agencies to implement enhanced employee appraisals first.… I am optimistic this will create less anxiety among federal employees."

Notably, Voinovich's bill -- titled the Federal Workforce Performance Appraisal and Management Improvement Act -- does not include any changes to federal labor laws. In the Defense and Homeland Security departments, pay reforms came bundled with a decrease in negotiating power for labor unions, triggering two ongoing lawsuits.

Though Voinovich's proposal steered clear of the labor system, unions were still unhappy with it. In a statement, National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley called the bill a "back-door attempt to advance the administration's stalled agenda to revamp civil service rules and institute a new pay system."

Kelley said she thinks much of the bill is redundant with requirements already in place, such as annual performance evaluations. But Voinovich said the existing appraisal system is vague and lacks a governmentwide mandate.

Carl DeMaio, president of the Performance Institute, a think tank and training center devoted to government workforce issues, said he supports Voinovich's bill and thinks the beefed-up evaluations will make a difference.

"Most [existing] evaluations are … broad and nebulous; they are not based on agency goals," DeMaio said. "We won't have quality evaluations of our employees, candid evaluations that provide good employee feedback, until we have better guidelines."

Another organization with interests in federal personnel, the Partnership for Public Service, came out Tuesday in support of Voinovich's bill. Max Stier, the group's president, said he supports the "emphasis on federal managers and their responsibilities to better assess, develop and manage workers."

In addition to performance appraisals and pay raises, the Voinovich bill would require managers to receive training in conducting appraisals and would allow agencies with OPM-certified performance systems to pay their senior-level, non-Senior Executive Service employees up to Executive Schedule II, the second highest level of pay. Right now, those positions are capped out at Executive Schedule III.